JlovesA

Bingo! I've been reading this thread and thinking to myself, if we didn't know that very often people get approved in under 5 months, people wouldn't be freaking out that it is in fact, taking 5 months. And hey, I don't like the wait either (my timeline said I'd be approved in mid-Sept) but that's just how it is. Comparing yourself to people rarely helps in any area of life.
I agree with you, Henycat. It's surprising it works as well as it does considering how many petitions they receive and how many adjudicators they have. I'm grateful it's only 5 months and that we at least have the USCIS site to check our status on. What if we had to rely on the mail? I don't even want to think about it.
And ygr, I'm not saying the process is perfect but this is how it is and you made the choice to immigrate to the USA, like it or not. If you want something changed, posting on VJ is not going to do anything.

There are 1.5 million pending petitions. In August they received about 650,000.
Okay...let's use an analogy. If you own a McDonald's and you can make 50 hamburgers in an hour and you have 100 hamburger orders in an hour, would your system of hamburger making be faulty and your workers all of a sudden be lazy because the customers had to wait for their burger?
http://dashboard.uscis.gov/
You can see here that the number of outstanding petitions has been decreasing until February. And then there is a rise in the months after of petitions being filed. I know we all want to think our petition is the only type that matters, but USCIS has to adjudicate all of them. Making one person happy just makes another person disgruntled.
When we married or proposed to our SO, we got in line at McDonald's. Some people can't place their order correctly to be understood; some people take a long time to pull their change out to pay; some of us are in line with a cashier that is being trained and last but not least, there are only 4 burgers left and the person in front of you just ordered 10.

You're not going to have much time after she arrives to arrange anything complicated. I suggest you have a civil wedding in order to satisfy the 90 day requirement. What you do before or after that is something you'll have to work out with her. If she's a traditional girl then she'll probably want something involving her family, and on a date selected by a Buddhist fortune teller. Most Buddhist sects have an engagement ceremony that will usually satisfy the family. You can usually do this with her family before she comes to the US, and before the actual wedding.
Differences in religion can be a major sticking point in relationships with foreign spouses, depending on how strictly either or both follow their own particular religion. I've seen relationships with Buddhist women collapse because the husband was a devout Christian, and wouldn't let her set up her idols or perform her prayer rituals in the family home. At first, this may be something she thinks she can live with, but it might begin to wear on her over time.
This is really something you should spend some time working out in advance. She probably won't expect you to become a Buddhist, but she also may not appreciate any attempts to try to convert her to Christianity, and you probably shouldn't expect it.
My wife is a devout Buddhist, but I'm agnostic so there haven't been any conflicts. My wife set up her altar in the living room, with a beautiful porcelain idol of her patron Buddhist goddess. She keeps the altar adorned with fresh flowers and fruit, and she burns incense and performs her ritual prayers almost daily. I also don't mind going through the motions when it's required. When it's "that" time of the month I light the incense and do the bows for her. I also do the bows and prostrations at family Buddhist events, like weddings or funerals or lunar new year celebrations, etc. Everyone knows I'm not a Buddhist and I don't believe in this stuff, but I see it as a way of showing respect.

sounds kinda cold and heartless to take someone away from their family and life just to see if she works for you...plus saying send her back sounds like a package you're returning because it didn't fit. this is a person, no matter what her intentions are in the matter she's human and deserves to be treated so.

The K-1 is NOT a "Let's get together for 90 days and Check it Out" Visa.
Your relationship should be solid before you start the process.
If you're having doubts now before you even get together, then you should not continue and work on the relationship first.
When that is solid, then you start the visa process.

I have to agree with the last two posts. I'll be honest, I looked at a few others as well. Then I stopped and thought "wow..I don't want people coming in here and looking at MY case file!" It just feels weird to me knowing that people can change the number and see whats happening in my process. I feel like that should be information I choose to share or not.

To be honest, I have to agree with JlovesA. No, no one is harmed by people creeping on other peoples' case files. It just seems wrong. You're right, there's no personal information you can derive from a casefile number, but it's still someone's personal thing. It's not even the checking on peoples' cases that bothers me the most, it's the fact that some people have signed up for notifcations on those cases.
No harm is done, really... it just feels wrong. To me personally.
I want my approval as much as the next person, but checking other peoples' cases is not going to make it come any quicker.
Just my two cents.

I'm aware the best we can do here is agree to disagree but I just want to point out a few things as I know I'm not alone in finding this new "secret" unethical.
The census (at least in Canada) is mandatory. Also, you fill it out knowing that your data is going to be analyzed. That's the entire point. USCIS isn't inviting users to change case numbers and analyze data. Show me where on the website it tells you to do it and I'll shut up. Furthermore, pretty sure I didn't sign anything saying my information would be analyzed by complete strangers on the Internet. I don't take that chance because I want to immigrate; IMHO it's a flaw that USCIS needs to fix or let you be aware of. Lastly, just because you CAN do it and it's virtually victimless doesn't mean it's not unethical.
But according to you, my opinion is "pointless" so I'll let the other members here who agree with me remain silent while I take the heat on this.

Lets not pick apart every answer. The OP wants to know if they can get married and continue with the K-1 Visa. Aztec said no. I'm pretty sure OP gets the picture.

Well as I said in another thread, someone just got an RFE last week so they ARE looking at I-129F's over there.
TBH, you can't keep denying everybody's positivity. Your negativity about it seems to be eating you alive and it's no way to live. CSC is going to approve your petition soon and your fiance will be moving there sometime in the next few months. I know it's hard sitting here waiting, but the end of this is coming and shooing everyone's optimism is only making it worse for you in the meantime.

Just because they went through VSC doesn't discredit their advice. They are right...if you cancel your K1 in January (and I think the odds are low you won't have received the NOA2 by then), you have just wasted all that time and you are putting yourself at the back of the line again, and must wait for a visa that actually takes longer than the K1. So would you rather him move next spring or like, fall-winter 2011?
My advice? Count your blessing that you can actually visit each other. Some people can't. And be glad that once you get the NOA2 you have a relatively short wait. I think your NOA1 is 1 day after me but because I'm going through Montreal and you're (I think) going through London, your fiance will be in the USA way before I'll get there. So try to calm down and realize this isn't the end of the world...yes CSC has been slow but I have hope they'll start approving people again soon.

The response is normal because it is correct. You mentioned abuse no where in your original post. I was simple and polite in my answer to your question. If you want a different answer perhaps you should ask a different question.

she could always pay thousands of dollars,get a lawyer and hear the same thing

I am very sorry to know that things did not work out for the two of you. I am also glad that he chose not to marry you. Can you imagine if he had kept his promise of marriage while continuing to be abusive? Would you have wanted a marriage under those circumstances? I would not think so. Since you are a professional and smart, capable woman you will overcome this present challenge. I have trust that, in time, you will once again gain your independence and be able to live on your own and find a job. As far as reporting to USCIS, I would not think that this could work since there does not seem to be police reports that would evidence your claims. But there might be a way, so keep researching. My advice would be to try to see the positive of the experience, at the end, you will feel a higher sense of empowerment out of having resolved your situation. You will succeed. Best wishes and you move forward!

Yes it is your opinion but it doesn't correlate with the facts. In all likelihood, the envelope your petition arrived in is immediately thrown out. It wouldn't make sense for USCIS to care or observe where the file was sent from, considering lots of Americans do travel and probably do the forms with their fiance in the fiance's country. Or even if they're on a working holiday or something.
If you've ever heard of someone being hassled about what country was on the envelope, maybe I will change my mind. But I've been on this site for awhile now and have never heard of that. The process doesn't need to be made more complicated by paranoia.

Yes it is your opinion but it doesn't correlate with the facts. In all likelihood, the envelope your petition arrived in is immediately thrown out. It wouldn't make sense for USCIS to care or observe where the file was sent from, considering lots of Americans do travel and probably do the forms with their fiance in the fiance's country. Or even if they're on a working holiday or something.
If you've ever heard of someone being hassled about what country was on the envelope, maybe I will change my mind. But I've been on this site for awhile now and have never heard of that. The process doesn't need to be made more complicated by paranoia.

Yes it is your opinion but it doesn't correlate with the facts. In all likelihood, the envelope your petition arrived in is immediately thrown out. It wouldn't make sense for USCIS to care or observe where the file was sent from, considering lots of Americans do travel and probably do the forms with their fiance in the fiance's country. Or even if they're on a working holiday or something.
If you've ever heard of someone being hassled about what country was on the envelope, maybe I will change my mind. But I've been on this site for awhile now and have never heard of that. The process doesn't need to be made more complicated by paranoia.

Yes it is your opinion but it doesn't correlate with the facts. In all likelihood, the envelope your petition arrived in is immediately thrown out. It wouldn't make sense for USCIS to care or observe where the file was sent from, considering lots of Americans do travel and probably do the forms with their fiance in the fiance's country. Or even if they're on a working holiday or something.
If you've ever heard of someone being hassled about what country was on the envelope, maybe I will change my mind. But I've been on this site for awhile now and have never heard of that. The process doesn't need to be made more complicated by paranoia.

They're all just very robotic responses. The fact that you have to sort of greet everyone with a "hi" and sign each post with your name is a little odd. You're not writing to "Dear Abbey", you're on a message board, we see that it's you posting when you post. Your posts are extremely long and filled with a lot of nonsense - you go off topic in a single post... and then you'll come back and post again and again... going off on some weird train of thought.
I really do try to avoid your posts altogether, but like Rob said, it's hard when it takes up so much space. You also don't need to "Lol" at the beginning or end of every sentence, it makes you sound like a complete maniac. It's a little overwhelming.
I am really sorry it had to come down to this, but since you've started posting more, someone had to say something.

Please don't.

As a former employee of the RCMP (who used to run those checks) I can confirm it's different everywhere. Some places it's crazy expensive and a long wait, others are free and you get it quick. It just depends on the jurisdiction.

I agree totally. I can go to sleep at night knowing the government isn't going to "catch" me for something I shouldn't have done. I don't understand how people can disregard the law to do what they want. This isn't trivial stuff...it's your entire life. Your home, your family, your career. Why mess with that?

Even though I'm not even sure you're real, Melissa, I'm going to respond honestly for the sake of others who have the same questions who may be reading this.
I think it's easy to blame the 'visa strain' when in reality, it may be something intrinsically wrong. Not saying that it's always the case, but sometimes it is.
People have a way of romanticizing the distance, and rewriting history to make things better in retrospect than they actually were. I will share, to explain. As most of you old timers know, I was in a dual country relationship for 8 years, with the majority of that time being irl. I lived over in England and had a great time. He wanted to get married, I just wanted to have fun and be a carefree 20-something year old: travel, party, shop, etc. We lived together, and we had a blast. I moved back to the US, and finally accepted his marriage proposal and we began making concrete plans for the future.
The distance did put a strain on things, and I did blame 'The Distance' a lot. But in reality, it was more than distance: it was character flaws, incompatibility, etc. But I would always chalk it up to 'visa stress' and 'distance'. It was easier to do that than to take a hard look at my then-partner and wonder if the eyes that I looked at him with while we were 'just having fun' were actually measuring him as a potential life partner, or I just looked at him thru these 'oh he's giving up country to be with me! How awesome are we!!!??' eyes.
In the end, I did a lot of soul searching and realized that our 'visa journey'...as many others here, was pretty straightforward, so what's with all the 'stress' being the root cause of every problem? The same traits I enjoyed as a single woman with him were the very same ones I had problems with looking at him as a potential husband. And as far as 'stress' is concerned: as I say, go look in the waivers forum and look at all the couples who pull together as a cohesive unit while spending years apart with nothing but uncertainty hanging over them. Go look at military families who spend days on end apart, with spouses not knowing if their SOs are even alive at the end of the day. 'Visa stress' for a straightforward case iint he UK especially, is bollocks imo. It's a flippin cake walk. And although some might call me jaded, I happen to think that I am pretty well balanced and matter of fact. No one's shooting at you, as my dad would say.
So my advice for ANYONE would be to really look at your partner and see that person's true character. Take off the rose colored glasses with how romantic it all is, how the accent is so cute, how he or she is giving up this that and the other to be with you. If your SO is displaying traits which cause problems, then don't take the easy way out and blame 'visa stress' or 'distance', but really decide for yourself if you can live with that person. Because once you sign that I184, you are on the hook. And also, eta: those traits are coming over with your SO when the visa's here.

I hate it when people pull the "race" card when things don't go their way...geesh if you bash the US like you have ..then China seems to be a better fit for you...Geesh

You don't need both your birth certificate and passport to prove citizenship but I guess it doesn't hurt.