JustJ

Carolyn,

We've been praying for you, too.

Such great news.

I too wonder if people with a CMT + misrep... ever have happy endings.

I sure hope so

Indeed they do, JTLDN, although it does come with a hefty price. After nearly four years of fighting our battle, my husband is here with me. We both lost a lot through this process and are only now picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off, and forging onward in our new lives.

I PMd the OP, although I'm not sure how much help it will be. I know others have been successful in overcoming this on their own, but I would wholeheartedly recommend contacting an attorney experienced in handling these matters.

Totally agree with you, and I was born and raised here!

If you aren't near a bakery, just start making it yourself. It's easy, and you can freeze the dough in batches for later use. If you want recipes, PM me.

Congratulations.

Momof1 is right--they may give you the "not a qualifying relative" argument. If you decide to go this route and you have siblings, you may want to include notarized letters from them indicating why they would be unable to care for your father. Also, as others have suggested, include your father's medical records and, if possible, a letter from your father's doctor indicating that you are required to care for him here in the USA.

Do you have other hardships? You have to not only show why your husband must come here, but also why you can't move.

Lots of people handle their waivers on their own and are successful.

BUT

my vote would be yes, hire an attorney. And not just any attorney, but a GOOD attorney, one recommended by others. We made the terrible mistake of hiring a bad attorney to prepare our I-601 (he's been fired from his firm since). You can see by my signature how we suffered as a result. We hired an excellent attorney to file the appeal, which was just sustained after 26 months. Over two years of our lives are gone, never to be recovered. Had we hired a good attorney in the first place, things would have turned out much differently.

Is there a place to log appeal filing/decision dates on the timeline? It's been difficult receiving the prompts to update my timeline, as I haven't been able to -- processing time for our appeal was 26 months.

I would say if you are claiming financial hardship, include copies of evidence. Otherwise (and I know this by experience), the adjudicator may say you have provided nothing but your opinion.

Make sure you have a GOOD lawyer! And good luck to you as well!

PLEASE take this advice. We didn't have a good lawyer. I ended up forking over a big retaining and my trust, and then had to fill out the forms and write the HSL myself. No brief or anything was provided by our attorney, and we were denied. I have been in living Hell with no hope ever since. Please, whatever you do, get a good lawyerDon't risk your future by hiring someone who doesn't know what they're doing. AAO appeals take 27 months, and most of us are barely hanging on at the end of the 6-month wait for I-601 adjudications.

Thanks for asking about me. I don't check in often, as I have some weird PTSD from this whole flipping fiasco. Anything immigration-related tends to send me into a panic attack.

I'm alive and plodding ahead as best as I can. Still no husband after 2.5 years of marriage, but we filed the appeal 9 months ago for this really embarrassing denial. Seriously - they quoted a traffic violation as reason to deny him???? And yet, the only way to point out their error is to file an appeal and wait the 27 months. For God's sake, I've even been questioning my own husband's character since then. I mean, is he secretly IRA and nobody wants to tell me???

It's been doubly difficult coming to VJ because the approvals seem to have been coming fast/furious since our denial. We're special, I guess.

Only another year and a half to go. My hopes of ever having a child have vanished, given my age and the time that it will take for the appeal to be heard, so I've had to deal with that reality. Thanks, London USCIS. Enjoy your children. I'll never have any now, thanks to you.

I have gone through Hell here, including major health issues AND a home invasion while I was in bed. A man entered my home in the early morning of December 19th and taunted me from the bottom of the steps, all creepylike, "I wanna tallllk to you....." Like halfway between anger and "come out, come out wherever you are." I don't know how I had the sense to load my shotgun, but I did. He must have heard the gun, because he didn't ever come up the steps. I didn't know if it was one person, or several people, or if the guy had even left. I hid behind my bed on my knees, crying and teeth chattering from fear, with the gun pointed at the bedroom door. The entire time I was there, all I could think of was the injustice that I've suffered at the hands of my own government. I wondered about the adjudicator who denied us - wondered what HE was doing in those moments when I shook so badly that there's no way I could have hit anything I shot at. In what could have been my last breaths on earth, THAT is what I was thinking. Nice, huh?

I couldn't go home for a month, which meant heating my house in the PA winter with OIL. I had to have locks and deadbolts changed, and all of this cost me money I didn't have. I finally got my big girl pants on and went home, mostly because I couldn't afford to stay away and heat with oil, so I went back and still suffer the most unGodly anxiety. I *still* sleep with my shotgun after 4 months.

The winter was difficult. I had enough reserves left to get through last Summer alone. When we were denied, it meant it was truly only going to be me to do all the home improvements, winter preparations (firewood, etc.), so I don't know how I managed to do it, but I did. I'm paying for it, of course, with back and knee problems, but I survived.

I put the house on the market (which is how I ended up with my home invader), and I think I'm close to a sale. I'll just break even, which is way better than a loss, but certainly not as nice as being able to stay in our home.

That's the news from here. Just taking it one day at a time.

I am glad, as well, that your case did not get sent to the AAO. You cannot imagine what it feels like to know that you are swimming in a barrel with all of the drug dealers, rapists, child molesters, and human traffickers from across the globe who didn't make it through USCIS.

I would like to know what we have done that is so bad that this has happened to us. I make no excuse for my husband's past crimes, nor does he. But the USCIS has made a serious error here. How in the Hell can you deem someone inadmissible because of non-CIMT arrests, particularly ones for which there is no evidence other than the applicant's honest admission of them!

I love Ireland. I'm an artist and a writer. What better place for me than the Emerald Isle? If I could go, I would have been there already.

I am so disappointed in this system right now that I can't even think straight. I'm sure everybody reading this will think that there has to be more to this story. There isn't. I'm wondering if it's time to go to the media or to demand a face-to-face meeting with my representative. Somebody should have to face my entire family & community and tell us why this is happening to us. What if I arranged a demonstration outside his office with everybody I know?

Ideas welcome.

the appeal process at the AAO is about 26 months at the moment

Yep.

Well, so much for that. Our file was sent to AAO before the dust settled.

There is no justice for us or for the people depending on us.

I'm happy for those of you who have been approved. I just don't know why we warranted such obvious abuse at the

USCIS.

Thanks for asking. The summer was hard on Mom. She's very short of breath, and now she needs a knee replacement. We told her that we were approved (when we thought we were), and so she suffered the same let-down that we did. I wasn't going to say anything to her, and was going to just surprise her when my husband walked through the door, but he couldn't contain himself, and he called her to say, "Put the potpie on, Mom!" Ten minutes later, I had to call her and explain that we had been misinformed. It was an excruciatingly brutal day, let me tell you. We're all still reeling from it.

Current processing time for AAO appeals is 26 months. From what I understand, London will have a chance to review it first before sending it on. I can't have hope, though, because of what has already happened to us. Seems like we have the worst luck.....

Oh look, someone mentions "Irish sausages" and I miraculously reappear.

Thanks to all of you for remembering me, and thanks especially for your prayers. We need them.

Clearly, with all of these UK moves to Texas, I am going to have to invest in a box of cowboy hats.

I'm glad you're all still here, and C2C, it was lovely to see an update from you. One of the things I complained about when Hubby was here visiting was his tea cup (always on the furniture with no coaster). I would give ANYTHING to have him slopping a big mug of tea from one end of this house to another right now. When you reach a bump in your relationship, just think back to how hard you fought to be together, and I'll bet whatever you are facing will pale in comparison to the 601 struggle.

As for us, wow. What a whirlwind these past 6 weeks have been. It took me a good week to start eating again, then another 2-3 weeks of therapy to be able to function properly. I really just wanted to die. God has other plans for me, I guess, because here I am.

We did hire Mr. Heller as our attorney, and he has been wonderful. He spent an awful lot of time answering what must have seemed to him an unending series of questions. He did a really good job for us, and he's hopeful. I, however, am not. If you've been in this thread for a while, you know that I have had way too many "ups" that turned to "downs" in very cruel ways. It nearly killed me, and as a result, I refuse to have hope. The entire process has been so unfair to us, and having hired a good attorney NOW, I truly do see the differences. It is so hard to tell when you have hired a good attorney. I mean, how do you really know? Our first one talked the good talk, but when there are mere days before the interview and the waiver packet isn't complete, you know there's a problem. He just threw it together. I wrote my own hardship letter, my husband wrote his own letter, and all the attorney did was type up the 601 form. I paid him thousands to fill in forms that I could have filled out myself. He offered no guidance on the hardship letters or anything. He filed no legal memorandum or anything. It was all done last-minute, and we paid the price for it. This time around, we received much more guidance, and Mr. Heller seems to be not only an intelligent man, but a compassionate one, which is sorely needed when one is as tender as I am these days.

So, we did get the appeal filed on time. So far, I have not received anything to indicate that it has been received by the AAO, so I don't know if that means London is reviewing it, or if the AAO is just backed up in sending cards. All I know is that when I turn the key in my post office box, you would swear there's a hornet's nest in there.

The stress of all of this has been unGodly. I continue to suffer horrific bouts of anxiety and depression, and it is really hard to find the motivation to do much of anything. I truly need the harvest from my garden to get me through, but with everything that has happened, it's nothing but weeds. I try very hard to stay focused at my job, and I'm lucky that my boss is very understanding, but my job requires me to be compassionate and mentally sharp, and as you might imagine, I'm neither of those things right now.

That's the news from Happyville.

WE GOT APPROVED !!!!THANK GOD!

Congratulations, JNurse! Are you walking on air???

Best wishes for a bright future together.

I laid in bed last night & I prayed so hard for you guys. It must be so nice to have a plan.

Don't you think it's really unfair that you have to pay for all of the PCC & medical again? It isn't your fault that the process took so long. Although, Andrew, I suspect that you'll happily fork over the cash at this point! I know I would, even if it meant selling the furniture!

Great news. Hearty congrats, my friend. Now go & make that lady happy.

OH MY WORD!!!!! Praying it's good news for our VJ pals!

Julie what's going on at your end? What did the new lawyer say? How are you, the Irishman and your Mum?

Aw, Tree, thanks for asking.

The lawyer has hope that we can appeal successfully. I'm too afraid to hope because we all know where THAT got me. I have to say, though, this attorney has spent more time answering my questions in a few days than my last lawyer did throughout the entire process to this point. I am sending his retainer tomorrow, and we shall go from there.

In the meantime, I now need knee surgery on my right knee, and a brace on my left. Mom needs a total knee replacement. She can hardly go from the couch to her kitchen. I've been cooking her suppers nearly every night. We have the same orthopedist which at least saves on gas. I gotta look at the bright side, right?

The Irishman (hereinafter referred to as America's #1 Security Threat) found a few days' work, so that was a mighty welcome relief. He had to walk 13 miles to get to it, but hey, he was glad to do it because there was money at the end of it. First work America's #1 Security Threat found in AGES. Sorry, sarcasm keeps me peppy.

I'm getting the house ready to sell. If our appeal goes to the AAO, it'll take at least 27 months for a decision, and the upkeep on this massive house will do me in. I have a realtor coming Saturday to do a walk-through and tell me what I need to fix/freshen up. It's gonna be a chore with bad knees, but thankfully, I have friends who have offered to help where they can. If we don't hear anything by January, I'm going to assume we're headed to the AAO, and I'll list the house. I hate to do it, because this house would have been perfect for Mom to move into the other half and live semi-independently. And I love this place - but, it's just too much, and frankly, it's now a house of broken dreams. I don't want it anymore. I'll either sell the contents & get a small apartment, or just move in with Mom and pay her the rent.

I can't believe you're still stuck in AP, Tree. So stinking unfair.

Hey guys, looks like some positive changes coming to the 601 process:

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/cisomb_waivers_of_inadmissibility_recommendation.pdf

I found the link on the London Embassy page:

http://london.usembassy.gov/dhs/uscis/ivwaiver.html

Keep your head up and have faith, it HAS to work out one day

Thanks, C2C. I used to think that the wait was the worst thing ever. I was wrong.

The overstay thing was a mistake on the part of USCIS. They issued an amended denial & denied us for CIMT & misrep. I don't know if we have any hope at all, but I guess we're going to try it. That denial was harsh - the words are stuck in my brain, and I could nearly quote it word-for-word. I pray none of you ever experience this.

http://photos.state.gov/libraries/unitedkingdom/164203/dhs/i601_status-web.pdf

They combined it with 212's I think.

I would eat 4-day old road kill if it meant we could all be together.

I did speak with an attorney who was shocked at the harshness of our denial. I'm going to send it and our evidence to him. He said if we have an obvious loser, he'll just tell us.

One thing that might explain the delay re: the list (as I found out today), is that when someone appeals their 601 waiver, they are sent back to the adjudicator first before going on to the AAO. They take priority, so don't wait on the "pending" and "under review" list - could this explain the cases that go straight to complete from pending? Anyhow, the adjudicator reviews everything to make sure he wants to really wants the case to go to AAO, or if he wants to change his mind and grant a visa.

At the very least in our case, I need to get that overstay business off of there, because my husband certainly did NOT overstay. The attorney agreed that even if they don't overturn the misrep, sending it to AAO as a single misrep charge is a whole heck of a lot better than sending it with a misrep AND an overstay.

I'd like to be optimistic, but given the harshness of our denial (I mean, c'mon, outright ignoring a letter from a 72-yr old woman's doctor that specifically says her daughter is needed her to care for her??), I'm not particularly hopeful. It's obvious that somebody just looked at my husband's list of crimes, albeit ancient, and said this guy is a bad apple.

The worst moments for me come at about 3 am when I wake with horrendous anxiety and despair. In those moments, I am downright suicidal. I'm fighting it, but it's tough. The situation seems pretty hopeless, and I don't know how I can choose between my mom & the man I love.

I do want to thank all of you for your PMs and messages. It is heartening to know that there are still so very many good and caring people out there.

And Justine, yes, I am a Christian. Thank you for your words. I'm on my church council, and the other night, since I have the keys to the church, I went in, knelt before the altar and listened to my sobs echo off of the walls in the massive sanctuary. I told my pastor that as angry as I want to be, and as much as I want to stop praying because of my anger, I simply can't, and I find that I'm in nearly constant communication and prayer. His response was that that is the very definition of faith. I guess as long as I have that, I have something, aye?

Didn't call the one we used, but have contacted another very expensive one.

Just a few more years of eating out dented soup cans, right?