KimJ

Thank you - I noticed that too. I actually read this post a few times to see if there was a reason he specifically mentions that the interviewer was white.

I would have interpreted the 'what kind of person conducted the interview' question as in 'what position/title' was the person in, not what color was his skin.

Khadija

First, we can only guess as to what the problem is right now. Second, your wife should be doing the contacting - not you. She is the US citizen you are just the beneficiary. The Consulate or the CIS section in the Athens Consulate (or the Consulate in Cairo for that matter) is more likely to take a request from her than you.

As I said, and this is a guess, there's probably some problem with the paperwork, e.g., maybe the divorce decree wasn't clear, or a problem with either her or your birth certificates and your file was sent to the CIS section of the Athens Consulate for them to follow up on this part of the process. The Consulates don't, as I understand it, verify those documents, that's up to the BCIS. For most of us that's done Stateside by one of 5 service centers. Since you did Direct Consular Filing in Cairo, again, speculation on my part, if there's a question about your wife's divorce decree - as an example - it's the responsibility of the CIS to contact your wife about this and not the Consulate.

It's also possible that Cairo is shipping cases to Athens due to the workload. I was recently informed they're quite short-handed in Cairo as some staff was recently reassigned to Iraq. While not routine, it does happen when Consulates get swamped and don't have enough hands on deck to handle the work.

All of this plus things like age differences, economic circumstances, family knowledge of the marriage, how you met, how many times you met, mingling of finances, how and how often you contact each other will all come into play when the Consulate is determining whether to approve your visa.

Take a look at my timeline and you'll see how loooong this process can take. I remind you, you're well within normal limits and shouldn't be panicky.

Where to you live in Egypt? Where is your wife from in the States? We have quite a group now of fellow Egyptian/American marriages and we're more than happy to chat with you offline. Feel free to send me a PM if you like.

Patty Khadijah

Quinkman

<< Subject: Re: hellppppppppppppppppp
From: Matthew Udall member3997@british_expats.com
Date: Fri, Feb 27, 2004 11:52 AM
Message-id: <[email protected]>


Originally posted by [email protected]

    > in the interview this white american man asked me and her simple
questions

Originally posted by
[email protected]
    > we had the interview 04jan
2004 and it was not good as this
    > white american man kept looking at
his computer screen most of the
    > interview time

You have
mentioned a couple of times now that it was a "white" American man who
did the interview. Why do you stress that he was "white"? Are you
accusing him of being prejudiced against you just because he's white?

>><BR><BR>
IF there were only two people there: an Indian woman and an American man, he
could have just said, "an American man".


Good catch MU

[email protected]

Khadija <member10682@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
    > First, we can only guess as to what the problem is right now. Second,
    > your wife should be doing the contacting - not you. She is the US
    > citizen you are just the beneficiary. The Consulate or the CIS section
    > in the Athens Consulate (or the Consulate in Cairo for that matter) is
    > more likely to take a request from her than you.
    >
    > As I said, and this
    > is a guess, there's probably some problem with the paperwork, e.g.,
    > maybe the divorce decree wasn't clear, or a problem with either her or
    > your birth certificates and your file was sent to the CIS section of the
    > Athens Consulate for them to follow up on this part of the process. The
    > Consulates don't, as I understand it, verify those documents, that's up
    > to the BCIS. For most of us that's done Stateside by one of 5 service
    > centers. Since you did Direct Consular Filing in Cairo, again,
    > speculation on my part, if there's a question about your wife's divorce
    > decree - as an example - it's the responsibility of the CIS to contact
    > your wife about this and not the Consulate.



    >
    > It's also possible that
    > Cairo is shipping cases to Athens due to the workload. I was recently
    > informed they're quite short-handed in Cairo as some staff was recently
    > reassigned to Iraq. While not routine, it does happen when Consulates
    > get swamped and don't have enough hands on deck to handle the work.
    >
    > All
    > of this plus things like age differences, economic circumstances, family
    > knowledge of the marriage, how you met, how many times you met, mingling
    > of finances, how and how often you contact each other will all come into
    > play when the Consulate is determining whether to approve your visa.
    >
    >
    > Take a look at my timeline and you'll see how loooong this process can
    > take. I remind you, you're well within normal limits and shouldn't be
    > panicky.
    >
    > Where to you live in Egypt? Where is your wife from in the
    > States? We have quite a group now of fellow Egyptian/American marriages
    > and we're more than happy to chat with you offline. Feel free to send
    > me a PM if you like.
    >
    > Patty Khadijah

Hello patty
sure i am happy to chat with u and ur group but really i do not know
how ,all what i know the MSN ,,,now please can u help me more if u or
any one read this messege ,,,,,,, the CO and the INS did not take any
of the emails and pictures of me and my wife with my family in cairo
,even they did not take our telephone bills that proof we know each
other longggg time ,even they did not take the flight tickets,i feel
that these things are helpful in my case now my QUESTION IS ,,,,,,
HOW CAN I SEND IT AND ATTACH THESE THINGS TO MY FILE??????????????

Hebapotamus42

How do you expect the OP to know how many people at the consulate give interviews and what they look like? Those of us who have been around here a while and are going thru Cairo have noticed that there appears to be two people doing the marriage-based interviews: an Indian woman (who seems to be consistently troublesome) and a white guy (who seems to be consistently friendly). I asked the OP to describe the CO who interviewed him so we could see if there was a continuation of the pattern or not. Don't jumping to conclusions. There's nothing wrong with calling someone white.

Hebapotamus42

I think I mentioned this earlier, before the consulate changed their website, there was a little section where they stated that if a case is not clearly approvable, it is sent to Athens where it could stay for up to 6 months. I don't know the reasons why your case was sent there. We can only speculate. There's nothing any of us here can do about it except offer our support and hope that everything goes well. Don't send anything to the consulate unless they ask you specifically to send something. Many people have had the experience of taking photos and other evidence of the relationship to the interview but it doesn't get looked at. Your case doesn't appear to be very different than others'. Keep trying to contact the consulate in Cairo and the office in Athens to find out why it was transferred there. Have your wife try to contact them as someone suggested since she is the US citizen and they might be more receptive to her. Be patient as the consulate can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to respond to an email.

Mtravelkay

Hebapotamus42 wrote:
    > Originally posted by Quinkman
    >
    >>IF there were only two
    >
    > people there: an Indian woman and an American man, he could have just
    > said, "an American man".
    >

How do we know the man was "American" and the woman was not "American"?


    >>
    >
    > How do you expect the OP to know
    > how many people at the consulate give interviews and what they look
    > like? Those of us who have been around here a while and are going thru
    > Cairo have noticed that there appears to be two people doing the marriage-
    > based interviews: an Indian woman (who seems to be consistently
    > troublesome) and a white guy (who seems to be consistently friendly). I
    > asked the OP to describe the CO who interviewed him so we could see if
    > there was a continuation of the pattern or not. Don't jumping to
    > conclusions. There's nothing wrong with calling someone white.
    >

You can see that the man is white. How do you know the woman is Indian?

sdmansour

While searching for the info I read previously about cases sent to Athens, I found this on http://travel.state.gov/egypt.html

"The Embassy cautions American citizens regarding marriage to Egyptian citizens whom they meet only briefly or only via the Internet. The Embassy has uncovered numerous cases of fraudulent intent in recent years on the part of Egyptian partners in such relationships. They have been shown to have contracted the marriage, either primarily or solely, for the purposes of obtaining access to an immigrant visa to the U.S. This is especially the case in which the parties have met only on-line. There is a common pattern in which Egyptian men will marry American women, remain in the marriage only long enough to obtain U.S. residency status or citizenship, and then divorce. We urge Americans contemplating marriage to an Egyptian citizen to become familiar with Egyptian family law (known here as personal status laws). Especially for women, their rights as both spouse and parent would be very different in Egypt from those in the U.S., as would the rights of any children resulting from the marriage"

Soliman56, the State Dept. is the agency that oversees the embassies worldwide (as opposed to BCIS for applications initiated in the US). This is one of several reasons why the processing takes so much time.

Yes Heba, I remember reading that (Athens info) on the Cairo website too.

I have searched the website and similar sites for a considerable period of time tonight to try and find an answer for you soliman56. Since I was unsuccessful in finding you that link, I reverted back to the papers I printed when doing my original homework. Here's what I found:

"Submitting a petition at the U.S. Consulate in Cairo, Egypt allows the adjudicating consular officer the authority to approve the petition. In the event that the consular officer determines the case is not clearly approvable, the Embassy will forward such petitions to the INS office in Athens, Greece for further administrative processing. Processing at INS Athens may take over 6 months. A decision to forward a petition to INS Athens is final."

Here is a link to possible reasons why your case may not be approvable:

http://travel.state.gov/spouse_fiance(e).html#16b

and click on:

What If My Husband/Wife Is Ineligible for a Visa?

Here's more detailed info on ineligibility:

http://travel.state.gov/visa;ineligible.html

and if you want to know the intimate details of visa processing, here's a link to the Foreign Affairs Manual:

http://foia.state.gov/Regs/fams.asp?level=2&id=10&fam=0

I spent some time reading this manual as well tonight and I learned a great deal including where some of the language that we (the Cairo Club) get in emails from the embassy, i.e. "process the case to conclusion" and "administrative processing" and "name check", etc. If you have a couple of free hours, it's worth the read

Best of luck to you,

Debbie

sdmansour

How do we know the man was "American" and the woman was not "American"?
You can see that the man is white. How do you know the woman is Indian?



I saw both of these individuals in the emabssy in cairo when i was there in july 2003 and november 2003. and i was interviewed by the indian woman. i asked her where she was from and she told me that she grew up in the states and that her parents were from india originally. the day of our interview, she was even dressed in traditional indian garb

all employees working in the embassy are american either by birth or naturalization.

[email protected]

Hebapotamus42 <member12554@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
    > I think I mentioned this earlier, before the consulate changed their
    > website, there was a little section where they stated that if a case is
    > not clearly approvable, it is sent to Athens where it could stay for up
    > to 6 months. I don't know the reasons why your case was sent there. We
    > can only speculate. There's nothing any of us here can do about it
    > except offer our support and hope that everything goes well. Don't send
    > anything to the consulate unless they ask you specifically to send
    > something. Many people have had the experience of taking photos and
    > other evidence of the relationship to the interview but it doesn't get
    > looked at. Your case doesn't appear to be very different than others'.
    > Keep trying to contact the consulate in Cairo and the office in Athens
    > to find out why it was transferred there. Have your wife try to contact
    > them as someone suggested since she is the US citizen and they might be
    > more receptive to her. Be patient as the consulate can sometimes take
    > up to 2 weeks to respond to an email.


Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

thank you for ur help but really i would like to ask u about something
,,,
DO U THINK THAT THEY WILL ASK FOR THESE THINGS THAT I NEED TO ATTACH
TO MY FILE ???????????????????????????????????? cuz this will not be
fair to give their adjudication for my case like this ,,the only thing
that i see is that they do not like to let any egyptian man to
immigrate with his wife to usa ,frankly i know that they have the
right to think about fraud marriage but how they can prove if this
marriage is real or fraud ????????????????? im many cases there are
USA citizens women are older than their husbands and they want them to
live with them in usa and they married for love ,what i feel that the
usa immigration law dose not like that any man younger than his wife
to travel because they think that they married to go around the law
not real marriage .

    > Originally posted by
    > [email protected]
    > > Hello patty sure i am happy
    > to chat with u and ur group but really i do not know how ,all what i
    > know the MSN ,,,now please can u help me more if u or any one read this
    > messege ,,,,,,, the CO and the INS did not take any of the emails and
    > pictures of me and my wife with my family in cairo, even they did not
    > take our telephone bills that proof we know each other longggg time
    > ,even they did not take the flight tickets,i feel that these things are
    > helpful in my case now my QUESTION IS ,,,,,,
    > HOW CAN I SEND IT AND
    > ATTACH THESE THINGS TO MY FILE??????????????

[email protected]

sdmansour <member21279@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
    > While searching for the info I read previously about cases sent to
    > Athens, I found this on http://travel.state.gov/egypt.html
    >
    >
    > "The Embassy cautions American citizens regarding marriage to
    > Egyptian citizens whom they meet only briefly or only via the Internet.
    > The Embassy has uncovered numerous cases of fraudulent intent in recent
    > years on the part of Egyptian partners in such relationships. They have
    > been shown to have contracted the marriage, either primarily or solely,
    > for the purposes of obtaining access to an immigrant visa to the U.S.
    > This is especially the case in which the parties have met only on-line.
    > There is a common pattern in which Egyptian men will marry American
    > women, remain in the marriage only long enough to obtain U.S. residency
    > status or citizenship, and then divorce. We urge Americans
    > contemplating marriage to an Egyptian citizen to become familiar with
    > Egyptian family law (known here as personal status laws). Especially
    > for women, their rights as both spouse and parent would be very
    > different in Egypt from those in the U.S., as would the rights of any
    > children resulting from the marriage"
    >
    > Soliman56, the State Dept. is
    > the agency that oversees the embassies worldwide (as opposed to BCIS
    > for applications initiated in the US). This is one of several reasons
    > why the processing takes so much time.
    >
    > Yes Heba, I remember reading
    > that (Athens info) on the Cairo website too.
    >
    > I have searched the
    > website and similar sites for a considerable period of time tonight to
    > try and find an answer for you soliman56. Since I was unsuccessful in
    > finding you that link, I reverted back to the papers I printed when
    > doing my original homework. Here's what I found:
    >
    > "Submitting a
    > petition at the U.S. Consulate in Cairo, Egypt allows the adjudicating
    > consular officer the authority to approve the petition. In the event
    > that the consular officer determines the case is not clearly
    > approvable, the Embassy will forward such petitions to the INS office
    > in Athens, Greece for further administrative processing. Processing at
    > INS Athens may take over 6 months. A decision to forward a petition to
    > INS Athens is final."
    >
    > Here is a link to possible reasons why your case
    > may not be approvable:
    >
    >
    > http://travel.state.gov/spouse_fiance(e).html#16b
    >
    > and
    > click on:
    >
    > What If My Husband/Wife Is Ineligible for a Visa?
    >
    > Here's
    > more detailed info on ineligibility:
    >
    >
    > http://travel.state.gov/visa;ineligible.html
    >
    > and if you
    > want to know the intimate details of visa processing, here's a link to
    > the Foreign Affairs Manual:
    >
    >
    > http://foia.state.gov/Regs/fams.asp?level=2&id=10&fam=0
    >
    > I
    > spent some time reading this manual as well tonight and I learned a
    > great deal including where some of the language that we (the Cairo
    > Club) get in emails from the embassy, i.e. "process the case to
    > conclusion" and "administrative processing" and "name check", etc. If
    > you have a couple of free hours, it's worth the read
    >
    > Best of luck
    > to you,
    >
    > Debbie

Thank you very much for ur helpful email and really i needed this
email ,but really i need more of ur info cuz i see that u have lots,i
feel that the usa embassy in cairo send my case to ATHENS because they
see that i marry my wife for immigration issue ,but this is not real
so how i can prove for them that i marry my wife for life and for love
????????? .

please advise
thank uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

meauxna

There are local staffers at the Consulates. However, the interviewers (final decision folk) are USCs. Postings are for 2 years, tho theoretically I suppose they can re-bid for the same post for more than one "tour".

Khadija

Soliman -

You are not reading our answers carefully. We have given you some suggestions and you should follow up on them.

Have your WIFE contact the Consulate in Athens. They may be more willing to answer her.

DO NOT send any evidence until you are requested to do so.

Chances are, as we've opined before, it may be a simple case of the INITIAL paperwork being incomplete thereby making it impossible for the Consulate in Cairo to proceed. It is a two step process. First, the petitioner, your wife, has to demonstrate that she is free to marry, is a US citizen and that you are legally married. If there is a problem with THAT paperwork, the Consulate in Cairo has no option but to send the case to Athens where there is a CIS section in the Consulate. Once that is settled, again assuming this is the difficulty, then and only then would they take up the matter of your evidence of your relationship.

It is premature to worry. You haven't been denied. Your case has been transferred to another Consulate - that's all. Your WIFE must take some action here and start contacting the Consulate as she has more standing as the US citizen. Again, your timeline is not any different than that of the half a dozen or so of the rest of us married to Egyptians (many of whom are older USCs married to younger Egyptian men).

Please study the information that has been provided. Your questions have been answered to the best of our ability and you need to take that, plus the research Debbie did for you, and have your wife contact the Consulate.

Patty Khadijah

Mtravelkay

sdmansour wrote:

    > How do we know the man was "American" and the woman was not "American"?
    >
    > You can see that the man is white. How do you know the woman is Indian?
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > I saw both of these individuals in the emabssy in cairo when i was
    > there in july 2003 and november 2003. and i was interviewed by the
    > indian woman. i asked her where she was from and she told me that she
    > grew up in the states and that her parents were from india originally.
    > the day of our interview, she was even dressed in traditional indian
    > garb
    >

OK, she was Indian, but also American. So, why is it an "American" man
and not an "American" woman? or simply "the man" or "the woman"?
It sounds predjudicial when people refer to them as "American man" and
"Indian woman" since they are both American.

    > all employees working in the embassy are american either by
    > birth or naturalization.
    >

Actually, you might say all employees interviewing people for immigrant
visas might be citizens, but I doubt this applies to "all" people
working at the Embassy. Even the Marine security force doesn't require
their people to be citizens.

sdmansour

in the case of the embassy in egypt, all employees are USCs whether they are native egyptians or not. i was personally told this while i was there waiting in a long line outside the embassy *pestering * the guy controlling the entrance (we were there at 7:30am for an 8:00am appt. and were not allowed to go inside until nearly 10:00am). ugh!

my husband and i got into a very nice conversation with him and several other people at the front of the line and this was one of the topics that came up. not sure if this is state dept. policy everywhere or just in egypt (doesnt make too much sense if it is true for only one installation.)