scandal

8 hours ago, uapilot said:

Just thinking ahead, I'm guessing I-765s will have the usual wait time, right? No special treatment?

That's one of the top things I'm wondering about. Everything else about U4U seems to be warp speed compared to normal governmental processing. So maybe, perhaps, they're expediting the EADs too. On the other hand, probably not. Makes a big difference in practice: are the people we're sponsoring dependent on us for 6+ months, or can they plan on starting to work much sooner than that? Inquiring minds would like to know. I guess we're about to find out.

Oh, since I'm on a roll here (4 posts in a row... let's make it 5!) here is a shameless plug for a couple of blog posts I wrote about my experience so far with the U4U program.

U4U Questionnaire https://reversiontomean.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/u4u-questionnaire/

Uniting for Ukraine – Early Impressions https://reversiontomean.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/uniting-for-ukraine-early-impressions/ 

On 5/11/2022 at 10:41 PM, Boiler said:

Travel Insurance would not cover usually pre existing conditions and also begs the question how long they would be in the US.

 

As I understand it the point of the I 134 is to show they have sponsors able to cover their expenses.

 

Refugees are eligible for Benefits but not Parolees.

I've been researching Travel Medical Insurance, and I think it could be a good solution for the initial months, until the Ukrainian adults are able to get jobs which hopefully would include a decent employer provided health coverage.

As an example, I'm looking at this Patriot America Plus https://www.imglobal.com/img-insurance-plans/patriot_plus .

For pre-existing conditions, coverage is for : Acute Onset of Pre-Existing Conditions (Insured person must be under 70 years of age) 

where "acute" is defined further as:

Should you experience a sudden and unexpected outbreak or recurrence of a pre-existing condition, this coverage provides necessary emergency care for any medical emergency that is life threatening or requires immediate medical treatment. Coverage is available for travelers under age 70, and maximum limits vary by plan and age.

In-network coverage is the United Healthcare (UHC) network, so pretty broad nationwide network of doctors and hosptials.

The policy can be purchased for any period of time from 5 days up to a year and is renewable up to 2 years. So that's plenty of time till either get them on employer provided care, or ACA.

For eligibility - 

(5) on the Effective Date and on subsequent renewal dates, must have legally departed the Country of Residence and legally
entered the Destination Country
(6) not have established a permanent residency in the Destination Country 

For I think this would work for U4U participants, since they would have left Ukraine and any 3rd country prior to  legally entering the USA (condition 5) and they are parolees, not permanent residents in the US (condition 6)

Regarding cost, I priced out 4 months of coverage for the family of 4 we are sponsoring and it came to about $700 (you can play around with  policy limits and deductibles to adjust the premium level). That's not bad at all, definitely something we could do. Assuming this isn't "junk" insurance. It seems legit, but hard to know.

Also, I recently found out that in Illinois the children will qualify for the state Allkids program, so apparently I only need to buy coverage for the adults. Other states may have similar programs.

11 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

No.  Just NO.

 Yeah, like wow! Whenever did VJ get so psycho. Back in the day, such things never happened, this was a much more genteel site.  ☠️ 💀

On 5/11/2022 at 6:55 PM, Kineo said:

I came across some information I thought was very nice to learn. From my understanding these are the instructions from Customs and Border Protection to the Airlines for ticketing U4U passengers. 

https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2022-Apr/Uniting for Ukraine 20220421.pdf

 

Enjoy - Kineo

Wow! This is SUPER helpful. Thanks so much for posting it. I've actually shared it on the Facebook "Helping Ukrainian refugees in the USA group", since that's a very active forum with over 4k members, Ukrainians and Americans, all trying to navigate the U4U process. 

I also suggested to my beneficiaries that it may be a good idea to print this out and take to the airport for check in, just in case the ground staff of the airline is unfamiliar with U4U and doesn't recognize their CBP Travel Authorization. Probably not necessary, but seems like a simple extra precaution. 

On 5/10/2022 at 5:10 PM, Kineo said:

Do you mind me asking about the flight? Where are they flying from? through? I'm a little concerned about my family making the flight and connections.

Thanx - Kineo

Sorry, just seeing this now, wasn't logging onto VJ over the past week (my wife got COVID, so not been a fun one...)

Anyway, they are traveling on LOT from Budapest -> Warsaw -> Chicago. They have a 2 hour layover in Warsaw. Should be an easy connection. 

Good luck with your family's travel plans!

3 hours ago, Kineo said:

Has anyone noticed that on the travel authorization the DOB is off by one day?

 

-Kineo

Yes. That happened to the family we are sponsoring too. They are 4 people, and all 4 CBP docs have the DOB off by exactly 1 day. 

They've talked to other U4U beneficiaries, it's happened to them too, seems to be a common issue.

We're not worried about it. We already bought their plane tickets, they're coming here next week.

We are done!

We are sponsoring a family of four from Kherson - mom, dad and 2 kids. They are coming to us in Chicago.

We filed the I-134 sponsorships on May 4. Yes, we did this FOUR TIMES, once for each member of the family. That is the required procedure.

We were approved on May 6, and the beneficiaries got emails. They went on USCIS site to enter their parts and were also done on May 6.

They now have CBP approval for their entry to US. I am buying their plane tickets, they will com here next week. 

AMAZING how fast it all went. Now my main concerns are a) health insurance for them b) filing I-765 for their Employment Authorization EAD. Timelines for EAD are taking months for everyone else, not sure if U4U people will be expedited fast on EAD just as they were for the first part of this process.

I wrote up a blog post of our experience so far with U4U. https://reversiontomean.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/uniting-for-ukraine-early-impressions/

Will do

Thanks TBone! I really appreciate that link. Just read through the whole thing. Some good info there, particularly someone posted a screenshot of the steps beneficiaries will need to go through to complete their part of the process and submit online to CBP. I'm going to make the FB folks aware of this thread and send them here to VJ.

Somewhat surprised that there's nothing much showing up (yet?) on VJ about the recently introduced "Uniting for Ukraine" (U4U) program.

Link to DHS page: :https://www.dhs.gov/ukraine

Link to the USCIS page for online filing of I-134 Declaration of Support : https://www.uscis.gov/i-134   (N.B. - this MUST be filed online for U4U they are not accepting paper submissions)

There is a Facebook group  Helping Ukrainian refugees in the USA which is very active (at least as of now - May 2022) for people discussing U4U program. 

On that group there are:

1. Ukrainians who have fled their country who are seeking sponsorship from Americans under the U4U program
2. Americans who want to find deserving Ukrainians they can sponsor
3. A lot of people with a lot of questions and confusion about the process. And it's fair to say the process is confusing (as all US immigration processes are). Sponsors don't know what they need to file, Ukrainians don't know what they need to provide, lots of confusion going on

I, having completed a K1 petition for my fiancee (now long married wife) 12 years ago with the assistance of VJ,  thought I   might point people in that Facebook group to an appropriate spot here where there might be some guides and information to assist. However seems like there's not much here.

I did find my prior K1 experience helpful when I completed four I-134s to sponsor a family of 4 Ukrainians, and I'm giving some informal advice on the FB group to others doing the same.

I'm also amazed as to how quickly the process seems to be going. For those of us accustomed to the glacial pace of USCIS adjudications, my jaw literally dropped when I submitted the online I-134s on Wed and they were approved on Fri! TWO DAYS. We're not done yet of course, next step is they contact the Ukrainian family via email to upload their documents and vaccination records. But we're very excited at the prospect the family may be here with us in the USA in time to celebrate  the 4th of July.

ok, I did find some discussion here . What I'm really looking for though are other people in same situation as we are: concerned Americans who want to help by sponsoring a Ukrainian family but who don't know anyone there. I have found a couple of Facebook groups devoted to this. I kind of expected VJ to be out in front of it however it's so new (the program was only launched on Monday) that perhaps no one here has brought it up.

So cool to  see this thread right after I randomly dropped into VJ too after so many years!!

Well, not quite so randomly.

I did my Visa journey stint around 2008-2010 when we went through K-1/AOS etc (I honestly don't even remember all the acronyms) for my wife from Thailand. So here we are, 12 years later, happily married with a 7 year old daughter. Just another VJ success story.

So what, you ask, am I doing back on VJ now? No, I'm not here to engage in the raging political fights I recall on off-topic. 

Rather, wen(the wife and I) have started looking seriously at the possibility of sponsoring a refugee Ukrainian family under the new Uniting for Ukraine program https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/uniting-for-ukraine

I thought maybe there might be some useful information on VJ from others who are exploring this option. I haven't seen anything here though I'll keep looking.

It is so interesting that in the age of increasing acceptance of gays, lesbians, plural relationships, etc. that the opposite has occurred with youth - the age of consent has steadily been raised as the bar is lowered for everyone else.

I think this is a false comparison.

The trend has been to offer consenting adults increasing freedom - to treat them as citizens in a free society, able to exercise the liberty to live as they choose.

But when it comes to members of our society who cannot offer free consent, society has stepped in to protect them from predation.

Hence, we increasingly have come to understand that adults capable of consent should be allowed to choose who to love and marry, which substances to ingest or inhale, which "obscene" content they should be allowed to view in the privacy of their own home, etc.

However when it comes to children, the mentally disabled or those with degenerative diseases affecting cognition and ability to consent, we've stepped in to regulate and restrict, in the name of protection of those who cannot necessarily protect themselves. Hence we have child labor laws, mandatory education laws, and of course we don't allow children to be victimized sexually or physically by predatory adults.

Nothing inconsistent here at all.

Rare that someone so often indicates how little they know.

We share DNA with just about every living thing on the planet. The Universal Common Ancestor is such basic genetics that phrasing things as you do prove you don't understand anything about it.

Prior to replicating DNA, which is a vertical gene transfer from one organism to the next generation, we had some very interesting horizontal gene transfers that are still evident today: symbiotic relationships like mitochondria in the human cell. People here are speaking loosely about life, and you have to be careful about that - like whether a virus is life in the same sense, injecting its DNA into a host in order to commandeer it for reproduction of itself.

Why does my four year old understand evolution and you don't? It really isn't complicated. He has been introduced to abiogenesis and the most likely kinds of life as we understand it on other planets. The big bang and expanding universe. Not even in kindergarten yet.

In my experience, the key concept that proves difficult for people to understand how evolution (i.e. random mutations + natural selection) could possibly lead to complex organisms and the diversity of life we see around us, is the notion of time. The sheer, vast amount of time which is required to lead to this diversity and complexity. And the fact that our world offers precisely this amount of time. Evolution works slowly and incrementally, over thousands of generations and ultimately over 10s of millions of years. Occasional random mutations occur in individuals a population. Beneficial ones that offer improved reproductive success tend to accumulate in offspring and are passed down to the next generation. Neutral or harmful mutations tend not to accumulate. Regardless, it takes many, many successive generations for cumulative mutations to lead to observable phenotype changes, and ultimately to speciation (branching off of new species).

Consider that a human generation is ~20 years, and the thousands of cumulative mutations it necessarily took to develop opposable thumbs, our large braincase and enlarged cerebral cortex, and bipedal locomotion, it is easy to see why our branch point from our nearest living relatives occurred some 300,000 generations or 7 million years ago.

The trouble for many laypeople trying to internalize how evolution works in practice is that such timescales are very difficult for people to grasp. We intuitively understand time on the order of our own lifespan. We are fine with the notion of a year, a decade, perhaps a century. But the Flintstones charicatures of cavemen frolicking with dinosaurs are symptomatic of the problem: we tend to blur the "ancientness" of paleolithic man (~10^5 - 10^6 years) with the "ancientness" of the Jurassic (10^8 years). We're talking 2 to 3 orders of magnitude. That's simply an inconceivable amount of time for people to comprehend on a human scale. Yet it's precisely the time needed to slowly evolve species which adapt to their environmental niches.

Is evolution a true and satisfying account of the origins and development of the diversity of life? Of course. Unquestionably and undoubtedly.

Is it difficult for people to wrap their minds around? At first. But not once you get used to thinking of these time scales. And not once you see the evidence of beautifully adapted creatures which exploit their environmental niches so superbly. Blind bats using sonar to "see" in pitch black caves. Emperor penguins who have evolved incredible mating procedures with precise timing to lay their eggs, incubate them, and afford males and females opportunities to feed themselves and their hatchlings in the unforgiving climate of Antarctica. The examples are everywhere around and provide unassailable evidence.

And the fat lady sings. 51-23. And manning is coming to Foxboro next week. I would much rather have seen the Pats beat the snot out of Denver. Doing it to Cutler is almost not fair.

I think we should draft the fat lady as our QB. She'll be better than Jay. We'll let him do the singing instead.

Good to see you post Scandal. Don't be a stranger.

I'll see you here in 4 years, next time Bears-Pats play again. Maybe by then we'll have a contending team.

Instant karma. Bears player hurts himself celebrating a sack!

Who celebrates when they're down by 30 pts?? Shmuck.

More like a nightmare.

This is turning out more frightening than zombies bearing ebola on Halloween.

45-7 and counting .

No surprise, Pats score first, Brady to Gronk.

I'm settling in for a miserable, long afternoon

and, we're underway!

I'm doing fine Spooks, hope you are too.

In fact, we're expecting a baby next month! Which is great news except I have a feeling I won't be able to watch football for 10 hours straight each Sunday

Bears play the Patsies next week Oct 26 at Foxboro. Just sayin.

Are you ready to get your butts kicked? How have you been old friend? How's the symphony?

Every 4 years the NFL schedule cycles through, and we get to revisit NFC/AFC team rivalries. This year it's again time for the NFC North to play the AFC East. The last time that happened was 2010, which led to my most favorite thread on VJ, when Spooky and I did a live play-by-play of the Bears - Pats game. Unfortunately that ended in a humiliating 36-7 route of the Bears in their home stadium, Soldier Field. Next week is the rematch with the same 2 quarterbacks, Brady and Cutler, facing off at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. The Bears are out for revenge after the 2010 drubbing. I'm out for revenge on the humiliation inflicted upon me by Spooky. Enough so that I've emerged from the shadows back onto VJ, in preparation for the big game.

Tonight, Thursday night Football proved a good entertaining matchup between New England and arch rival Jets. Gino Smith and the Jets were surprisingly good - accurate under pressure, no turnovers. They even led twice during the game. It was close to the end, with a final drive in the last seconds and a blocked-kick by Nick Folk spoiling their chances to win the game. The Patriots were solid too, Shane Vereen more than made up for the injured Steven Ridley.

The Bears play Miami on Sunday. They've looked shaky this year however the win over Atlanta last week gives us Bears faithful hope that maybe the Trestman method is finally harnessing together our offensive line, the incredible weapons of Matt Forte, Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffrey and Martellus Bennett and most importantly the Defense.

I'm looking forward to the Bears-Patriots game next week, and hope to share the excitement with Spooky, Pooky and any others interested here.

One person has died to date in the US from Ebola.

One person has died to date in the US after being shot by an Uzi by an 11 year old kid.

I think we should have the same 5-alarm media reactionary response to the incredible danger we're all facing of imminently dying from 11 year olds armed with Uzis, as there is to Ebola.

I personally am terrified of my next door neighbors. They have 11 year old twins. I'm pretty sure I overheard their dad talking about visiting the shooting range with them for some gun practice. Consequently I think my odds of dying from Uzi fire are double the general population. I demand my neighbors be quarantined. They should also be banned from travel on school buses, skateboards or bikes. That's a perfectly reasonable, proportional response to the threat. Do it now, America, do it now!

I think we all know I did.

Bears play the Patsies next week Oct 26 at Foxboro. Just sayin.