mrsB

No, visa, I'm using the Visa Waiver Programme (I can stay in USA for 90 days, given that they let me enter).

Hrmm... been about 3 weeks now since my husband sent the papers to the Ombudsman... are we going to get some kind of a reply from him, saying that the papers have been received..? Or just get info when they figure out what to do with it? What CAN the ombudsman ACTUALLY do? Anyone have experience on the matter?

I have plane tickets for mid-August booked now... We'll see how it goes.

Thank you so much for the prompt and elaborate answer. I think I know now what kind of papers to take with me. And thankfully, I can pack pretty light as I already have quite a bit of clothes in our apartment in USA Then again, I'm a woman... and since when have women been packing lightly? I'll give it a go though. The only "bad" thing to this attempt is that I'm going during fall when one day it may be warm and sunny and next day freezing rain.

Will my lack of current job be a bad thing in all this? I'd imagine no work place, even here, would just give me 3 months leave anyway... I don't pay my parents actual rent for my stay here... I hope that won't be a problem. I have no reason as to why I would just stay in USA, considering everything. But I'll try my best to make sure the airport personnel know this too.

And yeah, the Embassy says I can travel to USA even while my visa application is pending - but they also say they can just turn me back if they feel like it. I think there should be some kind of changes to all that, but who would make those changes and when...?

Anyway, thank you again, I'll wait for some more info and examples as there are still a few weeks before I'll be flying. Going to book the tickets soon though. I just hope that even if they do send me back, I get to at least see my husband briefly... After all, I haven't seen him since last October, and I'm going to be traveling about 24 hours just to get there...!

Alright so... In case you haven't followed my other post here, I'll give you a brief info.

So I'm a Finnish citizen married to an US citizen and we've petitioned for my K3-visa. However, we're currently uncertain if USCIS is processing both our I-130 and I-129F as they had messed up the names in I-129F and never bothered to fix it no matter what we tried. Anyway, I have a visa application pending. We started the process in February 2008. Both me and my husband are now sick and tired of only being able to be together for 2 weeks in a year (which is all the vacation he ever gets). We got married in December 2007, after which we've only seen each other ONCE in October 2008. Now, my parents too are tired of watching me and my misery and have decided to purchase me plane tickets to USA around mid-August. They're aware of the fact that should I run into mean officers at the airport, I might be coming back on the next flight. In which case, my husband will fly over for his luxurious two weeks of vacation later in August.

I've worked all summer as an intern at a local riding school, but my internship will end at the end of July, after which I'll (sadly) be unemployed again as I haven't found anything else as of yet. Due to this, I've planned to go to USA with the visa waiver my country has with them and stay for the maximum amount, which is 90 days. I'll come back to Finland earlier, should our visa case see some progress. Since November 2007 I've lived at my parents' as I haven't had any kind of stability in my life due to this visa process. So I don't have an apartment here or a job which doesn't really help me here. However, I do have possessions in Finland AND my dog and obviously I'd need to come back to Finland for several reasons, such as my asthma check up later this year and for the fact that I don't want any troubles with the visa.

I've never overstayed in the USA and I've been there several times before we got married, for a total of about 10 months - give or take. I plan to have a reasonable amount of money with me and I'm staying at the apartment my husband got us 2 years ago.

Now to the actual QUESTIONS...

At the airport in USA... They'll check my passport, ask for my fingerprints and ask me why I'm there and how long I'm staying. What do I do at this point? Obviously I will have a return ticket with me or at least the proof that I have a flight reserved to take me back to Finland at the end of my stay. The honest reason for my visit is that I'm visiting my family (my USA-family) and friends and we plan to have a "2nd wedding party" among other things. We want to get some more pictures of us at various places etc. in case we'll need the proof for later and obviously just spend some time together finally. Do I go into detail about our visa process? Do I go into detail about the marriage? Or just keep it short and sweet and say I'm there for a vacation and to visit family & friends? Any tips? Ideas? What have your experiences been if you've traveled while your visa is being processed?

There might be more questions as we go...

Hey, CnT4ever,

Yeah my husband filled out the application for the ombudsman and sent that out last week on Monday... I wonder how long it takes to get a reply? Probably quite some time, knowing this sort of things... Also, thanks for the post with the numbers for Homeland Security! I have so many numbers here now... for federal government, USCIS and homeland security... So someone had called the USCIS director? We had mailed him directly and asked for an immediate expedite, but never got any kind of an answer.

Also, gogo, I can relate to your writing here... "I cannot believe you allow people who 1) cannot even afford support, and need others to support them, 2) people who convict many crimes, 3) people who supposedly "overstay" and just adjust their status , to allow to stay in America, while you allow innocent US Citizens (who never commit any crimes) and work for the government, to not have their loved ones with them." Well no, I'm not with the government or anything, but I kinda have been wondering about this too. It seems that it's easier to get to USA through all kinds of loop holes and illegal ways than trying to do it legally. Sure, I guess I could've married there and just stayed, but I wouldn't have felt very good about myself for doing that. I've never done anything in my life to be somehow suspicious, as you probably know if you've been following my "story" here. I don't even have a parking ticket... but I do have a college degree and I apparently know my English fairly well. :/ There should be no reason for them to even consider me not eligible for a visa. As far as I know, even if my husband was a criminal, they couldn't use that as a reason to deny MY visa... I guess they're just taking their sweet time.

I've been speaking to another Finnish girl, who also was on VisaJourney before, who also had a pretty long process in her hands but the last I heard of her, she had already been scheduled an appointment at the embassy and her case was advancing nicely. It too had taken a long time however... But they never asked biometrics from her husband even though he wasn't a natural born US citizen, he had moved to USA from Asia. I guess all these cases are just individuals and what might've worked for someone, might not work for someone else.

Wow, gogo, looks like you've jumped a whole lot of hoops for all this... At least it seems to be slowly paying off, yes? :] And yes, I've been reading your story, I'm just not quite sure how to reply to it all... Were you working full time while doing all this?

How about the others who read this post? Have you all been working full time while working on the visa process as well? Just wondering... as the visa process takes a lot of time and then your work takes a lot of time... You see where I'm going here.

Hello all,

I was thinking today who all we've contacted so far regarding our case... of course some of these were useless calls, but for some reason they were made. Besides the USCIS (and it's various different personnel) we've so far contacted the US Embassy in Helsinki (who helped us by saying we should contact the senator/congressman so that wasn't COMPLETELY useless... they also already sent me all the info on what I need to do once my case gets to Finland... months ago, because they thought my visa would come "any day now"), Finland's Embassies in USA (useless really), the Finland-USA association (also pretty much useless), the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (yeah, okay, it was useless), The NVC (again useless, as at the time I didn't quite understand the whole process yet and thought they could help), Senator/congressman Sensenbrenner (his assistant has been "helping" us out, though continues to say she can't do anything but send an inquiry every 30 days...), President Obama & Michelle Obama (no actual response), The New York Times (no response, hehe, surprise?), my husband's local news paper (no response), an immigration lawyer who offered a little bit of free advice over the phone and now most recently, we've contacted the Ombudsman who hasn't responded yet. I wonder how long that usually might take?

Anyone of you know any particular senator/congressman especially interested in dealing with these immigration issues? Anyone contacted the president with actual luck? How about those lawyers? Any good ones? What might the fees be like?

I have somewhat over 10000 euros of student loan of my own that I'd need to soon be starting to pay back (hoping for a permanent job to help with this) and my husband has a loan on his car (not sure for how much)... so looking into a new loan is... not something I'm looking forward to, plus me lacking a permanent job is definately an issue there. I have about 5 more weeks of my internship left and so far I haven't managed to get a new job so soon I'll be living with approximately 148 euros/month again, which obviously is somewhere along the lines of a lawyer's hourly fee, hehe... However... are there any lawyers that'd do immigration stuff pro-bono? Or at least offer some free assistance or something? Anything.

How have you guys got your weirdly gone immigration issues sorted out? With the help of senators/congressmen? President? Other government people? Lawyers? Ombudsman work for anyone? I'm curious.

Hmm... I wonder if I forgot something in this post... I'm just extremely tired at the moment, I had a tough day at work and now I kind of just want to sleep...

Husband called the USCIS yesterday again and after a loooong while he got to someone of some importance who was saying that they're now doing security checks with the biometrics my husband had provided. They said this can't take more than 6 MONTHS. They were speaking of September, but my husband gave his biometrics in June... so 6 months would be up in December.

Well we've been doing it for many, many years now... being married is well.. a piece of paper, our relationship is still the same. It wouldn't be that big of an adjustment, though I'd need a way to be able to visit my husband in USA now and then.

Going to try to pursue a new career, with horses, here in Finland, buy my own horse, my own house and live happily ever after? ;D

I've e-mailed the Finnish ministry of foreign affairs - just in case. Probably won't help much, but well... I wish my husband would have some time to call all these people I now have numbers for... even the president I guess, if he won't soon start MAKING TIME, it's time for me to start heading toward plan B...

Today, I've also attempted to contact the president and the first lady. I'm pondering if contacting Finland's ministry of foreign affairs would help somehow... Hrm hrm... One does not simply call to the president, right?

And since it didn't let me edit that post...

- I will share the links with my husband and hopefully he'll have some time to contact some of these people by phone. It feels a bit silly to think that I'd go to the president with this... But well, I guess it's worth a shot, though I suppose he has more pressing matters to deal with than poor little me...

Wow, thank you again for the (seemingly endless supply of) links!

As an "update", our case hasn't received any touches since mid-April (I-130) and mid- to late May (I-129F, which was supposed to no longer excist). We've now contacted the Ombudsman.

Hello gogo,

I'm sorry I haven't said anything sooner, I've been really busy at work and with my niece's upcoming party next weekend. I've just come home and crashed to bed pretty much. As far as I know we've been out of the security checks a couple of months ago, though nobody told us why they needed my husband's biometrics. But supposedly security checks are over and done with and they're processing our application (apparently for months).

I did look through the links you provided (thank you!), in fact some I had seen before and looked through. I read through the Secutiy Name Check -thing again and I'm still wondering as to why they're so much more interested in my husband than me. Is it because it was so easy for them to find out that I haven't got so much as a parking ticket that they needed something else to do?

The only problem I have with all these fantastic links is running into fantastic words I don't neccessarily understand (and my dictionary apparently hasn't heard of). I try to offer them for my husband to read so he can then explain them to me in a way that I also understand them. I'm gonna study these a bit more for now, when I have free time. My husband has spoken of contacting the ombudsman (finally) about our case since he too is starting to realize this isn't going anywhere...

I wonder if certain people get some kind of kicks out of telling other people how they're "not that important" and how what they do matter not to them. Guess what Len, I REALLY DON'T CARE. If I'm not that important TO YOU, why are you making the effort of posting here?

I'm not assuming that I'm important to any of you, as far as I know, I'm only important to two people in this world and it has been enough for me so far and will do in the future as well. If you seriously have nothing actually USEFULL to say, save it.

I also STILL don't really understand this whole timeline-thing and why it would basically cause a RIOT here if I haven't filled one in. I only had 3 dates to fill in, that's all I could offer. I was hoping that someone would explain to me what good that really does to anyone, but instead I just keep being told that I should've filled mine in ages ago.

"Giving updates on your case via posting in a thread does not help the estimates or statistics gathered by VJ when people fill in actual timelines. Since this is a family immigration forum and people with many different types of cases seek advice or encouragement or statistics here, THAT is why filling in an actual timeline is helpful. When people click on the 'see other timelines similar to my own' feature, they have all the information gathered, rather than having to search through thousands of threads on the subjects." - jundp

I understand that, but the problem is that the timeline function (unless I'm not fully understanding how to use it), won't give much room for explaining anything, such as touches or the calls made by us, it just shows dates of actual actions, such as the NOAs. That's why I THOUGHT that it would've been a good idea to just post my info into this post but I guess I was wrong about that one too.

I'm sorry for being rude to some of you and I'm sorry that I started this post and that I didn't fill in a timeline on my first day here as I just didn't see the importance of it, not knowing about all these functions it apparently has.

How about we just put this post to rest now since it has already drifted far, far away from what it originally was about anyway?

TIMELINE (approximates)

Married (in Finland) 12/15/2007.

& Got the paperworks started once my

husband returned to USA after Christmas.

Filed I-130 in February 2008.

NOA1 on I-130 on 04/16/2008.

Filed I-129F in April 2008.

NOA1 on I-129F on 06/06/2008 (with our names spelled completely wrong).

Immediately reported the typo regarding I-129F and was told that it's being fixed.

No news from USCIS.

I contact the US Embassy in Helsinki in August 2008 asking about visa waiver & tourist visa, they instruct me to use visa waiver - at my own risk, they also tell me that I should be expecting my visa in October, this calms me down.

Around mid-December 2008 after contacting USCIS we hear that our case has been forwarded to an officer (I guess this means picked up,

already several months late). We also learn that the name on I-129F was never fixed. USCIS recommends dropping the I-129F as it hasn't managed to speed up our process.

No news from USCIS.

I contact the US Embassy in Helsinki 02/02/2009, they are surprised that I still haven't got my visa and instruct me to tell my husband to contact his local congressman. They also agree to send me their package already with the hopes that with the congressman being involved the USCIS will be done in a couple of weeks.

I start gathering up my paperwork for the USCIS.

Husband contacts the congressman/senator 02/03/2009.

Congressman's involvement resulted in USCIS contacting my husband around mid-February 2009, telling him our case is going through FBI name check.

I contact the US Embassy in Helsinki 03/26/2009 in hopes of finding out if they have new ideas or know what's taking so long, all they could tell me was to keep bothering the congressman and the USCIS. They are shocked to see my case STILL stuck with the USCIS and said that the FBI name check shouldn't take more than a few days.

I contact the USCIS 03/27/2009 in hopes of knowing more about our case, but all the info I get is the NOA1 from April 2008. They tell me to tell my husband to call them.

My husband contacts the USCIS 03/27/2009 and is romised more information within 7 days.

I contact the congressman's immigration specialist 03/27/2009 and I'm told that all they can do is contact USCIS every 30 days.

Waiting...

That would be from my post on another topic. And to be added, my husband has sent 4 service requests already, I've asked for one (mine was on 03-27-2009), don't know the dates of the ones husband requested.

And I'm sorry to all those people who keep asking about my timeline, it's very hard to do one in my case. This will have to do.

(AHH! It was MY BAD, I had posted my timeline but it was on another post... duh.) (I've probably been updating this since this?) (Anyway it shows the action. Or the lack of it. Sorry.)

And CnT4ever, I'm Finnish, I'm nearly impossible to get upset. :]

Wow, this post has seen so much since my last visit here. At some point it trailed off to some completely different case all together, then came back to me and not in the most positive ways. I'm sure that the whole point of jundp's snapping at me was to "wake me up" to realize what a horrible, self-centered person I am. Or perhaps it was just there to point out his/hers serious nature. We may never know, as I suspect that jundp took off in a hurry after getting all that off of his/hers chest. Anyway...

I have a feeling that jundp hasn't been following the topic from the start (and I can't blame them as it's been going on for a good while now) as I thought that I've been giving everyone plenty of updates on how my case has been processing (or more like not processing) along. I've stated when we got married, when we sent off our papers and what has happened since. I never felt it to be that important to fill in my timeline because (and I've said this before) there are 3 dates that I can fill in. 3 dates that I've also mentioned in my posts. But I've added them to the timeline and 2 fictionary dates for when we sent our I-130 and I-129F because I don't have the exact dates and my husband can't seem to recall. So the 3 dates are: Our wedding on December 15th, 2007, the day we got the NOA1 on I-130 (April 16th, 2008) and the day we got the NOA1 on I-129F (June 6th, 2008). I'm not sure how posting those on my timeline are useful to anyone but there they are now.

Other than that, nothing official has been done to our case. We have no FOR SURE info on anything. That's kind of the problem. Our case has been f*cked up so much over the course of the past year (and some months) that I wonder if even the USCIS knows what's going on. In fact, my husband just called them and they said what they told us already half a year ago: that the case has been forwarded to the "correct personnel".

I'd also like to point out that I'm sure it's easy for people to point out how we need a lawyer and such. I know we do. I just also know we simply cannot afford that kind of money. Everything we earn these days just goes to basic living expenses.

There's also another problem with all this, which I can't remember if I've mentioned but... The main problem is that I am in fact in Finland. And it's very hard for ME to do much for our case from here. The U.S. Embassy in Helsinki has no power in this and the USCIS won't give me any information since I'm not the American in this relationship. It's hard to keep in touch with the congressmen/senators when I have to be the one to try to track them down when they're present since I can't even give them my number so that they could call me back, since I'm foreign and all. Everything I or we do needs the participation of my husband. He's up for a promotion at his work and it seems that he has to work pretty much 24/7. When he's home, he's just so tired of even hearing about this immigration stuff that he'll rather just go to bed than discuss the topic. I have been minding my own business for a while now, to give him a chance to breathe again without the immigration hanging over his head. It kills me to constantly have to ask him to do this and that when I'd rather be doing it myself, but I simply CAN'T because I'm not American. Whenever I discuss the immigration with my husband he just tells me to have some faith in the process and that the USCIS MUST BE doing SOMETHING since they wanted his prints and claim that our case is being processed. I'm not sure how it can possibly take so long, since we demanded the expedite in April and all but hey...

So I'm not really b*tching and moaning about stuff here, at least I don't think I am. I'm simply stating the facts. If you'd know me, you'd know that these days the immigration isn't really something that I focus all my time and energy on. I was doing that for way too long, so long in fact that it was starting to affect my health and I was really ticked off all the time and generally unpleasant company. Right now, for a good 1,5 months longer I'm all about focusing on my job. And then my husband will come visit me for a couple of weeks and I'll be deciding what I want to do with my life. I am willing to do what my husband wants and just "give it (USCIS) some time", but not indefinitely. I'm going to want some answers by the next fall. Perhaps if we get no news from the USCIS by the time my internship is over, I'll just restart my life in Finland as I have no interest in sleeping any more YEARS on that damn couch... I want a proper job and my own apartment and the ability to know where I'll be in 2 months time.

Oh and yes, my husband is a US citizen, born there and all. His parents were both born as US citizens as well and so forth... Shouldn't be any question about that.

Well... we can't afford to hire an immigration lawyer. My internship only pays me around 600 euros a month and it ends at the end of July. Pretty much everything my husband earns goes to keeping up our apartment, car payments, animals' expenses and food + phone/cable/internet etc. Trust me, if we could've afforded a lawyer we would've hired one a year ago... We are trying to figure out what to do next here, since the senator/congressman's involvement hasn't really helped any, USCIS doesn't keep us posted, everything's shrouded in mystery... So basically we're trying to decide if we should just continue this as a long distance relationship/marriage, after all, we've been doing it for many years. It's downside would be the fact that I couldn't basically get a permanent job if I'd like to travel to visit him for a couple of months at a time. The other option would be for him to move to Finland or Europe, which would kind of suck for him because he only has high school diploma and work experience, no other schools and he pretty much only speaks English. It might work in some other European country, but here he'd be pretty screwed without a college degree at least. The downside to that (save for the ones I already mentioned) is that we got an apartment set up in USA, with all our pets there, all the furniture and things, plus he has a good, stable job in USA, his car and well, everything.

There's a lot to think about.

Oh and "jundp", I hope you enjoy the timeline.

EDIT: Oh #######, I just realized that since we're married I probably still couldn't go visit him in the USA... that's kind of the problem right now too, isn't it... The homeland security would just send me home, thinking I intend to stay permanently... Oh well, I guess it'd be down to him to visit me then... I'm sure that in a couple of years he'll start getting more than 2 weeks of paid holiday a year hehe... Good thing there's internet!

I am most definitely NOT refiling anything since none of this was our fault to begin with. We didn't spell anything wrong or make any mistakes, they've screwed up and they will damn well fix it or some heads will roll. I am rather just staying here than refiling and starting that ####### all over again. Nuh-uh.

So, my husband had his biometrics taken, though we still don't know why exactly they wanted those. All they could tell him was that it was so ordered by the California Service Center... *shrug* No news then. I continue working (it's a hard job) and he continues to work in USA and we wonder if we will be together for our next anniversary in December... or not. I'm shocked that our case hasn't been expedited by the USCIS, considering all their #### ups. Life goes on, even though in two separate countries... Good thing we don't have kids.

Finally, some good news for me. Not because of the visa though, oh no. BUT as of tomorrow, I'm starting at a new job, here in Finland! It's an internship that will (with the current contract) last until the end of July, after which it may be extended by a couple of more months. So I'll finally have something to do and less time to obsess about the stupid visa.

Also, interestingly... Remember when I said husband's got the appointment for biometrics with the I-129F in which his name was spelled wrong? For June 4th? Well, now he got ANOTHER letter from the USCIS for the biometrics AGAIN, this time for the I-130 for June 3rd... I can do nothing but laugh, this is getting way too hilarious.

Okay, my husband has his appointment for biometrics and stuff now on June 4th, which is... relatively soon. I hope SOME info will be provided. The senator's immigration specialist said that they ARE working on the I-130, not the I-129F and for some odd reason they need his biometrics for the I-130 (we don't know why). However, our I-129F which on Monday this week (18th of May) showed that it had not received a single touch since JULY OF 2008, has since received TWO touches all the sudden, on Wednesday and Thursday. Which indicates that they've apparently forgotten the I-130 and are going forward with the I-129F which still has our names spelled incorrectly... I just feel like getting a big, fat, trout and slapping all these people around a bit.