K-1 Travel Help

haha

Well my intention in the beginning was not to immigrate, of course. I was still in university until April of 2006 so they were well aware of me fulfilling my obligation to my degree. Every time I did return of course because I had other things (work and school) to attend to.

But yes, in essence, I did lie the last time I entered. However, I waited 60 days to get married which my lawyer advised me to. He said that 60 days in the minimum amount of time to wait from your date of entry so that my intention looks like i WAS visiting, but on a whim I was married without knowing I was going to be before I entered. Apparently, USCIS has no problem with this.

The more I came though, the more I was interrogated. Even when my boyfriend was JUST my boyfriend, and we had no clue yet what we were going to do, with every visit came more questions. Now I do understand the job of a POE officer, however, their treatment sometimes can be absolutely insane. (ie. once when I drove here, about a year ago, I had my dad's gym clothes in the trunk of my car. it was his car i was driving. The officer continued to ask me what the hell I was doing with men's clothing. Like I had planned to disguise myself or I had killed someone and took their clothes haha.trying to convince them that they were my dad's gym clothes, they opened the actual gym bag which stunk horribly because my dad is a smelly dude when he works out.so.they got theirs!)

I'm pretty sure Canadian officials knew what I was planning though. I was in New Jersey for 2 months at the beginning of 2007 before I left to go home for a few weeks. On my return to Canada, I brought 2 pairs of pants and a couple of shirts, since a lot of my clothes were here in new jersey so I wanted to bring home an almost empty suitcase so that I could fill it up with more stuff before I came back. I got inspected and my suitcase was open. They questioned if I had been in nyc, why I had not bought anything. As the guy opens my suitcase he realizes I have little to no clothing in it. He looks at me and I'm pretty sure he knows exactly what I'm doing. His next question."When are you returning tothe United States?"

I said I wasn't sure, and he ended up letting me go. But I knew they were pretty in the know about what I was doing.

Any ways, I'm here now so.hopefully I won't have too much more trouble in the future.

well in ways you made ur own stress by lying. I travelled monthly to the USA, told the truth and never had a problem, stress free! We too had a free consult with a USA immigration lawyer. she told me to just stay in USA and AOS. Sounded fishy to me,lol I guess if one TRULY came into the USA with NO intention of staying but ended up marrying then staying that is fine! But if ya didnt that is wrong! I'm quite happy that we did it the legal way, very stress free. I would have no qualms of turning in people who did it illegaly.
I was in the Canadian Forces for many yrs and did UN peacekeeping in Crotia. Conducted many road blocks looking for weapons etc. Its amazing how u ask certian questions to find if a person is lying. many people when they lie, they cannot look u in the eyes or stand/sit still. I'm sure POE officers are very well trained in rooting out liers. And if they see the signs, they dig deeper. Always easier to recall the truth than a lie. Cheers

No I didn't make my own stress. I don't have any stress. My green card application has been going off without a hitch thus far.

I never truly LIED to the border patrol, so please don't insinuate that I did. I said that with mostly a funny tone. I did not know at all when my boyfriend and I were going to get married. We were still thinking about what to do when I last entered which was in March. I think you are misunderstanding me as well. All my stresses of crossing the border (I only had a few crappy times out of dozens of good ones) came BEFORE I was even engaged. They were when I was just visiting my boyfriend.literally. Nothing I did was wrong and that will not affect my green card application at all. At the end of the day, I never overstayed and I'm married to a US citizen.

You are making me out to be some liar. When the POE officers question me, the only did so because I had a boyfriend in the United States. I was NEVER detained, and never quested for more than a minute or two. I'm a Canadian born, 23 year old girl. Do you honestly think that I'm on the radar? What did I have to lie about? I told the truth. I was seeing my boyfriend. I had no signs, my situation was enough to case them to think I might eventually immigrate. Until December of 2006 I had a full time job that I was contracted to until the end of the year. Therefore, they would soon realize I was in fact telling the truth. The US/Canadian border is not comparable to a border in the former Yugoslavia.

Once again, I never lied and I would appreciate it if you didn't insinuate that what I did was wrong because I have done nothing but move my whole entire life to the US for someone when I had a good job and a nice place to live in Canada.

ur statement "But yes, in essence, I did lie the last time I entered"
Not mine! Hope it works out for ya

The thing is, as soon as you have a boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse in the US, you automatically have stronger ties to the US than you do Canada, no matter if you own property, own a company, and have a million dollars in a Canadian bank. US border officials are told, EVERYONE has immigrant intent, no matter who they are, and its their job to weed us out. Sometimes it ain't pretty. And yes, I've BTDT myself, and been thoroughly humiliated and searched too. One woman even sat and read my personal journal while I looked on and couldn't say a word.

There is nothing particilarly "wrong" with what you said earlier, it was just not entirely correct. Both waterloo and nelson gave the indication that it was not at all possible for someone who currently has a petition in process to visit the US. This is not at all true. There is no law against it at all. If one is prepared, as flames has stated, there should be no problem whatsoever. And, even if someone does get denied entry, there is NO NEGATIVE affect on the later visa application interview. None. Yes, it will come up, because it is a question on the form. But unless you're denied for legal reasons (ie: you have a criminal record, or you do something stupid like threaten a border official during your interrogation) then yes, this will negatively affect your aplication. A simple denial of entry based on a border officials suspicion that you have immigrant intent will not.

btw waterloo, I don't want to alarm you in any way, but the old myth that you can enter the country and get married 60 days later and then adjust status is just that. A myth. It may not cause you problems with your application, but it is in fact a myth, and lawyers really should stop perpetuating it. Quite a lot of people have been caught by it, and a few even denied their adjustment.

The fact is, if you enter the United States as a visitor, with the intent of marrying and staying, you have in fact broken an immigration law. 98% of the time it does not become an issue at the adjustment interview, but sometimes it does.

If you enter the country as a visitor with no intent to stay and marry, and then do in fact marry on the spur of the moment and decide to stay, then you're golden. The trouble is convincing USCIS which one you did. They're going to assume the former, that's their job. You have to try and convince them it was the latter.

Well all I can do, I suppose, is convince them. It would really be horrible if we got to the interview and then they accused me of ill intent at the border. I think at that point if I wasn't approved, I'd abandoned the process and move back home. These applications have eaten me out of pocket and so has the lawyer.

For now though, and this is no offense to any one on the internet, I'm going to trust my immigration lawyer who has been in business for over 20 years doing just that. If the 60 days minimum is a myth, then it's a myth. However, you know, it irks me and at the end of the day, all of the little stuff really makes a difference. All I want to do is have a nice life with my husband, who I spent thousands of dollars on traveling to over the span of three years. I'm young, I'm educated, and I could contribute to the American economy. It's very frustrating to know that there is a chance of denial. My lawyer never advised me to leave the US and start another kind of process (like an IR-1) but they did say they would prep us for the interview extensively. So, all I can do is hope that it turns out well and I don't lose thousands of dollars.

I do understand what you are saying, Reba. I'm going to keep thinking positively though!

Dont trying to be negative in any way, i hope it works out for ya Ireally do, and most likely it will. There are many people that have gone ur route and have been successful. I was told my a USA immigrtaion lawyer to go that exame same route, but at the time was still inthe CDn Forces and it dint sound right.
Just because one spoends $$$$ on travelling doesnt give one a right to be accepted into any country. Many of us have done that. The longets my wife and I were apart in 3 years was 5 weeks, airlines loved us,lol
My only advice is to to know the process and blidnly follow ur lawyers advice! Read far too many horror stories regrading lawyers. like any profession there are good and bad. We used a lawyer( wish he had found Visajoureny earlier,lol) she was ok, but noth worht the $2500 to double check our work! Oh well live and learn. Best of luck in the journey.

Thanks, flames. And my comment about spending money wasn't me trying to say they have to accept me because I have spent all this money traveling to the US for the past three years. I was more or less saying, I hope it all doesn't go to waste! I couldn't techinically afford to be away from my husband anymore because with full time jobs and school, I could hardly get time off/afford to travel after a certain point. Since you went back and forth, you can understand how hard it is after a certain point.

Yes. As Reba told me there has been some crappy lawyer stories out there and I have read some experiences. However, I will cross my fingers that I don't become one of those and my lawyer does a good job. I only got a lawyer because I'm young (23) and didn't know if I could handle the process by myself without a professional. Now I'm sure we could have. Let's hope for the best!

Thanks all for the replies.

I suppose I should've given a little more background. I myself am from Toronto (still not the Centre of the Universe), Ontario. My fiancee resides about half an hour outside Dallas, TX. So, driving across isn't really an option, unless I want to lose half my vacation time to travel. Unfortunately, since she currently only gets 1 week in vacation a year, we're going to have to wait until we get a bit of a better idea of how long the visa process will take. If it's definitely next year, then we'll look at having her visit this year. If not, we'd prefer to save her vacation time for our honeymoon.

That really does seem to be the easier way.

Thanks for the advice. It's very much appreciated, as is anything in the future. I'll try keeping you up to date on how things progress.

~J

I guess 1 way of speeding up the k1 process would be if you could do the interview at the vancpouver consulate, they appear to be much much faster than Montreal! Of course 1 has to reside I think in Saskatchewan and west of SK to utilize Van. I know at 1 time people that were going through Mtl, were contacting Van and Mtl to get their cases transferred to VAn. They would say they were "working" in the Vancouver area, and both consulates were happy to make the switch! But they seemed to catch on to the decoy,lol and from my readings on VJ, VAN was no longer accepting those that tried to get their cases switched. 1 even had thier congreeperson enquire on their behalf and VAN still said no. BUT if one hasn't started the process and you have someone whoem u can completely tryst in 1 of those western provinces, you could use thier addy as urs, thus then being able to go through VAN. But then u have to count on them receiving the Immigration mail and mailing it to you, but it would be faster. VAN was scheduling the intewrview like a month later after the final package, where as Mtl is like 4-6 months (sometimes longer).