biggish data

Interview at Syrian Embassy

Quick question: Is the CR-1/IR-1 visa routes quicker than the K-3?

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2008-11-23 00:10:00

syria to america tourist visa

QUOTE (Henia @ Jun 20 2007, 07:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Same chance as a Moroccan (or Egyptian or Algerian for that matter) getting one :0

we tried the tourist visa route last year and the guy was really rude and just made my husband feel uncomfortable and ...yeah it doesn't work. especially for younger males...

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2008-11-23 00:16:00

Man with 86 kids and more on the way!

wow....that's really irresponsible of him...just to fulfill some sort of male ego trip fantasy....i wonder how involved he is with all of his kids' lives....

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-18 18:50:00

problems with muslim spouse?

QUOTE (humpkinpumpkin @ Mar 18 2009, 05:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE (enraptured @ Mar 18 2009, 05:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is it fair to say then, that discrimination regarding those who come from Muslim countries is rampant and the norm when it comes to USCIS processing these visas?

No I don't think so and my husband went through hell in his interview. I think it's dependent on the country, not the religion of the person coming here.

QUOTE (enraptured @ Mar 18 2009, 05:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Would it help if you can somehow prove they're not "dangerous" or, in cases where non-Muslim minorities are involved, prove they're not Muslim and somehow make it easier for things to process?

Non-muslims are not immune to what goes on if they are from the country that does the most scrutinizing.

i guess i'm really cynical, hence my posts. it seems like also certain countries' cases get put on hold for various reasons more often than others...but i guess nothing can be done about that, i guess there are reasons for that...i just wish that there was a way to say or prove there's no need to go through all that...

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-18 22:33:00

problems with muslim spouse?

Is it fair to say then, that discrimination regarding those who come from Muslim countries is rampant and the norm when it comes to USCIS processing these visas? Would it help if you can somehow prove they're not "dangerous" or, in cases where non-Muslim minorities are involved, prove they're not Muslim and somehow make it easier for things to process?

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-18 16:08:00

Happy Anniversary - Jackie & Ibrahim!!!!

happy anniversary!!!

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 01:16:00

actually, no unfortunately. i would get them at the local bodega around here...

Hopefully the pics are ok, and I guess I'll start to try to save my cards again now... thanks guys.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-24 19:44:00

indeed...there's this option on msn messenger where you can send "voice clips"...that is what we did primarily because it sure beat wasting money on phone cards and what not...that's what worried me too....and seriously, it's kind of annoying for me to think that they'd actually read these things...we talk about stupid stuff....like what i did at work, etc...what he did, how much we missed each other...eh.

well, im going to go overboard in the next few months getting affidavits and stuff, hopefully that will be ok.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 21:01:00

QUOTE (UmmSqueakster)

How many times have you been to visit him? How much time have you spent together. In general, the more times, the better.

twice, and both times not to syria. i went to turkey in 2007 when we married, and then to jordan/turkey in 2008. he came by bus from syria to jordan, where we were. we spent a month in jordan and then flew to turkey. then i came back here and he went back to syria by bus...hopefully that won't pose a problem....

QUOTE (UmmSqueakster)

Also, re: your signature - did you file the I-130 in 08 or 09?

In 2009... February 4, 2009 is when it was filed....

thank you.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 20:27:00

QUOTE (Astarte @ Mar 20 2009, 03:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did you use a home or cell phone to use the phone cards? If so, get a print out of your calling history and circle the 800 numbers from the calling cards. That's what I did.

Like others have said, you don't need a boatload of evidence since they really don't look at it.

My husband had my calling history with the calling card numbers on it, a dozen or so photos, a handful of emails and that was about it. They looked at only the photos.

Good luck!

my main issue with this is that i made all those calls through my last cell phone which i dont have anymore..hopefully t-mobile will be kind enough to send me the logs from then...

thanks.

QUOTE ('Far2Long')

Primary Sources
Chat logs
call logs
notarized statements from friends and family who had prior knowledge of your relationship.
plane tickets

Secondary Sources
Pix

thanks...this helps. i wonder how many affidavits i can get before i go overboard lol...

Edited by enraptured, 20 March 2009 - 08:28 PM.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 20:24:00

QUOTE (Y's_habibitk @ Mar 20 2009, 03:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

enraptured.
You havent filed yet right?
For the initial petitions you can just send proof that you are legally married. You CAN send i affidavits and pics n such, but many people have been approved with little to no intitial evidence.
We did go overboard on the intial submissions, but i think it was uneccesary.

The real time to "prove it" is at the interview. Start by changing your settings to "archive" on whatever IM service you use. They wont auto archive on yahoo, i dont know about the others. Then you can cut and paste the screenprints to word as someone else suggested.
Just start from today and keep copies of everything. By the time you guys have your interview you will have enough proof, hopefully.

Dont fret about proof with your petition submissions. Just make sure you have ample for the interview.

Good Luck

edit:
I just saw that you have filed.

Even still, start saving everything now.
I personally think moneygram receipts may look suspicious coming from a wife. but that is strictly MY opinion as if I was a CO.
maybe someone with experience in that can correct me.

he doesnt have a pc at home and goes to internet cafes and that is even rarely (he feels a bit embarrassed because of his spelling skills) but i guess i'll just ask him to do it for the sake of having proof. thanks for the suggestion.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 20:17:00

i just had another thought. i would send money via moneygram from time to time for him to buy me something, or for him to put aside, etc. can i use the transactions i made with moneygram/western union to also prove our relationship or is this tacky?

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 14:25:00

QUOTE (UmmSqueakster @ Mar 20 2009, 03:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What kind of documents/evidence do you have related to your actual wedding? Did your family ever travel to meet him?

I know we sent photocopies of the envelopes of 5 or 6 letters we had sent each other, in addition to a few select emails and a few screen shots of my inbox from various points in our relationship. I didn't include anything related to the telephone or chatting programs. We sent probably 2 dozen pictures, including ones with my family and him in egypt.

Some people have boatloads of evidence, and the embassy people don't even look at it. We had a middling amount, mainly submitted with the original petition, and the interviewer didn't ask for anymore.

At this point, breath in, breath out...calm...

If you worry yourself to death, the process will be hell. If you take it easy, inshaAllah it won't stress you out too badly.

I have my marriage book (in Turkey they put the details of your marriage in this small little pleather notebook, I have had this translated already and notarized and sent it off with the I-130). I did not include the next forms with the I-130 package, but they also gave us two additional pieces of paper, one to congratulate us personally from their office and the other to say that they planted a tree in our name (!!!) in Ankara as a gift to us for our marriage, lol. Would those even help?

My aunt and cousins live in Turkey, and were the ones around at the time for our ceremony. My mother and sister met him last summer in Jordan when they came to visit for a few days. I have some pictures of us all hanging out...I do not have pics with my Turkish family though, theyre kind of shy about taking pics to begin with, not sure why.

UmmSqueak, thanks for your reply. I suppose I am just freaking out about everything related to this nowadays because I quite simply am so sick and damn tired of waiting! I am in fact miserable and pissed off every day I wake up because of this. I just want to start a life finally together. Ive waited enough time... and I dont want to spend another birthday without him. see, now I am whining here...another reason why I want this to end, I have become annoying!

Thank you again...Inshallah things will go smoothly and quickly...I just dont want there to be any reason WHATSOEVER for these people to say no to us...we are simple common fools who just want to be together and not bother with anyone...that's it.

I guess...like everyone else too.

Sorry for the emotional tirades...I dont know how some of you handle this ordeal

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 14:21:00

QUOTE (Minya's wife @ Mar 20 2009, 02:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

what service were you using to web-chat? With Skype and Messenger you can print out the chat-logs by Ctrl+PrintScreen and pasting in to a word document. (you have to repeat the process for each screen, as w/ this you're only copy/pasting as much info as fits into the window at a time, but that can be used as proof of ongoing relationship/communication.

Well, would they have logs saved from over 2 years?

I also used several different computers to chat with him, so did he (for me, work and my laptop, him= friends' PC's, Internet cafes, etc etc.)

I cant believe that they need this stuff...

I also think I did something really dumb last summer, I had been saving all the phone cards that I had used to call him but I had to move last July and storage was so tight I had to chuck a lot of my stuff out. I threw away the bag of cards thinking I wouldn't need them, but took pics just in case. Would this be acceptable you think...I really have no other way to prove this...

Has anyone else been in my situation before?

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 14:02:00

Hi all,

I am writing this in regards to my worries about "proving" my relationship with my husband.

We don't really write, and have not written a whole lot of emails to one another. I stupidly did not really save any chats we had, and the ones we normally did were usually over the phone or through webcam/microphone. I do have a couple that I kept for sentimental reasons, but they dont number over 20. I do have scores of pics of us together, but that's about it...and some gifts that he gave me...now I am wondering...what can I do to cement this further? Should I consider asking for a few more affidavits from people I know to verify our relationship? I am worried about the possibility that my case will be rejected because we don't have enough proof of our relationship. We never thought we'd be going the green card route; hence why I never cared about all this before...now it seems that it's going to come back to bite me in the ####

Any thoughts, suggestions, etc. would be highly appreciated...

kat

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 13:51:00

Islam and birth control??

islam is a very practical religion if anything. i'm not a scholar but i would imagine that if you can't afford to have another child to raise and it would cause hardship, then use birth control.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-26 14:50:00

VISA IN HAND!!!!!!!

congrats/mabrook!!!

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-22 15:57:00

i got it at last

congratulations!!!!

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-22 16:06:00

Israeli fashion

wow that's pretty sick and twisted.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-31 22:18:00

OH MY GOD, HE GOT IT!!!

congrats!!!

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-26 21:30:00

pregnant, and complicated- need advice abt K-1

Wow.....some of you are pretty mean....not very deeni behavior.

Squeaky, how can you be sure he's not playing you out? Anyone can say I love you, but actions speak a lot more than words..and while I or no one else can know entirely what you guys have, emotions do tend to get in the way big time when it comes to particularly.... "delicate" scenarios.....have you considered the following?

1) What does he do re work in Morocco? Is he willing to learn a trade there at least that he can take with him to the US to support you and your unborn child? How does he financially support himself now? Is he willing to support you from Morocco until his paperwork goes through?

2) How long were you guys actually in contact before you went? Doesn't seem that long? I would have said at least wait a year or so or at least till your divorce cleared before you went out there...but since this is obviously something that doesn't matter now...

3) Sorry to ask, but did he make a move on you initially when you first met? That will also prove a lot in regards to his respect for you. Does he know that you're pregnant/give a damn about it? Have you talked about the possibility of him supporting his child even if you two don't work out?

4) I am sorry for what you're going through, and while it could have been prevented, you need to think first and foremost about yourself. You really should wait for your divorce to be finalized. and if your ex-hubby and you are on good terms, how about trying to get an affidavit from him stating his reasons for why you two aren't together anymore, paving the path for you and your Morrocan honey to be together? Might help.....

Cheers.

Edited by enraptured, 31 March 2009 - 11:55 PM.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-31 23:54:00

pregnant, and complicated- need advice abt K-1

QUOTE (squeaky580 @ Mar 31 2009, 12:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

First, thank you to those who have given good advice... To answer some questions, I've known him a year, we were online friends first, his family is very supportive of us- while it may be a Muslim country, not every family is strict, (just like my family are Christmas and Easter Catholics, lol). I have dealt with men hunting for Green Cards in the past, and I know I'm not in that situation now, he is not pushing me to do any of this, and quite honestly I think the thought of living in America scares the ####### out of him, but he's willing to do it so that we can be together. I spoke to my immigration lawyer today, after this onslaught of negativity, and she told me that we should have no problems, as long as we can prove that our relationship is legitimate, that a child has no bearing on our situation, and nothing about our child need be included in our application. She did tell me that it would be best if I didn't take the baby to Morocco until we are married. Oh yes, and I am not due in the summer, I am due in late November. I can thank Maryland divorce law for making my marriage look alot longer than it was, I have to wait a year for it to be final, even though I only lived with him for a little less than 4 months, and I currently have no clue where he is. Really, I just want to move on with my life with someone whom I adore, and who was there for me as a dear friend when I went through the horror of a fraudulent marriage and subsequent uprooting of the life I was just starting to build, and who, thank God, I found later to be the love of my life. I'm terribly sorry if our actions have been offensive to anyone on this forum, I just thought I could find some kind of support here, perhaps I was wrong, perhaps I was right.
Thanks again.

i didn't read the entire thread. but wondering....

1) can you possibly put your stuff in storage, go there and live with him perhaps in a large city like casablanca, rabat, etc.? you can maybe do an islamic ceremony at least for the sake of your child and then hopefully after that marry legally? and then do DCF filing? is it possible for you to get financial support while you are there with all this? or even work from the Net somehow?

my main concern for you would be that you haven't fully understood him or know him that well, and that you may be in for a rude awakening....but at least maybe it's best for you to go there and at least figure out if this is the man you want to spend the rest of your life with.

2) if you cannot do this, guess there's really no choice for you but to perhaps wait it out re your divorce, the birth, etc. perhaps you can conceal the birth of your child from his family if that is going to cause you guys a lot of grief. maybe that sounds really odd, but knowing how most people are in this part of the world re illegitimate births, you may need to think this out. but i guess if anything, you're due to wait for a long long time....maybe it's best to wait also after your divorce finalizes, go there, get married then come back and start the process....

i am not an expert on these topics, just someone else going through this nightmare, but hope that you sit down and think this through........best of luck to you.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-31 23:13:00

thank you...yes turkce az biliyorum ama pratik lazim...

i would prefer to actually live in ankara, istanbul is amazing but it annoys me a great deal at the same time....and the asian side is ok but i tend to notice that public transportation there is not as ok as the european side...not that the other side is so amazing anyways....but still trying to work on this to begin with....i know im one of thousands who is going through this, but i just wish i could just get it done ASAP. its so unfair that this ####### takes so goddamn long!

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-04-10 14:18:00

QUOTE (DieNörglerin @ Apr 8 2009, 01:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I take it you are Turkish-American? Your husband should get residency through you in Turkey, but finding a job in Turkey is not easy due to the high unemployment. I don't know how quick or easy it would be to switch to DCF if you've already started the process. How long since you applied? You might just call a lawyer and see if they will give you the information over the phone. Also write to the American embassy in Ankara to ask. Also, check out the Turkish thread in the European forum. Maybe somebody there has had experience with this.

no, my mom is...i will pm you

thanks

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-04-08 23:53:00

hi all,

i figure that instead of littering the forum with endless threads, i'd continue posting in my original one.

so i have a dilemma:

i am seriously considering just going to syria and spending a few months there. i really did not want to consider this option, but i've really got nothing to keep me down here for now, i can leave my current gig at any time.

is there a chance, pending my getting residency there, that i can just have my petition changed to a DCF? is it even worth it?

my other question is this: we might just go ahead and spend some time in turkey, as i am in the midst of getting turkish citizenship to begin with. since his interview will most likely be in ankara anyways, couldn't we just have everything sent to a turkish address and also do everything else, i.e. the medical and what not?

i find USCIS to be a pain in the azz and not really helping me much at all when it comes to answering my questions regarding these things. i'm also a bit too poor (lol) at the moment to really deal with attorneys.

any advice/help would be appreciated....thanks!

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-04-07 23:04:00

thanks for the kind words! Inshallah all of us are reunited with our loved ones soon.

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-22 16:10:00

Patience is a virtue, I guess

I'm like everyone else...a work in progress...I have faith, but I guess I need to work on not lapsing into sadness

Hopefully one day at a time....

I'm planning to go back to school soon, so hopefully that will be something to keep me distracted for a while...especially in this economy, why not take advantage of the situation....

meowmeowmeow

Female

Syria

2009-03-20 23:33:00