Me

if we all send a letter like this to everyone we can think of in the
government, maybe the visa delays will stop
im also sending this to the media




November 1, 2002
Re: Visa delays for Fiancé's and wives.

Dear
Congress, Senate, Department of State, Consulate Affairs, Department
of Justice, President Bush, Secretary of State and the Media

I'm writing this letter to voice my opinion on the current visa
process tragedy.
Since August 22, 2002, my fiancé has been waiting patiently to here
from the Consulate's office in Guangzhou China of news of her security
clearance approval.
Ten weeks have passed since our interview (which was approved) and
still no word.
I understand the need for tighter security, but it is ridiculous and
unwarranted for our law makers to make wives and fiancés go through
such extreme security clearances.

Our country was built on fairness and the ability to recognize
fairness.
Our government is not practicing the policy this country was built on.
Our laws, at one time were just. No one in the USA gets the death
penalty for breaking the speed limit. When we go to renew our driver's
license, we don't take the test again if we have no tickets. The same
applies here.
No wife or fiancé was involved in the 9/11 attacks! No woman was
involved!
No Chinese were involved! No Russian's were involved!
None of the people involved in 9/11 were issued a K-1 or family visa!
So why does the USA government treat them as such?

Our wives and fiancés are not asking to come to this country for
business, travel or school. They ask to come here for their new family
with strong family values.
We, the other fiancé here in the USA that are waiting for the security
clearance feel (and I can speak for all of us) that our government is
not interested in a few visas like ours, we feel we are left out when
it comes to our families or new families.
The USA government knows where we live and work. We are law abiding,
tax paying, and voting, stable citizens with good community standings.
We, the USA fiancé, will and promise to be responsible for our wife or
fiancé, that's what good HUSBANDS do.
Has our Government forgotten what love and family is all about?

The new policies need to be changed and changed NOW.
The US Consulate needs the ability and authorization to issue visas to
those who meet the requirements of the family visa law. The family
and K-1 visas should not be subject to the same scrutiny as other
visas.
Family and K-1 visa should and must be issued in a timely manor with
little or no delays.
The USA fiancé should be recognized as the sponsor of the foreign
fiancé and given privilege to be with foreign fiancé in a timely
manor. Not months on end!

I personally started the visa process on December 4, 2001 with no end
in sight.
What a tragedy against the American family.


I would like for someone (congress, senate, DOJ, DOS or media) to
contact me on this issue to help get this resolve for myself and all
others that are waiting for this to be resolved.

katesuiter

Hi.
Don't think I'm having a pop at you, coz I'm not. I fully understand your frustration, anger and pain. I'm feeling it too, and it hasn't even been 60 days for me yet, so you must be at the end of your tether. But I can see the other side of this too. If the government started slacking off with the K1 visas and not the other ones, surely would-be terrorists will start slipping through the net that way. Not everyone is as honest and genuinely in love like the rest of us. And if terrorists did get to the US on a K1 visa, and God forbid, there was a repeat of last year's events, it wouldn't surprise me if they abolished visas altogether. They let people into their country to supposedly start new lives, and that's the thanks they get.
Granted, they've shut the gate after the horse has bolted, but I can't say I blame them for being so strict. They should make sure they excercise the same caution with EVERY type of visa. It's not fair to keep good people like ourselves away from the ones we love, but that's their perogative, and I'm sure the families of the 9/11 victims would agree. I know it must feel like they're holding you responsible for what happened last year, but it isn't personal. Please try and remember that. I sincerely wish you well, and I hope that everything works out for you.
Kate. xxxxxxx

Just Jenney

Ok, here's my take...

First, flooding the government with letters like this is only going to make the process that much slower all the way around. Every time someone opens up a complaint letter, they COULD be opening up someone's petition or visa application.

There is an appropriate governmental office/agency that handles these kinds of complaints. I do not know the name of it but I've seen it mentioned on these forums in the past. Perhaps someone else knows and will post it, possibly with an address. I suggest you direct your letters there.

Second, it is obvious that your frustration is based primarily on your own experience, not with the INS/State Department as a whole. Unfortunately your fiancee is from a country which is under heightened scrutiny by our government. There are reasons for this which, as unpleasant as they may be, have some legitimacy in our government's eyes, or else China would be considered like the UK or Canada.

I am not belittling the hard time you're having. Being away from your fiancee for so long and not knowing when you'll reunite is disheartening and frustrating. That's totally understandable. But lashing out at the government without some constructive criticism is not going to help matters.

Third, I do not agree that fiance and spousal visas should be held to a different standard. A visa is a visa is a visa. Regardless of the type of visa, the bottom line is, each visa permits people to STAY in the United States for a specified period of time (which may or may not be obeyed), during which time they can engage in a multitude of activities. How is a fiance or spouse of a US citizen less likely to be a terrorist than a student? or a visitor? or a businessman? The answer is: They're not.

Fourth, WE may know our fiance(e)s aren't terrorists. But the US government MUST feel satisfied of that before it will let them in. And frankly, I think that's a good thing.

The fact is, 9/11 happened. Not only were the events of that day horrific enough, but the ripple effect is still being felt and will be felt for a long time to come. This is simply a fact we have to accept. A tough pill to swallow, but that's the reality. I don't have to tell you what they say about 20/20 hindsight... Well, the US government doesn't want to make those same mistakes again, if it can help it. Unfortunately for some people from certain countries, that means more scrutiny and checking.

Does that mean the processing isn't unfair? Of course not!! The "shoe bomber" was a Brit, just like my fiance -- but the UK isn't topping any lists as an "origin of terrorists," so British fiances/spouses aren't targeted as potential terrorists. I think that's totally unfair. But it also tells me that there are OTHER reasons that certain countries are targeted than other countries.

And lastly, I personally think that if you are going to send this letter to anyone -- governmental or media-related -- you need to proofread it and get your grammar and spelling straight. Your message will be much better received if it is written in proper English.

~ Jenney

Mrtravel

If you plan to send it to everyone, at least correct the spelling.

You "know" they are not terrorists.
How is the government supposed to "know" this without checking?
Should they simply take you word for it?
I am not saying your fiancé is a terrorist. I am only saying just that
the government shouldn't take your word for it

me wrote:
    >
    > if we all send a letter like this to everyone we can think of in the
    > government, maybe the visa delays will stop
    > im also sending this to the media
    >
    > November 1, 2002
    > Re: Visa delays for Fiancé's and wives.
    >
    > Dear
    > Congress, Senate, Department of State, Consulate Affairs, Department
    > of Justice, President Bush, Secretary of State and the Media
    >
    > I'm writing this letter to voice my opinion on the current visa
    > process tragedy.
    > Since August 22, 2002, my fiancé has been waiting patiently to here
    > from the Consulate's office in Guangzhou China of news of her security
    > clearance approval.
    > Ten weeks have passed since our interview (which was approved) and
    > still no word.
    > I understand the need for tighter security, but it is ridiculous and
    > unwarranted for our law makers to make wives and fiancés go through
    > such extreme security clearances.
    >
    > Our country was built on fairness and the ability to recognize
    > fairness.
    > Our government is not practicing the policy this country was built on.
    > Our laws, at one time were just. No one in the USA gets the death
    > penalty for breaking the speed limit. When we go to renew our driver's
    > license, we don't take the test again if we have no tickets. The same
    > applies here.
    > No wife or fiancé was involved in the 9/11 attacks! No woman was
    > involved!
    > No Chinese were involved! No Russian's were involved!
    > None of the people involved in 9/11 were issued a K-1 or family visa!
    > So why does the USA government treat them as such?
    >
    > Our wives and fiancés are not asking to come to this country for
    > business, travel or school. They ask to come here for their new family
    > with strong family values.
    > We, the other fiancé here in the USA that are waiting for the security
    > clearance feel (and I can speak for all of us) that our government is
    > not interested in a few visas like ours, we feel we are left out when
    > it comes to our families or new families.
    > The USA government knows where we live and work. We are law abiding,
    > tax paying, and voting, stable citizens with good community standings.
    > We, the USA fiancé, will and promise to be responsible for our wife or
    > fiancé, that's what good HUSBANDS do.
    > Has our Government forgotten what love and family is all about?
    >
    > The new policies need to be changed and changed NOW.
    > The US Consulate needs the ability and authorization to issue visas to
    > those who meet the requirements of the family visa law. The family
    > and K-1 visas should not be subject to the same scrutiny as other
    > visas.
    > Family and K-1 visa should and must be issued in a timely manor with
    > little or no delays.
    > The USA fiancé should be recognized as the sponsor of the foreign
    > fiancé and given privilege to be with foreign fiancé in a timely
    > manor. Not months on end!
    >
    > I personally started the visa process on December 4, 2001 with no end
    > in sight.
    > What a tragedy against the American family.
    >
    > I would like for someone (congress, senate, DOJ, DOS or media) to
    > contact me on this issue to help get this resolve for myself and all
    > others that are waiting for this to be resolved.

Olivier

I'm applying for the K1 visa too, but luckily in France.
I understand his frustration, even if I don't think that letter would help much.
I don't see the reason why people from China and Russia can't be issued visas anymore. Those two countries even if they're far from being democratic (Especially China ), are not known to be the places where potential terrorists are located.
I don't forget the Chechen terrorists but they're mainly fighting against the russian government, and are not too much danger for the US territory.
Most of terrorists if they're not already in the US, hide somewhere in Western Europe (Germany, UK, France, Belgium, Italia ). Some of them even have the citizenship of one of those countries. So it won't be very difficult for them to enter the US.

Terrorists of 9/11 had their Headquarter in Hamburg (Germany).
Richard Reid, the "Show bomber" of the Paris-Miami flight ,as Jenney pointed out , is from the UK.
Zaccarias Moussaoui, suspected to be one of the terrorists who should have been on one of the 9/11 plane, is french.
And what about all those guys in London preaching in the street, for the Destruction of the US, UK and all western civilization? I know it starts to change slowly, but London was known to be a place were muslim terrorists were happy to live.

So if there has to be delay for checking to get a Visa, sorry to say but I think it has to be for every country. The thing is that if the US administration does that with countries from the European Union, there will be some reciprocity. And that's no good for business.

It's a bit easy to understand the US administration decision when your fiance is not from one of the listed countries.
I fear that the countries on that list are not only there because of their potential danger. I wonder if France, Ireland and Germany won't be on the list soon because of the disagreement on Irak issue. :-)

Olivier.

Ps: Excuse my english. But i'm not planning on writing anything to the Congress. :-)

gracejilly

You should really change your wording to Spouses and Fiances instead of wives. Your letter sounds as if all the US citizens applying for K-1 are male and all the immigrants are female.

Me

Thank you all for YOUR responce,
This is my plan and intend to go through with it,(seems to be working
with the Russian visas)
Its always been my experience in life to ask kindly first, if that
doesnt work keep going up the ladder. if that doesnt work, tell
everyone you know how and what you think, this ussualy gets things
done.
As far as the visa policy goes, some didnt read my letter carefuly, I
too beleive in the visa screening policy.
    >> The new policies need to be changed and changed NOW.
    >> The US Consulate needs the ability and authorization to issue visas to
    >> those who meet the requirements of the family visa law. The family
    >> and K-1 visas should not be subject to the same scrutiny as other
    >> visas.
    >> No wife or fiancé was involved in the 9/11 attacks! No woman was
    >> involved!
    >> No Chinese were involved! No Russian's were involved!

Thanks for the spelling tips


Good Luck to all of you


On Sat, 02 Nov 2002 07:21:07 GMT, mrtravel
wrote:

    >If you plan to send it to everyone, at least correct the spelling.
    >You "know" they are not terrorists.
    >How is the government supposed to "know" this without checking?
    >Should they simply take you word for it?
    >I am not saying your fiancé is a terrorist. I am only saying just that
    >the government shouldn't take your word for it
    >me wrote:
    >>
    >> if we all send a letter like this to everyone we can think of in the
    >> government, maybe the visa delays will stop
    >> im also sending this to the media
    >>
    >> November 1, 2002
    >> Re: Visa delays for Fiancé's and wives.
    >>
    >> Dear
    >> Congress, Senate, Department of State, Consulate Affairs, Department
    >> of Justice, President Bush, Secretary of State and the Media
    >>
    >> I'm writing this letter to voice my opinion on the current visa
    >> process tragedy.
    >> Since August 22, 2002, my fiancé has been waiting patiently to here
    >> from the Consulate's office in Guangzhou China of news of her security
    >> clearance approval.
    >> Ten weeks have passed since our interview (which was approved) and
    >> still no word.
    >> I understand the need for tighter security, but it is ridiculous and
    >> unwarranted for our law makers to make wives and fiancés go through
    >> such extreme security clearances.
    >>
    >> Our country was built on fairness and the ability to recognize
    >> fairness.
    >> Our government is not practicing the policy this country was built on.
    >> Our laws, at one time were just. No one in the USA gets the death
    >> penalty for breaking the speed limit. When we go to renew our driver's
    >> license, we don't take the test again if we have no tickets. The same
    >> applies here.
    >> No wife or fiancé was involved in the 9/11 attacks! No woman was
    >> involved!
    >> No Chinese were involved! No Russian's were involved!
    >> None of the people involved in 9/11 were issued a K-1 or family visa!
    >> So why does the USA government treat them as such?
    >>
    >> Our wives and fiancés are not asking to come to this country for
    >> business, travel or school. They ask to come here for their new family
    >> with strong family values.
    >> We, the other fiancé here in the USA that are waiting for the security
    >> clearance feel (and I can speak for all of us) that our government is
    >> not interested in a few visas like ours, we feel we are left out when
    >> it comes to our families or new families.
    >> The USA government knows where we live and work. We are law abiding,
    >> tax paying, and voting, stable citizens with good community standings.
    >> We, the USA fiancé, will and promise to be responsible for our wife or
    >> fiancé, that's what good HUSBANDS do.
    >> Has our Government forgotten what love and family is all about?
    >>
    >> The new policies need to be changed and changed NOW.
    >> The US Consulate needs the ability and authorization to issue visas to
    >> those who meet the requirements of the family visa law. The family
    >> and K-1 visas should not be subject to the same scrutiny as other
    >> visas.
    >> Family and K-1 visa should and must be issued in a timely manor with
    >> little or no delays.
    >> The USA fiancé should be recognized as the sponsor of the foreign
    >> fiancé and given privilege to be with foreign fiancé in a timely
    >> manor. Not months on end!
    >>
    >> I personally started the visa process on December 4, 2001 with no end
    >> in sight.
    >> What a tragedy against the American family.
    >>
    >> I would like for someone (congress, senate, DOJ, DOS or media) to
    >> contact me on this issue to help get this resolve for myself and all
    >> others that are waiting for this to be resolved.

anxious

I've been dealing with this longer then you but from Russia. Contrary to previous posts, flood them with faxes, e-mails, letters etc. Do this daily if you can. DOS, Powell, V. Pres., Pres., news agency's, senators, congressman/woman......don't delay. I don't post here much as most of my efforts are indiviual and on global7network.com There was also an article yesterday in Wash Post(style section) which is a direct result of pounding the heck out of them. this is gov's decision and our problem so don't be sweet talked into doing nothing. Government does not deserve compassion on this issue. Also see familyvisasfirst.com

Just Jenney

No one's saying to not make yourself heard. We, as taxpayers, have a right -- even an obligation -- to voice our opinions and demand action from our government if we think it's needed.

However, if you want a lot of people on board with you to flood the government and media with a complaint about this issue, then you need to 1) make sure everyone is in agreement with your position, and 2) that you can express yourself in an educated manner. Reading that letter and the reactions that followed tells me "Me" is not there yet.

~ Jenney

anxious

Jenny-
You are certainly welcome and even invited to do nothing....that's your choice! I choose differently and don't need your approval or help. I do what I do with thousands of others and we're making headway. I speak to my Senators personally and my positions ...eloguent or not, are BEING HEARD! and things are being done because of it. I don't know you or your situation but as for me, I'm a DOER not a TALKER!!!

Just Jenney

Un-Altared States
Terror-Inspired Red Tape Is Keeping U.S. Men and Their Foreign Fiancees Apart

By Ken Ringle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 2, 2002; Page C01


When Osama bin Laden engineered the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it's doubtful he was intent on thwarting Cupid. But one of the less-noted aftereffects of the war on terrorism has been an abrupt halt in the U.S. importation of male-order brides.

That may not mean much to you, but consider the angst of Chris Petterson of Bend, Ore., whose fiancee, Larissa Negulyaveva, sold all of her belongings so she could move there from her home in the Russian city of Voronezh.

Since July 22, when the State Department sharply tightened security checks on all nonimmigrant visas from Russia, Negulyaveva has been living in an empty apartment in Voronezh, waiting. Now the Russian winter is coming on, but the State Department says these things take time, and Petterson is climbing the walls. Last month he left for Russia to see her. It's not much, but it's better than living off e-mail.

So common is Petterson's situation that a Derwood, Md., systems engineer named Russ Kent has formed a nationwide Internet group called Free the Fiancees (www.familyvisasfirst.com) in an effort to make the State Department take the shackles off romance.

"We've got hundreds of women in limbo," says Kent, 49, whose own Internet fiancee, Amisa Kuramshina, 42, is pining away in the wilds of Tatarstan with her two teenage sons. "These women aren't terrorists. We've already filled out reams and reams of paperwork just to apply for a K-1 [fiancee] visa. This is the woman of my dreams. The U.S. government has put my life and hers on hold, and nobody can say when things are going to change."

This week Sandy Booker, 49, of Oklahoma City, was believed to be among those killed in the Moscow theater seized by Chechen gunmen. Friends told the Associated Press that Booker, an industrial electrician for General Motors, was in Russia attempting to speed up visa arrangements for the Russian fiancee he had met by mail.

Stuart Patt, a spokesman for the State Department's consular affairs section, says he has "certainly heard" from Kent and his bride-bereft counterparts and sympathizes. But he points out that the stricter security checks for all nonimmigrant visas have been in place only a little more than three months -- not a long time in the universe of bureaucratic paper-shuffling.

"It takes a long time to get these reviews completed," he said. How long? "I can't say."

However long the logjam lasts, it has turned the spotlight on one of the less-noted aspects of cyber-global communication: Thousands of American men, though outnumbered by women in their own country 51 percent to 49 percent, have been keyboarding abroad in their search for wives. The Internet has become an electronic version of Yenta the matchmaker, hooking up Russian, Asian and Filipino women in particular with those American males unhappy at what they see as the woefully conflicted psyche of the contemporary American female.

"Some . . . will feel we're a bunch of losers who went to Russia because we couldn't get women here," said John Lanzetta, 42, a financial planner from Swedesboro, N.J. "The truth is . . . the American women I dated either don't have any idea what they want from life or are carrying too much baggage from previous relationships. Their careers, children and need for independence leave little if any room for a serious, committed" marriage.

Natasha Spivack, 50, of Bethesda, who for 10 years has made a business searching her native Russia to find wives for American men, agrees. Her customers, she says, tend to be looking for a wife focused strongly on home and family.

"These are very beautiful, very glamorous women, most of them sophisticated professionals and many highly educated," Spivack says of the Russian and Ukrainian women she recruits. "They find American men more open and considerate than many Russian men and more willing and able in the uncertain global economy to take on the psychological and financial burdens of marriage and children. But what really unites them with these men are traditional values" -- values common in the United States before the feminist revolution of the 1960s and '70s.

Lanzetta, like several of the 30 would-be husbands interviewed, went looking for his own Russian woman after meeting one married to a neighbor. Finding her ideas and attitudes "so refreshing" compared with those of the women he knew, he says, he began browsing more than a dozen Internet Web sites devoted to matching Russian women and American men.

He restricted his search to women age 26 to 42 who could speak English, corresponded with several and quickly discovered that male and female roles "have much clearer definitions" to Russian women: "Simply put, the man provides and the woman nurtures." Like many other Internet swains questioned, he also found Russian women "more mature" than American women, possibly because "life is more difficult in Russia."

The Russian woman, he says, "looks to the family as the most important thing in her life. A career is secondary and unimportant unless it benefits the family."

Lanzetta found his "soul mate" in Omsk, Siberia -- a 27-year-old engineer named Lyudmila Chernyakhovskaya with high intelligence, movie star looks, a keen sense of humor and "an honest, straightforward personality."

Russian women, Lanzetta believes, are also much more concerned with their appearance than American women tend to be nowadays. "I was at a restaurant today and a woman walked in wearing a pair of sweat pants and looked like she had just woken up. I thought to myself that Lyuda would never go out in public like that."

If his fiancee is "less aggressive, more feminine" than the American women he knows, Lanzetta says, she is nothing close to a doormat. Russian women, like their American counterparts, "still strive to control the relationship but they do it with feminine wiles instead of strong-arm tactics."

If Lanzetta's story is fairly typical of the Free the Fiancees bridegrooms, a number of others reflect the increasing commerce between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

Sean-Paul Kelley, 31, a Russian-speaking investment banker from San Antonio, was working in St. Petersburg last fall, lonely and annoyed that his girlfriend in the States had brushed off his offer for a ticket to meet him in Paris.

Idly surfing at an Internet cafe, he kept getting interrupted by the pop-up personal ads for which the Russian Web is famous. He had closed about five of them, he said, when up popped a photo of a slender, brown-haired woman whose sea-green eyes he found stunning.

" 'What the hell,' I thought to myself," he remembers. "I'd never done anything like this and I am sure my anger at the ex was part of the motivation. Anyway, I sent Tanya an e-mail."

Tatiana B. Zhiltsova, 21, wasn't convinced that Kelley was an American until he began e-mailing in English. He was hoping for a date in St. Petersburg but discovered she lived in Ukhta, more than 600 miles away on the other side of the Urals. "It's about 40 to 50 miles north of Syktivkar," he sort of explains.

They didn't get together that visit but exchanged a lot of "very funny" e-mails, and when he returned to Russia in January, she met him at the St. Petersburg airport. He says it was love at first sight. They spent a week and a half together. He flew back to Russia three weeks later just to spend the weekend with her.

Soon he was commuting over the North Pole regularly. He flew to Ukhta, met Tanya's parents. They were wary, but warmed to him when he spoke Russian. He proposed. Tanya accepted but "was more than happy to stay in Russia," Kelley says. "Her goal in life was not to snag an American man."

On Oct. 6, Kelley's 32nd birthday, they had planned to be honeymooning in Hawaii. Instead he was on the phone to the State Department trying to free his fiancee.

If Kelley looks at his romance with youthful exuberance, other American men and Russian women tell of edging toward marriage with great care, often after one or more marriages, sometimes with children involved. Many of the women are in their thirties and forties, and advertise themselves as doctors, accountants or other professionals.

"The one thing you can say with absolute certainty is marrying someone from another country is not something you do lightly," says Kent, the Free the Fiancees founder. "All the serious Internet sites for this sort thing emphasize that it takes a lot of money, a lot of paperwork, and a lot of patience to go through the process leading to a K-1 visa."

The State Department has to have proof that a couple have spent time together, proof that neither has a spouse. There are health requirements and other bureaucratic hurdles. But after handing in the extensive preliminary paperwork, a fiancee applying before July 22 usually picked up her visa the same day. Now that process has stretched into months.

Stuart Patt of consular affairs concedes that even as Russian, Chinese and Filipino fiancees have been cast into limbo, some from likelier terrorist climes like Yemen or Saudi Arabia have been approved, as have many student visas. But that's a function of a significantly lower number of applications and a much smaller backlog, he says. "It's really comparing apples and oranges."

Though most of the protest has come from men pledged to Russian women, he says, an even greater backlog exists in the Philippines, where 2,633 K-1 visas were granted last year and 3,153 this year before the freeze went into effect. The comparable figures for Russia are 1,811 and 1,451.

While Patt says he looks on the boom in fiancee applications as an electronic update of the age-old tradition of mail-order brides, there are differences. These women are not being sent to marriages arranged by their families, Natasha Spivack says: They are coming on their own. And most of the Russians, she adds, have other life options.

World Press Review reported in 1993 that 10,000 Russian women applied to international marriage agencies each year and that many Russian women would like their daughters to marry a foreigner. Spivack, who travels regularly to her offices in Russia and Ukraine, says that number has stayed relatively stable.

Why do the women continue to come?

"Some Russian women coming to U.S. thinking it is all 'Santa Barbara,' " laughs former Muscovite Oksana Gromova Stambaugh of Arlington, referencing the "Dallas"-style U.S. soap opera, which was wildly popular in Moscow in the 1990s. "They get off plane here in fur coat and find husband with small apartment and little Honda and say, 'What is that? Where swimming pool?' "

Stambaugh, 49, had few such illusions when she immigrated here in 1994. She was not eager to leave a stable and relatively comfortable life as an oral surgeon and medical school professor in Moscow. But she was divorced with a teenage son and "my cousin had some little talk with me" about joining Spivack's Encounters International to meet men. In Russia, she insists with a laugh, the high point of her social life was when a patient would stammer as she extracted his teeth: "You beautiful woman. Sometime you want to go ice fishing with me?"

Partly as a joke and partly out of curiosity she began answering the men who wrote to her. One was William Stambaugh, now 66, a retired Air Force colonel in Arlington. During his years in the Strategic Air Command he had planned nuclear retaliation against the Soviet air force, in which Oksana's father was a lieutenant colonel. They've been married now for seven years.

What did he have in common with a woman who had been a committed communist most of her life and was still a commissar when the Evil Empire fell?

"She's just more like women used to be in this country," he says. "Home and family are the most important things to her."

"And I always wash windows!" she says with delight. "He say I'm only woman in America who wash windows."

Oksana Stambaugh is not shy with her opinions ("Let the man get a word in edgewise," protests her husband good-naturedly). She is still put off by the back-slapping informality of many Americans. She doesn't understand why most American men don't stand when a woman comes into the room or open a car door for her. In Europe, men routinely kiss a woman's hand upon being introduced, she says.

But Stambaugh is from a generation in the United States when such courtesies were still common. The couple are so clearly in sync that she's not only an American citizen, she's also a fellow Republican.

If the Stambaugh marriage is going strong, Natasha Spivack concedes that 10 percent of her 250-odd marriages -- and Internet marriages generally -- end in divorce.

She says some Russian women are "gold diggers"; others are con artists using the Internet and hard-luck stories to suck money overseas from men they never plan to marry. Others she describes as "desperate," consumed with their childless state and the ticking of the biological clock.

But she says a large number of her recruits are women for whom finding a husband in America offers both a personal adventure and a career opportunity beyond what they can anticipate in Russia.

Lanzetta says the risks of deception aren't bad, but the visa holdup is.

After corresponding for months, he and his fiancee finally met in person for the first time last April in Prague. "We spent a little over three weeks together and just seemed to have everything the other needed."

The certain knowledge of their destiny, however, emerged only the last night they were together, he says.

"It was late and we were packing to go home," he remembers. "I had asked her to marry me . . . she had said yes," but tiny shreds of doubt still flitted through his brain.

"Then as I was closing my suitcase, the zipper broke. I looked at her and said, 'I won't have time to buy a new bag. If only I had a roll of duct tape.'

"Lyuda disappeared into the other room and returned smiling. 'Will this do?' she said. In her hands was a roll of duct tape.


© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Just Jenney

I copied and pasted the Washington Post article mentioned so others could read it. It wasn't until I looked at it after it posted that I noticed this misspelling on the part of the article's writer.

A Freudian slip, perhaps?

~ Jenney

anxious

whatever- The point is, it's the first time that I've come across a heavy-hitting media giant(Washington Post) that has had the guts and tenacity to make this public. It may not say what I would particularily would want to see but the intro in to this mess has been exposed. As the senator emotionally expressed to me, the last thing we want is another Sandy Hook trying to resolve this issue on their own when it's admittedly a government screw-up! Her words not mine but I won't disagree.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

I noticed that too -- and I think it is deliberate. The K-1 generally requires a personal meeting so the old "mail-order" rubric doesn't apply.

But take a look at the www.global7network.com site and you'll see that "male-order bride" is actually quite descriptive.

Couples meet in all different ways so I personally don't care -- matchmaking has a long and honorable tradition "Fiddler On The Roof" and "Crossing Delancey" are examples of this in film. But in these days of marriage "for love" -- a lot of people will have a visceral and strong negative reaction when they see the global7 site. [As I hear Tina Turner singing "What's Love Got To Do With It?"].

Mlke

Dear me:
I just read your letter post on Nov 1st. I hundred percent agree
with you! I really think that we are those forgotten one. Seems like
that no one really care about this. I feel like that we have been
fooled. The govenerment even issuing visitor visa instead of
immigrant. What's that all about? Security clearence is just a execuse
for their political. Do we see any terrisor came here with immigrant
visa? No, None! They all entered US with non-immigrant visa! What a
stupid thing there are doing? I don't understand!
I think we really need to speak for ourself. Otherwise, I can't
see the light!
I used to love American, our government so much! But, in this
case, I just want to leave them, since they really don't have eyes on
us! We are forgetten!
Best luck for you and for us!


me wrote in message news:...
    > if we all send a letter like this to everyone we can think of in the
    > government, maybe the visa delays will stop
    > im also sending this to the media
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > November 1, 2002
    > Re: Visa delays for Fiancé's and wives.
    >
    > Dear
    > Congress, Senate, Department of State, Consulate Affairs, Department
    > of Justice, President Bush, Secretary of State and the Media
    >
    > I'm writing this letter to voice my opinion on the current visa
    > process tragedy.
    > Since August 22, 2002, my fiancé has been waiting patiently to here
    > from the Consulate's office in Guangzhou China of news of her security
    > clearance approval.
    > Ten weeks have passed since our interview (which was approved) and
    > still no word.
    > I understand the need for tighter security, but it is ridiculous and
    > unwarranted for our law makers to make wives and fiancés go through
    > such extreme security clearances.
    >
    > Our country was built on fairness and the ability to recognize
    > fairness.
    > Our government is not practicing the policy this country was built on.
    > Our laws, at one time were just. No one in the USA gets the death
    > penalty for breaking the speed limit. When we go to renew our driver's
    > license, we don't take the test again if we have no tickets. The same
    > applies here.
    > No wife or fiancé was involved in the 9/11 attacks! No woman was
    > involved!
    > No Chinese were involved! No Russian's were involved!
    > None of the people involved in 9/11 were issued a K-1 or family visa!
    > So why does the USA government treat them as such?
    >
    > Our wives and fiancés are not asking to come to this country for
    > business, travel or school. They ask to come here for their new family
    > with strong family values.
    > We, the other fiancé here in the USA that are waiting for the security
    > clearance feel (and I can speak for all of us) that our government is
    > not interested in a few visas like ours, we feel we are left out when
    > it comes to our families or new families.
    > The USA government knows where we live and work. We are law abiding,
    > tax paying, and voting, stable citizens with good community standings.
    > We, the USA fiancé, will and promise to be responsible for our wife or
    > fiancé, that's what good HUSBANDS do.
    > Has our Government forgotten what love and family is all about?
    >
    > The new policies need to be changed and changed NOW.
    > The US Consulate needs the ability and authorization to issue visas to
    > those who meet the requirements of the family visa law. The family
    > and K-1 visas should not be subject to the same scrutiny as other
    > visas.
    > Family and K-1 visa should and must be issued in a timely manor with
    > little or no delays.
    > The USA fiancé should be recognized as the sponsor of the foreign
    > fiancé and given privilege to be with foreign fiancé in a timely
    > manor. Not months on end!
    >
    > I personally started the visa process on December 4, 2001 with no end
    > in sight.
    > What a tragedy against the American family.
    >
    >
    > I would like for someone (congress, senate, DOJ, DOS or media) to
    > contact me on this issue to help get this resolve for myself and all
    > others that are waiting for this to be resolved.