Sc0tt28

Hi

I am writing for an Italian friend of mine who has asked me to find some information for her.

This forum has a boatload of information!

Here's the deal:

BACKGROUND

Maria (not her real name) is Italian

Roberto (not his real name) - is American with roots in Italy (his whole family is from there but he was born and raised in the US)

Maria and Roberto have know eachother since they were little (Roberto used to come to Italy in the summer to visit his relatives)

--- fast forward 20 odd years down the road

Maria and Roberto hook up via Facebook - fall madly in love - and Maria decides to go visit Roberto in Miami.

Maria gets to Miami and everything is hunky dory - love - sun- soulmates and all that jazz so they decide to get married.

Roberto tells Maria "no problemo" - we get married and you can stay here with me forever because I love you and can't live without you and all that romantic stuff (Maria is not getting married to stay in the US -- she is actually hoping that Roberto will come with her to Italy - Maria does not speak English - and doesn't think that the US is all that)

So they get married and Roberto blabbers on about how it will be so easy etc. etc. and in the meanwhile loses his job - has no money - and things start to get a little hairy.

So they do nothing to make the situation right (get the correct papers for her to stay etc.)

Maria decides to go back to Italy because she gets called for a great job and she is pretty much fed up with being hungry and living in not the greatest of conditions (too be nice)

1: Maria overstayed her tourist visa by 1 month (understand that she did not go to the US with an intention to get married --- I think that idea came along after a bottle of champagne or great sex or I dunno)

2: Maria hates her great job in Italy , misses her husband dearly and is thinking that she wants to give the relationship another chance (I think she is crazy, but who am I too judge)

3: Maria has decided that she really loves Roberto and wants to go back to him ---- but she is not really ready to commit (as in pack everything up in Italy and move to the US forever)

4: Maria asked me to help her out since I am a friend and speak English.

Her idea is to try and get a tourist visa for 3 months (however she overstayed her first "visa" --- I think just the basic ESTA thing --- by one month so it may be difficult for her to get one.

I am looking for advice on what the best solution could be:

-- try and get a tourist visa for 3 months (can she do that if she is married to an American)?

-- apply for another type of visa?

--- tell Roberto to step up to the plate and start the process for bringing a spouse over?

What she wants is to go back to the US for a few months - check out the situation (will the realtionship really work? do I want to live in the US?)

and then decide to either stay or go.

Any feedback or personal experience (I am sure she is not the first or the last to be in this sort of situation) would be appreciated

Thanks

Kel - real name

I think the first thing you should do is learn how to use the word "too"...just sayin'

Hi everyone,

I apologise for how long it has taken for me to respond here but everything has been quite slow moving. I have had my interview with the news and they are now arranging to interview my boyfriend. Another immigration officer has also been assigned to my case and has been emailing me but all of his questions are things such as "did you ask for his phone number?" "did you give him your information without him asking for it" and I feel very very angry because his emails basically imply that they are turning the blame on to me. There is a reason why most women don't come forward in situations like this because it always gets turned around on the woman. I don't think they understand that he is supposed to do his JOB not taking anyone's contact information even if it is offered to him, that makes him unable to be impartial and therefore unable to do his job correctly. *sigh*

I almost decided not to say anything because I'm aware that what I have to say, may not be very "popular".

To begin with - let me stress that it is in fact illegal for him to have done what he did and it is completely inexcusable.

That being said, it doesn't look like they are accusing you of anything, they are simply covering their bases if this jerk of an officer decides to take his termination to court.

If the supervisors never ask you for ALL the details to include whatever the offending officer might cook up, then the officer could just lie in court and say that you asked him to contact you. Of course this is rediculous but the burden of proof is "beyond reasonable doubt".

Look at the flip side of it, they ask you if you solicited the "attention", you say "no, of course not", now if he says something in court he just looks like a jerk and not some officer getting screwed by a pissed off passenger that didn't get her way at the border.

It may be embarrassing, but any attorney would ask you the same questions. They just need to know all the facts and they need to anticipate the curve balls that could get thrown when this officer gets the boot.

Hi Everyone, My daughters boyfriend(USC) just realized his passport expired 4 months ago(DOH) and they are flying into Buffalo and driving across the peace bridge on Tuesday. They called the border and were told by border officer on the phone that all he needs is his birth certificate and drivers license, he also told them it would be no problem getting back into the USA with those documents. Now on the site it says thats all he needs to cross into canada but of course the US site says he needs a passport. What do you guys think? he can't get a new passport fast enough unless he spends 500$ so his choice is not bother going at all(and losing his non-refundable plane ticket or chancing it..

thx in advance..and I know hes a dope for not checking his passport sooner! haha

For one thing, if he has an Enhanced Driver's License, then he doesn't need to bring the birth certificate. The Enhanced Driver's License is a WHTI (Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative) Compliant document.

Secondly, a US citizen will not be denied entry into the US....ever. That being said, of course he needs to prove that he is a USC. An expired US passport still proves US citizenship. The State Department will accept your expired passport as evidence of your citizenship in order to get your passport renewed right? So will Customs and Border Protection. At the end of the day, the birth certificate works too. Since your birth certificate doesn't have a picture on it, that is why you need to show a DL along with it. That's also why the passport works (even though its expired) it shows where you were born (if he was born in the US), name, and picture.

That is for getting back into the US. As for getting into Canada, I have noticed that the Canadians don't seem to be quite as worried about it. I have seen people get into Canada with practically nothing but the shirt on their back and a smile...and yes, this is within the past year.

her language skills are not reflected in words placed onto a typed document. if she knows the correct usage and does not self monitor and correct what is this called? failure to proof read? poor language skills? or ... we all are guilty of this sometimes ... slacker?

what about her hand writing? does this also reflect the poorly created sentence structures?

Fair enough, and point well taken. That said, her hand writing is not as bad but the proper nouns does get to me.

You can't be a grammar nazi and not expect people to hold you to the same standard.

I don't mean to sound offensive and I apologize in advance if it comes across that way but here goes:

I'm not sure if English is your first language but it is mine and I choose my words very carefully, leaving very little ambiguity about what I am saying and what I am not.

That said, I fully expect people to hold me to the same standard. In fact if there are errors in my speech I fully expect to be corrected. I did not say "Do not correct me", I said (paraphrased) "before I am corrected". Using the word "before" implies that I expect to be corrected.

Wow, that really is naive.

Interesting that you think so. Naïveté could also be used to describe those that refuse to hold thier government accountable, even if the truth hurts.

what does does proper finger usage on a keyboard have to do with her language skills?

When her finger usage consistently fails to capitalize proper nouns, misspell words, and omit punctuation then it has plenty to do with her language skills in that if her students submitted work of such poor quality she would most certainly mark them as unsatisfactory, and so her refusal to "practice what she preaches" is quite hypocritical.

That is quite naive to think that the democrats had a strong majority. Harry Reid is no Tom DeLay, he had a tenuous grasp on the caucus and at best could say he had 40 votes in his pocket.

As true as that may be, it is a testament to the dysfunctionality of the Democratic caucus.

This is why I type, text, e-mail, speak, etc. in full words. I also tend to be a bit of a grammer cop. My wife is a grade school teacher and her typing is horrible, I'm constantly on her case about it.

Now before I get vilified for all of the grammatical errors in this particular post, let me point out that I don't claim to be perfect when it comes to the English language but at least I try to the best of my abilities and level of education.

Racial hoax causes PR headache for McDonald’s

An online hoax that falsely suggests McDonald's discriminates against African-American customers is causing a PR headache for the Golden Arches.

Over the weekend, the photograph above circulated widely on the internet. The image shows what looks like an official McDonald's notice in the window of a restaurant, telling customers that blacks will be charged $1.50 extra "as an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies."

Many internet users retweeted the photo, using the words "Seriously McDonald's," to express their disapproval of the burger chain.

In response, McDonald's sent a tweet of its own on Saturday: "That pic is a senseless & ignorant hoax McD's values ALL our customers. Diversity runs deep in our culture on both sides of the counter."

But that clearly wasn't enough to clear things up, because Twitter users continued to send out the picture, with that same message of condemnation: "Seriously McDonald's." Indeed, so many people sent "Seriously McDonald's" Tweets that the phrase became a leading entry on Twitter's trend list.

That led to a second, blunter McTweet, on Sunday: "That Seriously McDonalds picture is a hoax."

The latest pushback effort seems to have helped keep the photo from spreading too much further--but there's no telling how many people out there still think the photo is for real.

This is hardly the only recent barrage of negative publicity for the burger behemoth--some of it more justified. McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner recently was forced to defend the company's renewed use of the Ronald McDonald mascot to appeal to children, after critics said the restaurant's fat-laden burgers and fries endanger kids' health.

It's not clear who created the hoax image. It appears to have first showed up on the popular 4chan message board, and it was posted last year on an anti-McDonald's blog.

But there's no doubt it's fake. As some Twitter users have pointed out, the toll-free number given at the bottom of the sign is actually the number for ... Kentucky Fried Chicken.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110613/us_yblog_thelookout/racial-hoax-causes-pr-headache-for-mcdonalds

If the shoe fits...

Pennies are legal tender. I think it had more to do with his yelling and throwing the pennies around than actually paying with the coins.

jmo

I would have to agree, and if I were them I would have cited him too. I'm sure he didn't have the pennies in his pockets and so he must have dumped them out of a bucket or a bag or something. If he had set the container down and asked them to count them - no citation. But dumping 2500 pennies on the counter, that's just asking for it.

21/2 years is not much time to fix 8 yrs of screwing things up plus having to still continue to work with a whole bunch of screw ups in congress. There is no quick fix for the current economic problems either. I have not heard of one person who has had any ideas that has grabbed our attention and support.

The Democrats had the White House, and majorities in both chambers of Congress from January 20, 2009 until January 3, 2011. That is about 2 1/2 weeks shy of 2 full years to get their act together. So the "whole bunch of screw ups in congress" that you refer to must be the Democrats right?

fixed that for you

Let's be clear on the GOP fiscal record - they haven't cut spending when they had a chance but have actually done the exact opposite - rack up them bills. The difference is not who spends more - they have kept spending pretty constant whoever ran the show. The question then is, who is responsible and seeks to fund the spending and who is reckless and funds with borrowed money.

I terms of difference of approach for the larger economy, to put it simply it's supply side - aka trickle down, aka voo-doo - (GOP) vs. demand side (Dems) economic policies. The latter works, the former does not.

That's a good point - a cut in taxes is the same as an increase in spending unless you find another source to make up for that lost revenue. This was one of Bush's biggest faults. He took the surplus that Clinton handed him and instead of paying down the debt, he squandered it on tax breaks and who knows what else.

I regrettably voted for Obama because McCain was hand-in-hand with Bush and such a stance is just unforgivable. (The last part there is a LOL moment by the way.) Yes, Bush screwed things up pretty badly but Obama has been in the chair for 2 1/2 years now but can't seem to find anywhere to spend any less.

Oh, and for those that voted for McCain, I submit a quote from John "Dubya" McCain himself: "Now we need to increase our support so that the Libyan people can achieve the only satisfactory outcome to this mass protest for universal rights -- the end of Gadhafi's rule and the beginning of a peaceful and inclusive transition to democracy that will benefit all Libyans."

So according to McCain, we should be in Iraq, Afghanistan AND Libya.

The earlier poster is wrong, if your visa is denied you are not eligible to travel on VWP. Even if you travel based on ESTA that you had before your F1 denial you will be returned back home from the POE.

Your immigrant application is in process and in meanwhile you are trying to enter on F1 and VWP as non-immigrant which immigration does not like since you telling them something on one form and something else on another.

All your attempts on F1 and VWP is seen as you trying to bypass the F2A process time. You will have to wait until your F2A is completed and then you can enter US.

How can you be so sure about it. Is it written anywhere?

Even if she has an approved ESTA, its still up to the CBP Officer at the time of entry. Officer discretion is a pain in the butt sometimes.

First off a nation does what it deems best in it's own interest. Whether Germany remained in the League of Nations or not, it wasn't going to change the fact Hitler was still going to make a play on Europe. When Germany was in the League of Nations it was violating the rights of Jews...and the League did zero about it. The same members of the League handed over a chunk of Czechoslovakia to Germany and Poland. So who was helping the rights of the Jews and/or Czechoslovakia ?

Now move forward to the UN. Anyone that thinks the UN stopped Stalin from taking a bigger grab of Europe needs to have their head examined. It was nukes that kept that genocidal maniac from moving even further west. When the US dropped two A-bombs on Japan it did two things...it brought the Japs to their knees and it sent a message to Stalin that the same thing could very well happen to Moscow if he got any idea's of moving further west. This still didn't stop Stalin and his commie pr*cks from murdering Eastern Europeans like it was open season on them. The UN did zero in regards to the Iron Curtain and the occupation of Eastern Europe. The UN didn't stop Mao from killing well over 40 million people and invading Tibet. The UN did zero when Pol Pot was committing genocide in Cambodia.

The UN is nothing short of a sick pathetic joke who's only interest it serves is the permanent members of said joke.

Since you brought it up, I must compare this to our other spirited conversation regarding Iraq. So at what point does a nation in a position of power (regardless of the country - US, UK, Russia, China...) say to themselves "Hey, this UN is nothing but a joke...but we need to do something anyway."? As I mentioned before, Iraq was violating the UN resolutions put in place after Iraq had slaughtered thousands of Kurds in the north of Iraq, the US brought these concerns to the UN, and the UN proceeded to stick their heads in the sand. So if it was so wrong for the US to take care of the problem alone, then what should have happened?

Fine, if you think that's irrelevant to this thread, answer this.

If the UN was a bird, what bird would it be?

An ostrich, with its head planted firmly in the sand.

Why not? Most of the pro war freaks in this country are peeps who have never served in their life yet love to see news clippings of jets, tanks, etc...

It's always worth a shot with that question. Chances are the peeps never served...it just happens by chance that this one did. Good for him I say, and I respect him for it. What I don't agree with is why we ever invaded in the first place, especially seeing how Europe is already pumping natural gas from Iraq via Turkey right into Europe itself. Now tell me again why we chose to invade Iraq and not a half other dozen nations with nuclear missiles?

North Korea maybe? Oh ya, no oil there and it's backed up by China. duh

I agree with you there...we shouldn't have let North Korea develop nukes. And yet we take issue with Iran? Double standard much?

Stopping a tyrant, then demanding that his violated subjects pay us for it is not the way to spread democracy, which is what we claim to be doing.

Thank you for your service, but I can still disagree with you

I am actually in agreement with you. I don't think the Iraqi people should pay us back either. What I take issue with is the assertion that the US didn't attempt to get the UN's approval to actually enforce the resolutions prior to going in alone.

And what years did you serve in Iraq ?

Who gives two sh*ts what Saddam did ? Look at Iran, look at Sudan, look at just about any central African nation. Better yet look at Belarus.

Only an ignorant person would think it's a show of bravery to attack another nation for the fact said nation thumbed it's nose at the US, or any other country for that matter.

Lots of nations have thumbed their noses at the US. Russia has been doing it on a constant basis for years now yet we have failed to attack Russia. Now if the US wants to really go at it with an opponent that can give them a decent fight then I would think Russia or China would be #1 on some hillbilly list for peeps that suffer from lack of intelligence yet suffer from small ####### syndrome.

Now give me a flag to wave!

By the way, nobody said anything about thumbing their nose at the US. It was a UN resolution, not a US resolution. The US happened to be the only ones willing to do something about it.

And what years did you serve in Iraq ?

I served in Iraq from April until October 2003 with the 49th Quartermaster Group from Fort Lee, Virginia and from December 2005 until December 2006 with the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. (The 4th ID has since moved to Ft. Carson, CO)

Thanks for asking and your welcome.

No, that's not what he said. There's a process in place to address non-compliance. An invasion w/o a mandate is not part of that process.

Like I said, just because the rest of the world is too cowardly to stop a tyrant, doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.

What a novel idea.

"Invade my country on a complete and bogus lie, kill thousands and then charge me for it."

Was Saddam's thumbing his nose at the UN resolutions following his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 a lie as well?

Did he not violate the No-Fly Zone repeatedly?

By your reasoning violating UN resolutions should be met with "Well...we didn't really mean it anyway...go ahead and kill whoever you want...we're too chicken to do anything to stop you."

I always meet people (mostly white) on the street or in an elevator etc who greet you (Good morning, How are you?) even if they don't personally know you. I also met a lot of Filipinos who doesn't even bother to smile.

Is this a culture thing, or is it because we are just afraid to be rejected? Are we scared to smile or greet for fear that it might not be a Filipino after all? Or are some Filipinos just snobs and think highly of their stature now that they live comfortably abroad? I am just wondering...

If the white people can say "Hi, how are you?", why can't we?

Using the verb "to do" in the same sentence, while separated by only a single noun, may have something to do with it. Just kidding of course. My grammer twitch kicked in when I saw the title. "Why do Filipinos don't...?" AAACCCKKK!!!