Chaviva's husband can't return to the US for months

[shedemei]

But the reality is, people don't read my Jewish posts anymore. They have the lowest numbers out of any of them. People read the juicy stuff, the stuff that's personal and storytelling. So I continue to put out the Jewish stuff, even though it doesn't get read, because that's where my heart is.

Interesting. Do you think it's because you've already covered a lot of topics already?

[yupitsme]

It is a big deal. You're blaming others for you and your husband's screw up, because you felt you were above the law. If you don't agree with the law, I think that's perfectly reasonable, and I encourage you to try to change that law, but don't blame others for the natural consequence of ignoring legislation that's currently in place.

Your inference that I feel that I am above the law is just that: an inference. We spoke to countless USCIS agents about what our options were and we were not given the full range of options available to us. I am not blaming them for the situation, I am outraged that we were not provided with the full extent of options and information. The immigration lawyers we are working with have expressed equal outrage/confusion that we were not provided with details that could have led us to a USCIS office to get emergency advance parole (or not really since the office was closed anyway on October 1).

Outrage, my dear. Outrage.

[yupitsme]

Interesting. Do you think it's because you've already covered a lot of topics already?

I'm not sure. I think it's because it's not what people want to read from me on my blog. People read me because of the storytelling and the journey. Because, like I said, it encourages people to reach out to me, ask questions, seek help and guidance.

Or, in the case of this forum, to abuse. (Not all of you, of course, because many of you are kind and empathetic.)

[browncoatslytherin]

D) I'm on Progressive because that's the only insurance company that allows you to have a non-U.S. citizen spouse on your policy. No choice there, either, unless I remove my husband, which I might have to to cut costs.

interesting. i didn't know that. that truly sucks that you're extremely limited in that area, especially when something like car insurance has rates that can vary wildly and end up extremely expensive (example: my progressive monthly payment was $79 for my ohio policy. for a minnesota one, they wanted $144. esurance was the cheapest i could find at $110/month). perhaps, though, it would be a good idea to remove him, at least until he gets back.

[Firiel]

Well, it is Friday. :popcorn2:

I'll be hanging out over here in the Voyeur Corner. I hadn't heard of Chaviva before this thread.

[sparkles]

interesting. i didn't know that. that truly sucks that you're extremely limited in that area, especially when something like car insurance has rates that can vary wildly and end up extremely expensive (example: my progressive monthly payment was $79 for my ohio policy. for a minnesota one, they wanted $144. esurance was the cheapest i could find at $110/month). perhaps, though, it would be a good idea to remove him, at least until he gets back.

I just checked this with Mr. Sparkles who works for one of the top 3 auto insurers. His company WILL insure non-US citizen spouses, provided they obtain a stateside license within a specified time frame. So check again.

While I agree that there's a lot of unnecessary red tape and I'm sorry for your husband's immigration issues, you were aware of the policies and still chose to gamble. The odds were against you and you lost.

[stonefruit]

So now that you know that I'm not an idiot and that I don't care who hears/reads my public story that I willingly and knowingly and happily put out there, my question to you guys is: Why do you spend all your time tearing others down, judging them and their choices, and obsessing over their lives on this forum?

Can't speak for anyone else, but I would estimate it's about 30 minutes per day for me during the week, and occasionally more on Sundays. But, if it makes you feel better, by all means keep imagining we're just a bunch of layabouts with nothing better to do.

:roll:

[nelliebelle1197]

My husband is not a citizen and we have had a number of insurance companies over the years. All that matters is that he is legally here and has a driver's license. Doesn't Colorado actually allow undocumented to get licenses and apply for insurance? I don't understand why not a single other insurance company in the whole state won't take you on.

[yupitsme]

My husband is not a citizen and we have had a number of insurance companies over the years. All that matters is that he is legally here and has a driver's license. Doesn't Colorado actually allow undocumented to get licenses and apply for insurance? I don't understand why not a single other insurance company in the whole state won't take you on.

He's not an undocumented immigrant. The law is for illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants. We were told by our attorney that he couldn't apply for a driver's license in the U.S. until he was able to apply for his SS card, which happened after our i-485 adjustment of status was completed.

We were merely doing what the lawyers told us to do. If the law for non-U.S. citizens to get a driver's license is different, that's beyond me.

[browncoatslytherin]

He's not an undocumented immigrant. The law is for illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants. We were told by our attorney that he couldn't apply for a driver's license in the U.S. until he was able to apply for his SS card, which happened after our i-485 adjustment of status was completed.

We were merely doing what the lawyers told us to do. If the law for non-U.S. citizens to get a driver's license is different, that's beyond me.

here's what colorado's dmv states is needed:

colorado.gov/pacific/dmv/new-colorado-another-country

i'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of immigration and what forms are what and mean what, but this should state what he needs for a license, i think.

otherwise, if he doesn't have a u.s. license, i'm assuming he must have a foreign license, then, if he drove here. i'm curious, if he was ever pulled over, would a cop accept a foreign id as valid for a driver's license? i know in minnesota, if you've been living in the state for more than three months and you don't switch over your license, a cop can consider your out-of-state license invalid.

[Curious]

I'm just going to point out for the millionth time that disagreement or discussion of things put on the internet in PUBLIC does not equal abuse. Just because you don't like what people are saying does not mean it is bullying or abusive. It means people have a different opinion than you do, which people are, in fact, allowed to do.

When you put your whole life out on the internet, you have to expect that someone, somewhere is going to disagree with you.

Heck, try getting 5 people to agree on where to go to lunch ;)

Also, if you think ALL we do here is tear people down, I suggest you read the Jeub daughters thread or any thread concerning Lourdes Torres, just for a start.

[LucySnowe]

To say that just because someone puts it out there they're asking for the judgement/hate is like saying the girl at the party wearing a skirt was asking to be raped. Or maybe the kids who put their stories and troubles out on Facebook, get bullied and commit suicide were asking for it, too, eh?

As you genuinely can't tell the difference between a non-abusive internet discussion happening elsewhere on the internet and bullying/violent physical assault, I'm not going to interact with you anymore.

[nelliebelle1197]

He's not an undocumented immigrant. The law is for illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants. We were told by our attorney that he couldn't apply for a driver's license in the U.S. until he was able to apply for his SS card, which happened after our i-485 adjustment of status was completed.

We were merely doing what the lawyers told us to do. If the law for non-U.S. citizens to get a driver's license is different, that's beyond me.

Things may have changed drastically in the last few years, I will admit. My husband got his license off his New Zealand license before he got his green card. He used his paperwork. We came back from England in June, we got married in July and he was documented by September. His green card expires in September every 7 years. At some point after we got married and before the green card came, he had a license.

[Peas n carrots]

Your inference that I feel that I am above the law is just that: an inference. We spoke to countless USCIS agents about what our options were and we were not given the full range of options available to us. I am not blaming them for the situation, I am outraged that we were not provided with the full extent of options and information. The immigration lawyers we are working with have expressed equal outrage/confusion that we were not provided with details that could have led us to a USCIS office to get emergency advance parole (or not really since the office was closed anyway on October 1).

Outrage, my dear. Outrage.

Visa Journey is a super informative website.

http://www.visajourney.com/content/k3guide

http://www.visajourney.com/content/i130guide1

http://www.visajourney.com/portals/inde ... try=Israel

I'm still wrapping my head around the issue...so as I understand, on a conventional spousal visa as part of the process he should have been given an Advanced Parole document? Is it just me or does it feel like Chaviva has left out some details, like what kind of visa (if any) Mr. T entered on when coming to the US. I fully admit I may have missed it when going through her blog/facebook.

Except I don't think her husband actually immigrated. If you come in with an immigrant visa, you usually get a stamp in your passport that functions as a green card until you get your actual green card in the mail. You're not trapped in the US, unable to leave, until you get your magic green card in the mail. It just doesn't work that way.

^^^Or this.

Edited

[FaustianSlip]

It sounds like he either played fast and loose with the truth to snag a non-immigrant visa (I don't think many visa officers would issue one to someone who told them flat out that they weren't a tourist, but were planning to live in the U.S. permanently) or abused the visa waiver program, which is strictly for people going for 90 days or less for tourism or business meetings. I've heard that it's next to impossible to adjust status from visa waiver to something more permanent, precisely because they don't want the visa waiver program to become a free-for-all of people trying to skip the immigrant process line by disingenuously using visa waiver when they're not actually going for short, tourism-related stays, but are planning on staying in the States permanently. If it's the latter, that could explain why the status adjustment process was taking so long, and it's stuff like that that makes the immigration and status adjustment processes harder on everyone else.

I feel like there's a trend here. Don't like the rules? Find them too much hassle? No problem! Just disregard them, do whatever you want and complain later if things don't shake out in your favor. What could possibly go wrong, right? Well, this is serving as a pretty good example of what can go wrong. So I guess in that sense, the blog does provide a service insofar as it's a cautionary tale for others who might have tried the same thing.

[LucySnowe]

Chaviva said somewhere that Mr T came into the USA on the visa waiver program. According to the I-485 info (adjustment to register permanent residence or adjust status), applying when you're in the states with a visa waiver isn't allowed UNLESS you're an immediate relative of a US citizen, which he is. What they did is therefore perfectly legitimate. USCIS does seem to be much nicer to immediate family members - there's no cap on the numbers of visas for instance - so they had the best possible situation, being able to come over first and apply for visas after. Most people don't have that luxury.

Which makes it even more annoying/frustrating/sad that they messed it up. And I literally do not understand what is going on.

Above, Chaviva said:

"Your inference that I feel that I am above the law is just that: an inference. We spoke to countless USCIS agents about what our options were and we were not given the full range of options available to us. I am not blaming them for the situation, I am outraged that we were not provided with the full extent of options and information. The immigration lawyers we are working with have expressed equal outrage/confusion that we were not provided with details that could have led us to a USCIS office to get emergency advance parole (or not really since the office was closed anyway on October 1)."

The instructions for the I-485 clearly state the need for advance parole. I can't copy and paste from the form, but it has a section for "Effect of Departure from the United States While Your Application Is Pending" and while I don't know which of the three options is relevant in this situation (because everyone is a different Section of the INA and I need to go make dinner - obviously it's not the refugee one), both of the possible options mentions I-131 as "advance parole."

http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/file ... 5instr.pdf

And in a blog entry from mid-July, she said:

Mr. T's immigration paperwork has been sent off at last. I have quickly become a pro at filing the i-130, the i-485, the i-131, the i-765, and the dozens of supporting documents required. I've also become a pro at writing checks for thousands of dollars. Become an American is stupid expensive. It's prohibitive. I now understand why there are so many illegal immigrants.

I don't understand how she filed the I-131 in mid-July but didn't know what it was when Mr T needed one less than three months later. I don't understand how she COULD have filled it out in July when it asks for proposed travel dates and the reason for travel, unless they were planning a later trip, but even if that were the case, SHE KNEW IT EXISTED. I don't understand why these "countless" USCIS agents are to blame, because "they" didn't tell her to go to a local office to get an emergency advance parole document.

Meanwhile, on Twitter: "Wow. The ladies @ Free Jinger are @ it again! This time ridiculing me for my situation and asking for help on social. [link to this thread]"

Why did I start this thread, as was asked earlier? Mainly because, as I said in that post, "Everyone’s responsible for their own immigration" and I was narked that Chaviva was blaming other people for the problems she'd caused herself. Because I took my own goddamned responsibility for my various immigrations, and my husband took his, and we dealt with family issues and unnecessary legal interventions, and it gets on my tits when other people play the victim card. And as far as I can tell from the information Chaviva put on her blog, she either didn't read the instructions, or filed a form and forgot about it, but whatever the reason, I don't see where any outrage directed at other people is justified.

Rant over. Going to make dinner now. And breathe.

[Peas n carrots]

Apparently not believing she is the victim of a vast governmental conspiracy against legal immigrants makes you a Chaviva hater and someone who needs a life.

In order for Chaviva's story to be warning to others, she needs to own up to screwing up. If every office of congresspeople you have written to says "sorry, you didn't do it right" there is certainly some indication that the problem may not be the USCIS, but Chaviva. There is only one common denominator in all this...

[FaustianSlip]

Chaviva said somewhere that Mr T came into the USA on the visa waiver program. According to the I-485 info (adjustment to register permanent residence or adjust status), applying when you're in the states with a visa waiver isn't allowed UNLESS you're an immediate relative of a US citizen, which he is. What they did is therefore perfectly legitimate.

If that's the case, then what's stopping her husband from using visa waiver to just come right back to the United States and starting the process over? Chaviva keeps saying that her husband is trapped outside the U.S. and can't get back in, et cetera. If using visa waiver is a "perfectly legitimate" way of immigrating, then why would he be barred from reentering the country? I mean, they'd presumably have to pay the change of status fee again, but he'd be in the United States, right?

[Peas n carrots]

If that's the case, then what's stopping her husband from using visa waiver to just come right back to the United States and starting the process over? Chaviva keeps saying that her husband is trapped outside the U.S. and can't get back in, et cetera. If using visa waiver is a "perfectly legitimate" way of immigrating, then why would he be barred from reentering the country? I mean, they'd presumably have to pay the change of status fee again, but he'd be in the United States, right?

This. There is something she is holding back from the blog...not sure if she is embarrassed or just wants to garner sympathy. But things aren't adding up.

[lawfulevil]

$1000/mo sounds very high for Denver. Our mortgage (ex-husband and I lived in Denver, he still does) wasn't much more than that.

[shedemei]

If that's the case, then what's stopping her husband from using visa waiver to just come right back to the United States and starting the process over? Chaviva keeps saying that her husband is trapped outside the U.S. and can't get back in, et cetera. If using visa waiver is a "perfectly legitimate" way of immigrating, then why would he be barred from reentering the country? I mean, they'd presumably have to pay the change of status fee again, but he'd be in the United States, right?

I'm not an expert in immigration, but I am an expert in google and here's what I found on the government website:

If you visit other countries such as England or Costa Rica, then return to the U.S., your re-entry will be considered to be a new admission (thereby restarting the 90 day clock), rather than a re-entry from a contiguous country in the course of your initial visit, and the admission inspection may be more strenuous. The Officer inspecting you will want evidence that you intend to go back home to your country of citizenship to live as opposed to returning again and again to the U.S. after visits to other countries.

https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail ... -countries

[Cheetah]

Question and a comment -

Who is Chaviva? Never heard of her before clicking thru on this thread. What's her blog?

Comment - not true that non citizens have to have Progressive for auto insurance. My dh and I have been on AAA for .... maybe 15 years, and were on State Farm before that. He's only been a citizen for about 6 years. But he has had a US driver's license the whole time... got that about a year after he moved here for grad school on a student visa.

[FaustianSlip]

Funny that they specifically mention England. And that still doesn't explain what's stopping Mr. T from reentering the country on visa waiver. Obviously, they'd have to start the adjustment of status process over again, since he terminated it by leaving before, but he'd be there with his wife and kid, right? Which is pretty much Chaviva's biggest priority right now? So what, exactly, is the issue here? If this method of immigration (i.e. entering on visa waiver and just adjusting status to stay permanently) is so above board, legal and straightforward, then why not take another crack at it? Heck, it makes me wonder why the immigrant visa process exists for visa waiver countries at all (and why a good friend who brought her husband over from the UK went through the whole immigrant visa process with him over there and didn't just have him come over on visa waiver and stay- seems very strange to me, that).

Chaviva has said a number of times that her husband now has no way of entering the United States except with an immigrant visa, that he's barred from entering on visa waiver or a non-immigrant visa, et cetera, and I'd be very curious to know how that's possible if, as she and others have said here, everything about his initial entry and adjustment of status application was by the book. It seems very strange- I mean, if the law allows for jumping the immigrant visa queue via visa waiver, then how would he be "banned" from the U.S. or unable to get a non-immigrant visa to come over?

And it's also strange that the visa waiver website explicitly says that you need to prove that you're only staying in the U.S. for ninety days or less when you enter on visa waiver. No mention of exceptions for immediate relatives that I can see. One wonders what Mr. T told the CBP officer at immigration when he entered the country the first time.

[LucySnowe]

Cheetah - Chaviva's blog is The Kvetching Editor. She's discussed on FJ because she converted to Orthodox Judaism and has blogged about her own conversion and about Judaism. If you look at the blog's About Me page you'll see the timeline. IIRC, in the last five years, she converted Orthodox, got married, got divorced, had at least one move in the US, (this might be the point where she was dating a non-Jew and got a lot of flack for falling off the derech), made aliyah to Israel, met Mr T within a couple of months and married him and had a baby by the end of that year, and then moved back to the US for family reasons. I would say that people on FJ are generally sympathetic to her though, as you have probably seen from this thread, many of us question her publicly-discussed choices and disagree with being painted as internet bullies for doing so, and she has a tendency to turn up and argue, which is of course her right, though perhaps not the best decision.

For contrast, check out Kochava at Crazy Jewish Convert, who also converted Orthodox but doesn't overshare her life, and has found the stability that Chaviva has not yet pinned down.

Funny that they specifically mention England. And that still doesn't explain what's stopping Mr. T from reentering the country on visa waiver. Obviously, they'd have to start the adjustment of status process over again, since he terminated it by leaving before, but he'd be there with his wife and kid, right? Which is pretty much Chaviva's biggest priority right now? So what, exactly, is the issue here? If this method of immigration (i.e. entering on visa waiver and just adjusting status to stay permanently) is so above board, legal and straightforward, then why not take another crack at it? Heck, it makes me wonder why the immigrant visa process exists for visa waiver countries at all (and why a good friend who brought her husband over from the UK went through the whole immigrant visa process with him over there and didn't just have him come over on visa waiver and stay- seems very strange to me, that).

Chaviva has said a number of times that her husband now has no way of entering the United States except with an immigrant visa, that he's barred from entering on visa waiver or a non-immigrant visa, et cetera, and I'd be very curious to know how that's possible if, as she and others have said here, everything about his initial entry and adjustment of status application was by the book. It seems very strange- I mean, if the law allows for jumping the immigrant visa queue via visa waiver, then how would he be "banned" from the U.S. or unable to get a non-immigrant visa to come over?

And it's also strange that the visa waiver website explicitly says that you need to prove that you're only staying in the U.S. for ninety days or less when you enter on visa waiver. No mention of exceptions for immediate relatives that I can see. One wonders what Mr. T told the CBP officer at immigration when he entered the country the first time.

The visa waiver change seems to have been done around a year ago which could also explain why your friend didn't do this with her husband:

http://immigrationview.foxrothschild.co ... ch-easier/

Which may also answer one of my questions:

Within approximately 90 days after filing for adjustment, the foreign national spouse or parent will be granted employment authorization and advance parole, BUT may not work or depart the US until securing the advance parole/EAD that allows travel and employment authorization. Although the immigration process still needs to be well planned, this change in USCIS policy makes planning for and transitioning a spouse or parent’s life in the US much easier.

So it looks like you do file for advance parole at the same time you put in everything else. Though it doesn't explain why she claims she never knew about it.

As for your other questions, yeah, I've been scratching my head over how they knew Mr T couldn't come back. Based on the timings, my guess is he flew out on October 1st (though didn't arrive in the UK until October 2nd), and she talked to people on the 2nd and was told that he'd screwed up and would be bounced if he came back, so they didn't risk it. Because on the 3rd she's already tweeting about consular processing.

But you're right, why not just start that whole process again and at least get him back into the country? Could you really not say "okay, our bad, just cancel everything we've already sent and we'll start from scratch," and learn a very expensive lesson, rather than have the entire application shunted to an overseas consulate? If you can't, then you can't, but I don't understand that part.

[FaustianSlip]

I don't think Chaviva is telling the whole story here, and I also don't think that the, "Hey, just bring your immediate relatives over on visa waiver, and they can adjust status, and it's not at all problematic!" thing you're taking the stuff on these websites to mean is actually the case. Like I said, I know people who were immediate relatives (spouses, et cetera) who tried this approach to immigration, and they weren't allowed to adjust status. Adjustment of status is also not, so far as I'm aware, an automatic, rubber stamp kind of a thing, though I could be wrong.

If they were following the law and not abusing the visa waiver program, then this guy would have no problem coming back into the United States on that same program. If the, "Come on over on visa waiver and adjust!" approach is as legit and acceptable as both you and Chaviva are saying, then there should be nothing barring him from continuing to use the program and/or getting a non-immigrant visa (which would allow him to stay longer without adjusting status, although he couldn't work). More generally, Germans and Brits and French spouses and other immediate relatives of American citizens continue to apply for immigrant visas. Why would they be doing that if they could just come over on visa waiver and adjust, no questions asked? There's something fishy going on here, I just can't quite figure out what it is. But I don't think this visa waiver approach is as a-okay as its being presented, because if it was, there wouldn't be anything keeping Chaviva's husband out of the country.