NY Times article on IMBRA delays

[groovlstk]

The NY Times published an article today about American men who got caught up in the IMBRA mess, some of whom are still waiting for their fiancees. It wasn't as condescending as I expected:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/us/17brides.html?hp&ex=1161144000&en=e59920613bdf599e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Here are some interesting stats they included, too bad Maxx is no longer around to comment:

Reports of violence in international marriages, some of them Internet matches, have increased in recent years. In 1998, fewer than 2,500 foreign women applied to become permanent residents under the Violence Against Women Act, which allows abused wives to apply for residence without the support of their husbands. In the fiscal year that ended in September, 9,500 applied.

[AugustD]

The comments guys are giving here are totally accurate.  Timelines for the K1 seem to be "at best" erratic.  The IMBRA situation created a plethora of issues not because it is necessarily a bad law but because no one knew what the deuce to do with it.  My personal application went in after the application forms were changed thus we moved through the servicing center in Nebraska in 60 days...now we can be snafu-ed at two more stops along the way... we have no idea.

The issue isn't that it is taking too long but it is unregulated and totally erratic. Some poor people are just stuck with probably identical documents to myself and are still waiting and within the same servicing center.  No accountability and no seemingly regulation.  I keep my fingers crossed for clear sailing the rest of the way but just because it was smooth for me doesn't make it a good system.  It stinks and if you want to write in your book something meaningful, write that.  Clerks are standing judgement over peoples lives with no accountability.

[Bruce]

August, agreed.  However, there are inequities every step of the way.  Some guys are waiting years to adjust status.  With each application / step comes a new game.

[William3rd]

Hisotrically, the K1 process has always been erratic. This IMBRA stuff shall pass and we will strike a new norm-although I dont know what that norm will be. Back in the 90s, the processing times were VSC- 5-10 days, CSC 30 days, TSC- 24 days and NSC 60 days. Sometimes they could get to zero days. Anytime that they change horses midstream, there is a backlog. The only bright spot is that the consulates catch up their backlogs and we sometimes see reduced interview times.

My personal fiancee visas took 45 days, 96 days and 33 days with CSC times being 13 days, 45 days, and 10 days.

I have to tell you that I am not happy with what I am seeing- I have filed a few waiver cases now for a couple of 70 year old school teachers who had some bad luck and a working stiff, none of whom are the guys that IMBRA is supposed to be aimed at.

[Bruce]

So William III, what are your experiences with other portions of the BCINS game, like adjustment of status cases etc.?  I suppose the K-1 times you included for yourself do not include the months paperwork usually sits on your desk before you get around to sending it back to your clients for them to file their K-1 themselves now, does it  ?   Take it from a former fully paid client, but it was good you let it sit for two - three months, since I saw how poor a job you do and it gave me extra time to sort things out with my prospective K-1, which I was smart enough to not let materialize and never file.  Live and learn.  Dealing with a tour lawyer was part of the learning curve.  I let by-gones be by-gones, but do not expect to come on a board trying to drum up clients when you have former clients to tell exactly the real service you gave them at the time  .

[William3rd]

Excuse me- I am not here to drum up clients and I do not know you. I am not aware of leaving any cases on my desk for months-unless we are waiting for materials from the clients.

If you get some small consolation from personal attacks, then I hope you feel better

[William3rd]

To answer your AOS question. Adjustments of status has several factors involved in processing times. Backlog of the local office, the return of the background checks, country of origin. In SO Cal the cases seem to run 6-8 months right now. I see the interviews getting a little tougher but fiancee based AOS usually has an easier time. THe has also been a pilot program tried in some areas where fiancees get no interview at all-they try to catch the couple up at the 751 filing.

Battered spouse- of which I have seen a tremendous increase of late are split into prima facie case evaluation-which gets the work permit in about 60 days- and then full case adjudication-which can take over a year.

[Bruce]

Yes, yes, blame it on the client, but I know the truth.  This is not a personal attack, just the facts on the service I received way back when filing a K-1 visa.   It was a good lesson for me - never use a lawyer when you can do things yourself faster and better   .   Thanks for your opinion on AOS times in California.  The cities that I know from this board taking the longest are Miami, Phoenix and New York, over two years for each and counting.

[William3rd]

Phoenix was always really bad and the best was Reno Nevada. LA used to be up to two years but then they opened a San Berdoo Office, Santa Ana, etc. NOw they all run shorter. THE worst seems to be San Diego In California which is way over a year. The Muslim cases seem to take forever- the Gang of 27.

Have a nice weekend!!!

[jb]

My personal fiancee visas took 45 days, 96 days and 33 days with CSC times being 13 days, 45 days, and 10 days.

So it would appear that having filed already 3 K-1s on your own behalf, the next will require a waiver before proceeding.  How long will it take to process that waiver?  Whatever time it takes will delay the poor bastards behind you by that many days.

I would seem to me that lawyers filing an endless stream of cases requiring waivers are one of the main reasons for creating backlogs.  IMBRA reduces the number of K-1s, per lifetime, to a total of two per person, the 3rd, 4th and 5th will require waivers.  As long as there are "unlucky at love" losers out there who can't get it right the 1st or 2nd time, there will be a lawyer willing to bog down the various systems with additional paperwork.

Why don't you be a good sport about it and get out of the foreign bride business?  Those men who are truly eligible will thank you for not impeding their applications.

[Jet]

Hey kids, William3rd has been a pretty good sport since arriving here, maybe we can cut him just a tiny little bit of slack?

[William3rd]

Nobody knows as of yet how long the waiver process might take. It is unclear whether there will actually be a waiver processed separately in the process-with an additional routing step involved- or whether the waiver will be adjudicated by the handling officer on the spot as part of the processing.

It is also unclear just what standard will be followed in the application of hardship. There are different standards in immigration as to what hardship will be considered. THere is hardship, extraordinary hardship and extreme hardship.

What evidence will be considered for hardship? My last K visa, I have a church annulment based on her adultery. The first one I have her court records on her DV.

Personally, I am going to marry overseas next time and follow the I130 process. Then I can file a waiver on the K3 portion of the case and watch it go-or not go- for my own information. FYI- I am getting married in December of this year. She will spend about 6 months of the year here and about the same amount of time over there until I can spend all my time in her country in about another 8 years.

I have seen a lot of second cases filed over the years; probably about 3% of the cases that I have worked on are for a third filing. The record that I saw was five filings over 4 years. Only one fiancee came over and he married her. The petitioner was using the process as a good-faith indicator.

Of the scattering of women who filed for K1 visas- yes, women do this too- most of them seem to stay married and most of them seem to get married. I have not done enough female petitoners to be able to warrant statistical comparisons but out of a couple dozen cases, one sent her fiancee home during the 90 days and one was divorced by her beneficiary after he got a green card. I am still in touch with some of the women and they are still married. I usually hear from them about the time their husbands are eligible for US citizenship- in the 3-5 year period after the green card

[William3rd]

Thanks Jet- Appreciate the comment.

I am participating here because I like participating in forums. I have more experience than I want to have. Certainly I would have stayed married the last time.

I plan on continuing my participation in the future. If even one guy ends up not making the same mistakes that I made, then it is a good thing.

[BC]

Bill,

Out of curiosity, a while back I looked at some immigration sites and it seemed that men were applying for fiancee's from FSU eastward while for women were applying for fiance's predominantly from Europe (mostly UK) and Australia. I was also a bit surprised at how many US women were looking overseas..  I'm pretty much excluding applicants from the same national/cultural background.

Does this reflect your experience?

Would be kind of interesting to find that women are seeking men overseas for much the same reasons that men do.

[jb]

maybe we can cut him just a tiny little bit of slack?

Jet,

Slack is what I cut for the rank newbie, not for the seasoned veteran who should know better.  I'm not choosing Bill for extra harsh treatment, but he's a lawyer involved in the immigration paperwork chain.  I suspect entire rain forests have been laid to waste to make the paper needed for lawyers.   

In the case of the USCIS, while I'd love to be a fly on the wall and be privy to the innermost workings, I cannot claim that privilege.  However, I've attended enough staff meetings in my lifetime to have a pretty good idea about what gets discussed, and what supervisors are probably telling their troops.  The ICE recently uncovered a ring, or several groups, doing multiple marriages to foreigners from Africa for green cards.  Whenever such events are revealed it will almost be sure to produce cautions to the worker bee adjudicators by their supervisors; "hey guys, this stuff is going on out there and you need to be extra careful about these applications" etc.,,, you can sort of imagine that as the worker sits down to the mountain of papers on his desk the attitude of resentment he or she must feel towards potential evil doers.  Unfortunately, even the right and proper application is going to be subjected to additional scrutiny, all of which takes extra time and further bogs down an already overloaded system.

For every rule, for every regulation, for every law we have to contend with, you may rest assured there was some idiot out there that abused the common sense that should govern society.  The immigration issues pre-9-11 vs post-9-11 are clear evidence of that.

[BC]

jb,

Regardless of post 9/11 changes I think the basic problem is that the approval processes in the US are centered in huge inaccessible 'factories', in theory to increase productivity.  Unfortunately in any assembly line operation a 'quirk' tends to stop the whole production line, not to mention infamous 'bottom drawer syndrome' where workers tend to dispose of anything that requires a little more effort than the norm.  I fear it is sometimes easier to simply loose paperwork than deal with the minor irregularity involved.. after all even if everything has to be resubmitted chances are it will land on someone elses desk.  hehe..

In essence, here we have the same type of immigration processes and requirements involved, including security checks etc etc, but I think direct interaction between applicant and case worker makes a world of difference, even when it comes to security concerns. Practically every city with over 100.000 inhabitants has a self-sufficient immigration office and applications are adjudicated locally.  I'm sure all is not roses, especially in the larger cities. But even then it is comforting to know a particular office IS responsible for your application, even if the line is longer than usual.  If something or everything gets lost (it does happen) the applicant always retains originals and making another copy or two is not a huge problem.

I can imagine it is quite frustrating submitting to a 'black hole' where your only true point of contact is probably the postman (poor fellow).

[William3rd]

Here is a major difference for US/EU relationships. Many countries are in the VWP- Visa Waiver Program. That means that their citizens can fly here without a visa and are waived in. So a woman who meets someone in whatever fashion, gets to go there and visit-wherever there is-and then her fiancee can easily get here for a period of weeks to visit.

The one thing that I have found in most of my female petitioners is that they have taken a lot more time than most of the men in their decision making-except for the ones in the second group that  i mentioned in my last post.

[Bruce]

Jet, I have to agree that Bill is a good over all source of advice and if he keeps on posting credible information more power to him.  I've said my piece of history concerning the two of us earlier.  The fact that he came onto this board with Ashley Neil, attacking his former "turr" collaborator AFA, leads me to think something is up his sleeve, but I'll see how his tenure unfolds.  Life I said before, so far so good on the immigration threads.

[Gator]

Personally, I like the way Will answered your criticism and deflected it without getting into a dispute.  I wish the agency owners would learn the same.  Whatever happened between the two of you does not diminish his legal opinions.