MOB/ K1 Visa

[Son of Clyde]

I will pose questions I have asked in the past.

Does MOB encompass all these agencies we hear so much about?

How in the hell do you expect to have a close, intimate relationship with a woman 4,000 miles away? How often do you visit her? How often do you write to her? How often do you phone her?

The idea behind a "honest" MOB concept is to find a husband for a specific woman. The man must establish the foundation and communicate by telephone, visits or emails.

There is no set amount of emails, no specific amount of "face time" no nothing.

How can any CO deny a visa on their own perceived criteria? Where are the specifics? Where are the rules?

So Ukraine is very simple now and there is a CO in Russia who is a tyrant.

Are there specific laws that constitute what is a legitimate relationship?

So the CO is not a professional matchmaker.

If my lady was living in Moscow I might be in the same situation as Turboguy and Matt. I think Matt's lady fared better because she has better English skills but the CO was still brutal with her.

I have missed a lot in a few days. 

 

 

[Bruce]

I have no idea what the said "criteria" are.   It seems that politics plays a role.  The only way to get a good inference would be to get a percent rejection for K-1 / other visas by country ie. out of every K-1 applied Y gets the visa in Ukraine and X gets the visa in Russia.  It also seems that K-1's are processed faster for Ukrainian than Russians.  Maybe someone adept at wading through the websites can find some US government statistics / information on what the CO's supposedly are looking for.

[Goombah]

Well, for starters, I object to the term "MOB" - there is hardly anything "mailorder" about this process.

To respond to your questions:

"How in the hell do you expect to have a close, intimate relationship with a woman 4,000 miles away?"

Multiple e-mails daily, multiple phone calls daily, very intense times together as often as possible (3-4 times a year).  Total honestly, no secrets, no "unfair" questions.

"How often do you visit her?"

At least once every 4 months, and thats pushing it.  Once every 3 months would be great.

"How often do you write to her?"

Several times a day.  Special "long letters" (say over 4 pages) at least weekly.  

 "How often do you phone her?"

2-3 times a day.  Sometimes just to say "Dobry Ultra!".

Kevin

[ConnerVT]

[user=130]Son of Clyde[/user] wrote:

How can any CO deny a visa on their own perceived criteria? Where are the specifics? Where are the rules?

As he is empowered by the US State Department to do so.  It is a part of his job.

There is no law or rule, written or implied, that guarantees any non-US citizen the right to obtain a visa.  Even a visa does not guarantee entry into the US, as any non-US citizen can be turned away at POE at the discretion of the officers there.

When a person is granted a visa interview, it means that the supplied information presented for the visa have met the guidelines developed by the State Dept (which were developed to procedurally meet federal laws).  The interview is the first time the State Dept physically sees the applicant.  The main role of the CO is to see if the person 'fits' the supplied information.  Do they seem to be honestly answering questions?  Do they know the particulars of the situation?  Does it seem correct?  If not, it's their job to, at the very least, hold the application for review.  I imagine many COs have become more 'gun shy' since 9/11, and are less likely to approve a visa if they have doubts.

One would imagine that interviewers are given training.  They are certainly given guidelines.  They also do this each day, interviewing numerous people (just look at the interview schedule at the Moscow embassy website).  So they are most likely more experienced at it than me or you.  There is undoubtedly a "set of rules."  After all, it is government we're speaking about here.  Someone (jb?) found a great link to the USCIS procedures and guidelines.  State must have something similar, although it likely resides on an Intranet, not Internet, server.

One needs to remember that only US citizens have a constitutional right to live in the US.  Even someone who holds Resident Alien status is only in the US by the grace of federal laws.  And laws can be changed quickly in extraordinary circumstances.  Remember the Japanese living in the US during WWII?

[BC]

Remember the Japanese living in the US during WWII?

And many were true blue citizens.

In any case MOB or not I don't believe couples with a real marriage oriented relationship will have much trouble.

If I were uncle sam I would probably just do away with the often misused K1 anyway and keep K3 with face to face time requirements.  Would reduce a lot of unnecessary paperwork bring the RW MOB scene/hype back down to a reasonable level.

[andrewfi]

This guy in Moscow is quite obviously there to deal with the difficult cases. Consider this: on the day of Turboguy's gf's interview, she was the only one he interviewed and she got an RFE. Assuing that there is only one guy of the same physical appearance, he is the one who rejects more applications than the others. Given that these people are all doing the same job, if he were consistently rejecting more applications than hs peers, in the course of day to day work, he would be hauled up by his superiors. Instead, he gets the difficult ones, the ones with question marks. Old guys with young girls is probably a major flag. He then has to, on meeting, go into detail.

These folk are doing two things, protecting their own arse and protecting that of their employer - you and your hundreds of millions of peers.

BTW, there are guidelines about the visa policy, it is linked to the number of people who overstay, having been granted a visa and the number of visas issued compared to rejection.

For example to gain entry to the visa waiver programme, a country must have less than 3% of visa applications rejected. Russia, Ukraine and the Baltics have figures around 30% (figures are right magnitude, but may be misremembered!) These countires also have very large numbersof overstayers. Until this situation changes, these places will have difficulty gaining visas for any category of entry.