Usa Overstay
Sep 1st 2003, 9:44 am
#1
YIPPEEEEEEEEE :)
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2003
Location: Almost Lake Ozark Missouri.
Posts: 140
Usa Overstay
Hello,
Wow, discovering this site has been very theraputical and educational for us :lecture:
We have just been denied our i-601. As you can all understand and know only to well, it's a long story as to why we are where we are now.
I went to the States in 1999 with my two young chidren to visit my USC fiance of whom was to return with me to Australia. We married while I was there as this is what he wanted. After being there for two and half months, he decided he didn't want to return to Australia and wanted us to remain in the US. I was only allowed to be there for three months so he called Nebraska INS and they told us that because we married while me being there legally that all we had to do was file the nessessary paperwork. GREAT. We received all we needed and to cut a long story short, my husband did not file the petition because of the financial side of things - he had not done his taxes for a long time - which I was unaware of and he simply kept putting off the filing. The next thing I know, I found out my husband had been having several internet love affairs, marriage took a slide way downhill. I tried to leave him several times and he became very violent and abusive. I fortunately had met a wonderful person through friends who helped me leave him and I left him in Feb 2001 and we were divorced in Sept 2001.
My USC friend and I soon became extremely close and became a couple and as I was feeling very homesick for what I had been going through, we relocated to Australia in Oct 2001 - 10 days after my divorce. My boyfriend thought he would see what it was like to stay in Australia.
We married in October 2002 here in Australia and soon after, for various reasons (such as my hubbys children in the US, not liking to live here permanently, etc etc) we decided to move back to the States.
APRIL 7th 2003 - USA consulate interview in Sydney. We were so prepared, had all we needed, until they told us I had an overstay of more than 180 days, to file for a i-601 waiver. Thats all they told us, just to file the i-601. So we did and sent it off. We just assumed that's all we needed to do and everything would be OK.
MAY 16th 2003 - We receive a notice of Intent to Deny from the US Consulate in Bangkok giving us 90 days to respond to the request to prove extreme hardship for my USC husband if I am denied.
So far we had invested thousands of $$$$$ on this and at this point we realised we had a serious problem on our hands. We searched all over Australia and found an immigration attorney that said that they would help us get our visa's and that we had a very strong case. Great, we felt relief. SO we handed over many thousands more - the remaining money of what we had. Bare in mind we have bought a house in my husbands hometown, and were going to rely on the sale of our remaining possessions to travel back home.
We sent the attorney everything he asked for and he sent our submission back to Bangkok, just in time - AUG 12th 2003 they had to have it by.
AUG 12th 2003 - BCIS in Bangkok receives our submission.
AUG 25th 2003 - we received a letter from BCIS stating that because we hadn't proved extreme hardship we had been denied the i-601 - that we had 33 days from Aug 21 2003 to appeal. In the submission our attorney sent (which we just finally received a copy of a few days ago) they based our submission on finances alone. We all know the relevence of that on it's own.
So here we sit................the attorney wants another large wad of cash - of which they can kiss our booty's. We do not know what to do now. My husband has had a nervous breakdown due to all of this, as with myself, our kids here are devastated that they can't go home, they hate it here. My hubby still has not talked to his kiddies in the States as the ex wife is not very accommodating being that he is out of the country, and blah blah blah.
I guess one very possitive thing out of all of this - it's brought us even closer together than we have ever been. As stressful as it is, we can still look at each other and smile, knowing that at least we have each other. I truly believe that no one in the whole entire world can test a marriage like the USA BCIS, lol.
I guess all we can do is appeal. Does anyone know, if we lose the appeal, can we re apply for the i-601 again? I assume that there is NO other way around this, I guess unless you have friends in high places, lol.
Good luck to everone out there who is in the same or similar predicament.
Take care
Sue
Wow, discovering this site has been very theraputical and educational for us :lecture:
We have just been denied our i-601. As you can all understand and know only to well, it's a long story as to why we are where we are now.
I went to the States in 1999 with my two young chidren to visit my USC fiance of whom was to return with me to Australia. We married while I was there as this is what he wanted. After being there for two and half months, he decided he didn't want to return to Australia and wanted us to remain in the US. I was only allowed to be there for three months so he called Nebraska INS and they told us that because we married while me being there legally that all we had to do was file the nessessary paperwork. GREAT. We received all we needed and to cut a long story short, my husband did not file the petition because of the financial side of things - he had not done his taxes for a long time - which I was unaware of and he simply kept putting off the filing. The next thing I know, I found out my husband had been having several internet love affairs, marriage took a slide way downhill. I tried to leave him several times and he became very violent and abusive. I fortunately had met a wonderful person through friends who helped me leave him and I left him in Feb 2001 and we were divorced in Sept 2001.
My USC friend and I soon became extremely close and became a couple and as I was feeling very homesick for what I had been going through, we relocated to Australia in Oct 2001 - 10 days after my divorce. My boyfriend thought he would see what it was like to stay in Australia.
We married in October 2002 here in Australia and soon after, for various reasons (such as my hubbys children in the US, not liking to live here permanently, etc etc) we decided to move back to the States.
APRIL 7th 2003 - USA consulate interview in Sydney. We were so prepared, had all we needed, until they told us I had an overstay of more than 180 days, to file for a i-601 waiver. Thats all they told us, just to file the i-601. So we did and sent it off. We just assumed that's all we needed to do and everything would be OK.
MAY 16th 2003 - We receive a notice of Intent to Deny from the US Consulate in Bangkok giving us 90 days to respond to the request to prove extreme hardship for my USC husband if I am denied.
So far we had invested thousands of $$$$$ on this and at this point we realised we had a serious problem on our hands. We searched all over Australia and found an immigration attorney that said that they would help us get our visa's and that we had a very strong case. Great, we felt relief. SO we handed over many thousands more - the remaining money of what we had. Bare in mind we have bought a house in my husbands hometown, and were going to rely on the sale of our remaining possessions to travel back home.
We sent the attorney everything he asked for and he sent our submission back to Bangkok, just in time - AUG 12th 2003 they had to have it by.
AUG 12th 2003 - BCIS in Bangkok receives our submission.
AUG 25th 2003 - we received a letter from BCIS stating that because we hadn't proved extreme hardship we had been denied the i-601 - that we had 33 days from Aug 21 2003 to appeal. In the submission our attorney sent (which we just finally received a copy of a few days ago) they based our submission on finances alone. We all know the relevence of that on it's own.
So here we sit................the attorney wants another large wad of cash - of which they can kiss our booty's. We do not know what to do now. My husband has had a nervous breakdown due to all of this, as with myself, our kids here are devastated that they can't go home, they hate it here. My hubby still has not talked to his kiddies in the States as the ex wife is not very accommodating being that he is out of the country, and blah blah blah.
I guess one very possitive thing out of all of this - it's brought us even closer together than we have ever been. As stressful as it is, we can still look at each other and smile, knowing that at least we have each other. I truly believe that no one in the whole entire world can test a marriage like the USA BCIS, lol.
I guess all we can do is appeal. Does anyone know, if we lose the appeal, can we re apply for the i-601 again? I assume that there is NO other way around this, I guess unless you have friends in high places, lol.
Good luck to everone out there who is in the same or similar predicament.
Take care
Sue
