I am becoming extremely frustrated over my current case status.
I am currently residing in Egypt with my husband and have been residing here since April 2007 waiting for approval on immigration to bring my husband back to US with me. My husband and I have been associated with each other for approx 7 years , however, we had only met in person once and kept in contact over the years maintaining a close relationship. We decided in March to marry and I traveled to Egypt in April 2007 to marry my husband. When I came to Egypt we married in a religious ceremony as my husband and we intended to return to the US to marry in a civil wedding, as we had learned that neither of us being Egyptian citizens it would be very complicated for us to marry here, but this is where my husband was living, I had decided at that time to remain in Egypt with him to wait. As we were only married religiously and the US Embassy doesn't recognize this as a legal
marriage we had decided we would have to file for a fiancée VISA. I returned home to US in May 2007 for 3 weeks as I have a home there and also a business there and I had to tie up lose ends to return to Egypt for my stay. We applied for a visitor VISA at that time in hopes my husband could come with me to help me, however, it was denied as apparently my husband could not show sufficient evidence of his plans to return to Egypt, so I had to go alone, not to mention we were at a loss for the fees. I stayed in US for 3 weeks and I returned to Egypt on May 17 to stay and wait with my husband and we filed for the fiancée VISA in June and then we received our receipt number in the first half of July. After a few months and while we were still waiting for approval from USCIS, my husband and I decided to have a destination wedding and began saving our money to travel to Seychelles to marry there as we found we could marry easily in a civil wedding without the complications we would encounter as non Egyptian citizens trying to marry in Egypt. We made our plans to travel to Seychelles in November for our wedding in Seychelles Prior to making these plans, I had contacted USCIS to see how this would impact us and I was told that all I needed to do when we returned from Seychelles is to file the additional
form I-130
for spouse visa and send the additional filing fee for that and my status would be changed to spouse VISA in conjunction with the I-129 that was already filed and that I would not have to file the I-129 again. Never once was I told that we would be denied because of our legal marriage
After we returned from Seychelles, I called USCIS on November 19 to verify what I needed to do and I was told that the information I was given was not correct and that basically I would have to re-file all over again and that I would have also to re-send all of the same documentation all over again with the new petition regardless of the fact they already had all the same documentation needed and regardless of the fact that the I-129 was still in pending status. Again I was still not told that I would probably be denied because we had gotten married, but I was told that I should hear something within the next 47 days and that possibly I might want to wait until I heard from USCIS on the I-129F. My husband and I decided to wait for the decision as we had already waited for nearly 6 months already. I kept waiting and still I did hear anything and still had not received any online updates regarding my case. I also sent a email complaining about this situation of conflicting information and not receiving any email updates regarding my case but never received any response from USCIS whatsoever. On December 14 I decided to look online and check my online case status and it stated that a letter had been sent and had been returned undeliverable to USCIS. I called USCIS and found my mail had been sent back as because of finances I had to rent out my home in October and have my mail forwarded to my parents home to make sure I get everything sent to me in Egypt correctly as the mail system is so poor here. I was told by USCIS that the post office doesn't forward government mail, which surprised me because I have had plenty of other govt' documents forwarded in the past. I changed my mailing address with USCIS at that time to my current mailing address where my mail was being received. I had not realized my address needed to be changed as my home address is still the same address, however, I was having my mail temporarily forwarded while I am residing in Egypt to make sure I can have a family member to send all my mail to me here and to make sure it is addresses properly in order to make sure I receive it as it takes a ling time for me to get mail here and since the mail system is so bad, if it is not addressed correctly I might possibly not even receive it. The letter was resent out from USCIS and was received at my mailing address in US, at my parents home on December 22 with a return date of December 22 as well asking for more information as they stated in that letter there was insufficient information provided to prove that my husband and I had met prior to filing the fiancée
VISA. There asked for more evidence and asked for it to be sent along with the original letter. For one thing, this was an absurd request as the letter was only received on December 22, therefore it would be impossible to send a response by December 22 and not only that, in order for me to send this information along with the original letter, I would have to wait for it to be sent to me in Egypt before I could send it which with the mail system here in Egypt it would take me at beat 10 days at least even express mail or 3 weeks regular mail before I could send it back. I was unable to contact USCIS regarding this letter for a few days as it fell on a weekend and then over the Christmas holidays so I contacted them on the next available date after the holidays that I could reach them to discuss this with them and again I was disappointed and received more conflicting information. I was told that because of that return date, they don't grant any extensions for any reason regardless of this, but they said I should go ahead and send in the requested information because it is possible they might receive it before my case was actually worked and they advised me to send in the information they asked for and then to go ahead but it would probably be denied because we got married and were ahead of the VISA process and were no longer eligible for
fiancée VISA and that I should go ahead and also file the I-130 spouse VISA. The agent also told me that since I have resided in Egypt for at least 6 months that it would be easier and also faster for me to go to the local US consulate here in Cairo to file. I began gathering my information and waiting for my family to send the original letter to me that I needed to send in with the additional information requested. I sent all of the information they requested after I received the letter, despite the fact they asked me to send basically much of the same information I had already sent such as pictures and I also sent a lot of additional travel documents, postal receipts etc… I called the local consulate in Cairo the following day to make an interview appointment to file the I-130. They gave me an interview date for January 8 and then called me a couple days later to reschedule my appointment because they had made the appointment on a holiday. They re-scheduled my appointment for January 13. Cairo is 4 hours train ride from me and we traveled to Cairo early the morning of January 13 only to find out they gave me the wrong date and we had to turn around and go home and return the following morning again on January 14. Again on January 14, I was disappointed. Never once had I been told we could not file here in Cairo because neither I nor my husband could not provide sufficient evidence to them that we had resided here for at least 6 months despite the fact I had been here for least 7 months consecutively and my husband had been here for over a year and a half. Apparently our
passport stamps were not sufficient. We were not allowed to file here. The women at the consulate window I dealt with was extremely incompetent in reading my documents. She was extremely rude. She was not able to decipher my passports stamps and it was as if she didn't even know how to read them at all, she did not even know how to understand that she was looking at my divorce decree at first and argued with me about my divorce decree from my first husband, despite the fact I presented her with the original divorce decree from my first and also from my second marriage. Finally she called a supervisor over to help her read over the documentation and once we got past all that, that is when we found they would not even allow us to file there after all of that harassment. The supervisor was extremely rude and I have never dealt with such a rude and very obviously bigoted person in my life. She basically told me I need to file back with the Vermont service center where I had originally filed my I-129 and file in conjunction with my I-129. Although I tried to explain our situation more clearly, I was continuously cut off as if I was being ignored and not even allowed to ask any questions or to clarify any information that I was told about applying there or anything so we left and traveled all the way back to Alexandria after making 2 trips 2 days in a row for nothing. I called USCIS again the next day and again I explained my situation to the agent I got on the phone and much to my surprise, he was very nice as most of the agents I have gotten on the phone are not nice, they are rude and not helpful. He agreed I had been sent around on a wild goose chase for far too long and put me through to an immigration officer. The officer clarified with me that I need to file the I-130 and that since I still had a pending application at that time for the I-129, I should send it to the Vermont Service Center and not the Chicago lockbox, since that is where I filed and that it was still pending and that I should include a statement of this situation and also to put in my statement that I was filing this in conjunction with the already pending application for I-129F and to request it be used as a K-3 VISA and I should be all set to go. I followed her advice and again sent all of the requested information required all over again for the I-130 and I included in it a statement of this situation and a request for my pending I-129F to be used for a K-3 visa in conjunction with my I-130. I did this in January. After 3 weeks I was getting a little frustrated again because I still could not see that my check had posted onto my bank account yet and also in the meantime while waiting I received a letter of denial on the I-129F and I called USCIS to inquire about this and an agent again put me through to speak with an officer. He was extremely rude and not helpful at all and basically told me I would just have to wait because there are many people ahead of me and I may have to wait up to 15 weeks to hear something because they were behind. I tried to explain to him that the reason for my concern was because the new updates on USCIS website states that everything filed before the date I filed has been caught up. Again he was extremely rude and cut me off and did not even listen to my conversation or explanations and finally he just hung up the phone on me and I regretted at that point that I did not take his agent id number as well as the id numbers from all the others I have dealt with since the beginning of all of this. A few days later my family called to let me know I had received my receipt number for the new filing. It has been a couple of weeks now since I have received the new receipt number and have no idea what my situation is or how long I should have to wait since because of all of the conflicting information, the delays caused to me by USCIS and the fact that while all this has been going on they have issued a denial of the K-129F which I believe to be extremely unfair because it was still pending, and I was also told this could be used as a K-3 VISA and because when I filed this the filing fee was $170 and it would be extremely unfair for me to have to
refill
I-129 in order to bring my husband to US quicker with me and pay the new fee of $455 simply because of their inadequacies. I also think it extremely unfair after all of these months I have had to wait, for me to be penalized for marrying my husband and have to wait all over again as my current documents are fresh, and current and up to date and have already been processed with USCIS for the I-129F. I have become extremely distressed over all of this and I feel as a US citizen, I am being treated horribly and I feel my rights are being violated. I feel I have the right to be in my home by now and to have my husband there with me and if I was not penalized for marrying my husband, we would be in our home in US by now. This situation is also causing me many problems both financially and otherwise. It is very mentally draining for me as it is not a comfortable environment here and it is both stressful for me and my husband as we had not expected to have to be here this long as my husband lost his work when I came and since we did not believe we would be here that long, we did not think it necessary to try to look for new work for such a short period as it is difficult to find work here anyway. I work in a business that I am able to bring my work with me and work from here in Egypt, and was able to support us easily until the time we would go, however, this lengthy process is beginning to drain me financially as my business is beginning to fail here because I cannot do the proper marketing I am used to doing in the US and because of the phone and internet troubles I have here as my work is phone and internet based, therefore my income has suffered severely. I have had to get into funds I had set aside to be able to provide for my husband's affidavit of support and now because of all of this I am concerned about being able to provide an adequate affidavit of support by the time USCIS gets tired of jerking us around. The financial burden is also stressful because now I have found myself having to support two homes for a longer period then anticipated. We are encountering a lot of additional expenses being here that should not be necessary such as additional mailing fees, additional fees for these unnecessary trips to and from Cairo consulate, additional filing fees, just a lot of additional expenses in general. I am also about to incur additional expenses by having to take a trip home next month if I am not able to get this resolved by USCIS by them because because I have many things that need to be taken care of concerning, my home, my work and my family that cannot possibly wait longer then next month, which means I will have that additional expense going and then coming back to Egypt to rejoin my husband only to have to wait longer in this increasingly uncomfortable environment. I am having the ever increasing concern for my parents as they are elderly in their 70's and 80's and becoming more sickly lately and I feel I need to be their for them and I also have only one remaining grandparent that is 97 years old that I pray every day will still be alive for me to see again by the time USCIS gets done playing around and I can be back home. This situation has also had a great impact on my husband and I as we had some testing done to try to conceive a child the only way we are able which is by IVF. We have found that we only have a little over a 5% chance of success and that every bit of time we waste makes it next to impossible for us and we have had to wait until we can hear something from USCIS as we have not wanted to proceed with this in Egypt and bring a child born in this country as an Egyptian citizen and have to go through more bothersome immigration problems and also we do not want to have a child here in this uncomfortable environment and because of USCIS and the additional time they have placed on us along with the additional stress have made my chances next to impossible for my husband and I to even have a child now at all because of my age and because of the stress factor combined according to the doctor. I feel also this has been additional money extorted from me first with the denial of the visitor VISA back in May 2007 and now the denial of the
fiancée VISA recently which should not have even been denied but used as a K-3 VISA instead.
My rights are clearly being violated and this incompetency by USCIS and the conflicting information I have received is clearly causing me financial concern, stress and additional concern for my elderly parents who also need me as well. I am not able to go to them now because of our situation and the fact I am also supporting my husband here until we go to US. My husband is currently under a contract in which he is training with me in my business until we return to US at which time he will be able to take a contract of his own with my company I contract with and work independently in my business along which me which will relieve me of some of this financial burden and this situation USCIS has placed on me is entirely unfair. I am literally running out of money here to support us and don't want to have to use up my assets that I need to be able to provide our affidavit of support. I have again spoken to USCIS and they have no information for me concerning my case and in fact are not even putting information online on the case status updates as they have something messed up in their database and I have no clue what the status of my situation is at this time and if they have reversed the denial on the I-129F to be used as a K-3 or anything at this point and I think for me to sit over here completely uninformed is absurd and even when we finally hear something regarding our case, I cringe at the thought of having to go back to Cairo to even deal with those rude creatures again. What a terrible way to be treated and what a horrible feeling to have to feel so intimidated! At this point in my case, USCIS has and has had even prior to my submitting the I-130 more then enough documentation of everything, including even some of the documentation they have not even asked for which I included so as not to leave any holes for them to have to ask me for any other documentation and have to be out the additional costs of mailing. They have 2-3 copies of all of my supporting documents, birth certificates, passport copies, marriage certificates, statements letters, letters of complaints, travel documents, copies of postal receipts, pictures with time and dates on them, and anything they could possible need to get things moving yet they continue to drag their feet. I have currently mailed a letter to the ombudsman for homeland security but I am waiting to hear something and I am hoping maybe they can help, other then that I don't know what else I can do. Has anyone else had any similar situation like mine? Any advice? This whole handling of things by them is just nuts!
I-130 Frustration And Angry, I-130 Spouse VISA