cosmiclobster

I agree 100% You need to call, or better yet, visit your congressperson!! Their single main reason for being in office is to help their constituents (you) deal with problems arising from dealing with the federal government. You'll have to sign a consent form authorizing them to inquire on your case in your behalf. I believe they are your best bet to get the ball rolling. Considering how far behind you are, I would also contact both of your senators. They can also inquire on your behalf and can ask questions as to why it takes the USCIS 10 months for them to do their jobn!!! You pay taxes, make your elected officials work for you!! If I was in your situation and my elected officials were to busy with 3 martini lunches to bother with me, I would write to your local newspapers and radio stations and magazines to point out the injustice of the system and how can our country be protected from terrorists if it take them 10 months to decide if one immigrant is a terrorist or not!!!! Give em hell because, contrary as one person would have you believe, they are NOT doing a helluva job!!!!

Wow! it takes 2 years for a CR1! 236906[/snapback] Ya, two years and 8 trips later she finally gets to come home and what is one of the first things she wants to do.....leave the country!!!!! 236915[/snapback] That is pretty funny!!! Maybe you should tell her if she leaves, it will take another 2 years to get back in!!! I'm really glad to hear that you are on the last leg of this journey. You guys started 3 months after we did and my sweetie has been here over a year already!!

Here is a link to Mike Lin's Start Up program: Start Up One version is a stand alone program and the other lives in Control Panel, but they both work the same. It makes it very easy to go in and see what gets loaded into your PC every time you power up, and just as easy to delete the things that you don't need to have running in memory every single time you power up! Check it out!

csnmin and other like it are very annoying and hard to remove, but not impossible. Ewido is a good free program to remove garbage and AntiVir is a free virus protection program and it is good also. I also have Spyware Blaster and Spybot Search and Destroy on my PC (both free) I also recommend a good firewall (I use Lavasoft Personal Firewall, which is not free but it was for me *wink*). A friend gave me his laptop because it was so hopelessly buried in Chinese spyware and crap that it took a half hour to boot and it would take another 10 minutes to open a program!! It took me the better part of 2 days to clean it out and make it functional again. If anyone is interested, this is what I had to go through. It usually takes 3 or 4 rounds to get it all out also. Download a free program by Mike Lin called Startup (google to find it). Run it and remove programs if you don't know what they are and remove most of the other things also. It will be easy to get them to automatically start up again if you want them. Do a search in windows for csnmin (or whatever other viruses you are aware of but can't get rid of) to see what program folders and files have it. You can try to delete them but your PC probably won't let you as they are currently running and in memory. Restart windows in safe mode (F8 while booting) In safe mode open a DOS window and run regedit. Do a search for csnmin and delete every instance of it there is. Again, you may not be able to delete them all. Boot your PC from an old dos disk. Navagate to the folders where you found csnmin the last time and delete them. If your PC says you do not have permission or cannot delete, run the delete command with the -f options I.E. delete csnmin -f. If that still doesn't work use the attrib command with the -r option. I.E. attrib csnmin -r. That will remove the read only option and you should be able to delete it then. It will take a few go arounds of re bootiing and seeing what is left. By repeating this procedure a few times, you should be able to get rid of it. QQ and tencent, 3721.com and a dozen other Chinese website will put this crap on your PC, often without you doing anything other than clicking on a single link on their page!! Beware!!! Unless, of course, you want to donate your hopelessly infected laptop of PC to a worthy cause (ME) One last thing - reformatting and transfering your stuff back to the harddrive will almost certainly transfer the viruses also!!!

Knowing that you don't have to screw with the govt for 10 years kinds makes the 17 month wait feel a little better! CONGRATS!!

Sounds to me like the VO though that he might have a marry for profit scheme on his hands. So, one more thing to add to the kitchen sink - proof that the petitioner actually paid for his own ticket!!!

Signal: You sound like you got things well in hand. We didn't have hardly any phone records but she did have an inch thick bundle of daily MSN and/or Yahoo chats showing a page with the date and time the chat started, the middle of the chat cut out and the closing chat with time and date, arranged in bundles of months. I would plan on being there for her interview. It shows commitment on your part and you can get a lot more photo opportunities - take plenty of photos of the two of you together in different places and with different clothes. Take pictures with her family members if you can. Save all your train, plane, hotel, tourist receipts and everything else relevent to the two of you being together. This will be helpful at the interview if the relationship were to be questioned. I think it is also helpful if your SO goes to the interview with a substantial pile of "supporting documents". When you have gathered all of the forms for the I-129F, read and read the instructions several times. Read the instructions first thing in the morning when your mind is fresh. It's difficult as the form covers many different circumstances and not all of the questions even apply! Read through each form a few times over the course of a few days to be sure you put what you think they expect or intend! I read them over several times and made a few changes after I thought I had everything perfect. A month after I mailed in the forms, I realized that there were still 2 errors in them! Luckily the errors didn't get caught or were not significant enough to throw a wrench in the works. Good luck!

KungFuPaul: Instead of making it a businesslike statement of fact, I would of course include the facts, but I would make it more of a "from the heart" letter. " I met xyz on line . . . when we met in person it was love at first sight . . . after our first 4 weeks together we both knew we wanted to be together the rest of our lives . . . we love each other deeply and want to be together always" You get the idea. The interviewer will see this letter and I personally feel that your case will go a lot smoother if this letter has some emotional impact verses complying with the letter of the law. Other CFL members have argued this point - statement of fact VS statement of love - but this is my 2 yuan Good luck!

Congrats Randy We were also told that there would be one last security check after the AOS interview, but we got her green card a week later. I don't think we even brought the X rays to the interview!

Damn!! Blind American "justice" tries and convicts another victim!! Sorry to hear about the administrative review! That can be a real pain, BUT, the battle isn't over and it still can be won! Stay in contact with your congressperson and your senators. Go to their office if you can for a personal appearance and bring pictures of the three of you together. Your congressperson is the best bet to get this resolved expediciously and for them to see that you are a real sincere family as opposed to just an e-mail should go a long way in their effort to get something done on your case. Call them on the phone every week at least to follow up. They should ask you to sign something allowing them to inquire on your case in your behalf. If they don't ask you for your signed permission, you are getting stroked and it's time to go to another congressperson, like one where you have a relative who lives in their juristriction. DONT GIVE UP! They have to do something and they will most likely do it when they have more than one person (you) asking them what they have decided. Good luck!

Great report and excellent English! I never would have guessed you were native Chinese when I started reading it!!! Oh, yeah: CONGRATS!!!!

Its unbelievable that this could take 2 years, bu8t I'm glad to hear that you stuck to it and made it to the end. The wait WILL be well worth it! CONGRATS!!!

DANG!!! Well, the good news is that she probably will get the IR-1 at this rate!!!

CONGRATS!!! Your avatar is especially appropriate in relation to getting a visa!!!

I used to work for the County of Los Angeles. I lived in Los Angeles about 20 miles from downtown and we got our paychecks by mail. Twice it came late. One envelope had an Ohio postmark on it and the other one had a postmark from Maine!! Talk about a scenic route! B) AND, you should be happy because they could have outright lost it!!!!

I also "gave" my lao po a middle name by taking the second syllable of her first name and calling it a second name. All of her US documents now show her with 3 names. It hasn't been a problem. I would be consistent and keep all of her US documents the same, with the 3 names. Good luck!! P.S. We also included her adopted American name, Amy, on her documents where they asked for other names she went by. I put "nickname" in parentesis. Amy thought this would create a problem, but all of our corresponding evidence of relationship involve someone called Amy. I could just imagine the VO asking her who is this Amy person?!?

Sorry that I came into this thread late, but heres's my 2 yuan. You drew the "jump through hoops" card. Your only option is to jump and give them LOTS of additional evidence. Even if it is something that they cannot reasonably ask for, like the whereabouts of your ex and what color dress she wore last, give them something in direct response to what they asked for, even if it just a statement by you that says you haven't seen her, you don't want to see her, you haven't talked to her since the divorce, the divorce was agreed on 1.5 years ago etc. etc. You are 100% at their mercy. Be cool, calm and collected so that Yanlan will be also. It never is any fun to get raked over the coals, but you don't have an option here! You have at least a 90% chance of getting the red slip so try to stay positive. Good luck. Tell us the good news as soon as you stop jumping up and down!

As of late the only confirmation of forward progress is dos told me today the 1st security clearance is done. I'm assuming by looking at your timeline and mine guz requested additional screening for both our cases. Hopefully we will both hear some good news soon. eeyore EEYORE: This looks like good news! At least they acknowledge they have done something!!!! It must be especially painful considering that you started 4 months after we did and my lao po has been here over a year. I feel bad for you but I am helpless like the rest of us.

Congrats Jim and Jen. So it looks like you are lao gong # 2006 - hmmmm Let us know when you finally get the green card. We expect to be able to see the fireworks show all the way down here in Ventura!!!

If she came here to marry another man on a fiancee visa and then married you instead, that would be a problem!! You could make matters worse and harder for her to come to the US again by marrying her now. She would have to legally return to China anyway, I believe, as the fiancee visa only allows her to marry her sponsor. Say a tearful goodbye, let her go home and start a new visa process all over again!

I got 2 duplicate e-mails for every notice. Maybe they think there are 2 different people out there with the exact same name and case number!! wouldn't really surprize me . . . . .

Congrats on the easy and sucessful interview!!

If she "forgot" to mention the first failed I-129 attempt when the paperwork for the second one was filled out and sent in, you may have big problems! I believe the I-129 asks you if you have ever applied for a visa before. If she had applied, even though unsucessful, and you put she had never applied on your app., then they caught her in a lie and they don't like that. Hopefully getting married will work in your favor - only time will tell. Moral of the story: be 100% honest on your petition!! Good luck!!!

It's a judgement call - if you were only together for a week in China one time with little or no paper trail of an ongoing relationship, it would probably help a lot to be there in GZ for the interview. If you have been to China a few times for a longer stay each time and have pictures, phone records, e mails etc, then being there for the interview is probably not that important. Good luck!!

Glad to hear she passed!!! 18 months is a long time!