spaho
08-26-2007, 05:48 PM
August 13, 2007
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this letter to notify you of the situation my husband and I are currently encountering with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. Here is our story.
On April 13, 2002 my husband who was 17 years old at the time entered the United States in Miami, Florida with a photo-switch passport. My husband was caught at entry, inspected by the INS and then paroled into the U.S. based on a pending asylum case. My husband filed for asylum in the Miami Courts.
When my husband was paroled into the U.S. he moved to Michigan to be with a distant relative he had here in the U.S. After about a month in Michigan, my husband moved to Manitowoc, Wisconsin to be with some more distant relatives. At this time my husband’s asylum case was still pending.
In January of 2003, I met my husband while he was working for a restaurant in Manitowoc. It was love at first sight. We began dating and have been together ever since. During our dating process, my husband went down to Miami, Florida twice to do his asylum case, but while he was down there, only a few hours before his hearing, his case was continued by the immigration court because they were moving locations. The second time his case was continued because his lawyer was not prepared to do the trial. Both times my husband flew down to Miami ready and willing to do his hearing.
My husband’s asylum case was then continued, so his asylum was still pending when we decided to get married. My husband and I got married on October 14, 2004 in Sheboygan Wisconsin. Once we were married I filed an I-130 petition for alien relative. This application was approved with in a couple of months. Even though the I-130 was approved a visa number would not be available for my husband because he entered the U.S. with a fake passport.
A few months after the I-130 was approved my husband’s lawyer got this bright idea for us to move to Massachusetts because something about that circuit’s court was approving the permanent residency applications better or easier or something like that. We paid for our lawyer to switch my husband’s asylum case from Miami to Boston, and my husband and I ended up moving to Worcester, Massachusetts. We stayed in Massachusetts long enough for the court to do the master hearing and then I wanted to move back home, so my husband and I moved back to Wisconsin. While at his master hearing the Immigration Judge told my husband that he could not adjust his status. Only an immigration officer could do so because my husband is in asylum-only proceedings not removal proceedings.
In July of 2005 my husband and I applied for his permanent residency. We followed all the laws, got his fingerprints taken, took the medical examination and then waited to have our marriage interview.
In November of 2005, we also filed an I-601 waiver of excludability to remove the fraudulent passport from my husband’s record. The only way for him to become a permanent resident is for the I-601 to be approved. On January 11, 2006 we went to the INS office in Milwaukee to do our marriage interview. We went prepared with two photo albums of pictures since we have been together, and two portable files of utility bills, insurance documents, and everything else possible to prove that my husband and I are truly married. While at the interview the Immigration officer never asked us anything regarding our marriage. He just concentrated on my husbands pending asylum application, which had nothing to do with why we were at the appointment. He continued to suggest that he could not adjust my husbands application because that can only be done by an Immigration Judge. We tried to explain to him that the Immigration Judge in Boston said that he couldn’t adjust my husband’s status because he is in asylum-only proceedings not removal. For this interview we had flown in my husband’s lawyer all the way from Miami so he could go with us. When the interview was over our lawyer thought everything went well.
According to Immigration law, an applicant with a pending permanent residency application is eligible to receive work authorization while the application is pending. My husband filed for his EAD in July of 2005. It had been longer then the 90 days allotted for an EAD application so we decided to go to Milwaukee to get an interim EAD which is available if it had been longer then 90 days.
The day we went to get his EAD card, we were denied his permanent residency application. We went there to get his card and walked out with three denials. One for our waiver, which then in turn denied his permanent residency, which then denied his employment authorization.
We filed an appeal on March 10, 2006. We received a cash register receipt notice from Milwaukee saying it is taking about 06 months to process that kind of case. When the 06 month passed we wrote a letter to Milwaukee to see if we could find out what was going on with our appeal. We still have not heard anything back from them.
In late December 2006 our lawyer thought we should try re-filing for my husbands permanent residency application and re-file the waiver with more evidence then the first time. So we followed our lawyer’s instructions and sent in another application for his permanent residency. We paid all the application fees over again, and redid his medical examination and fingerprints.
On April 26, 2007 we went back to Milwaukee for our second marriage interview. While at the interview, we ended up with the same immigration officer as the year before. The same officer that denied us the year before. He asked why we were back. We told him our lawyer told us to re-file so we did. He said that wasn’t allowed and that we were supposed to wait for a decision on the appeal. He also told us that my husband needed to finish his asylum stuff before he could make a decision. We tried to explain to him for the second year in a row that the Immigration Judge can not adjust my husband’s status because he is in asylum only proceedings. He then tried to tell us that he could not make a decision on the new application until a decision was made on the appeal. He also said whatever the appeals decision is, will be his decision on our second application.
So here we are waiting…
Also, because my husband has the pending asylum, according to law he is eligible to receive work authorization based on his pending asylum. We filed for a renewal of his current EAD on May 11, 2007. It has passed 90 days since we filed and my husband’s application is outside the current processing dates. His current EAD expired yesterday and his employer was aware of it. He lost his great paying job at Kohler Company, and is now currently out of work. I am the only one supporting our household at the moment and my income is no where near enough to cover our expenses. We called customer service with immigration and notified them that my husband’s application is outside of the processing dates. They put in a request and told us we would hear something within the next 14 days. That was over a week ago and we still have not heard anything. It still does not help us; my husband already lost his job.
So here we are waiting…
I thought something was strange that our appeal has been taking so long. According to a website my husband found, I-601 appeals are currently taking about 18 months to process. That means we are in the 16th to 17th month of our appeal. I still could not get around the notion that something was wrong.
On August 8th, my husband found an 800 number for the administrative appeals office. He called them and it looks like they never received our appeal that we filed for back in March 2006. We notified our lawyer and he has been trying to get in touch with someone in Milwaukee. He has her fax and phone number and has been trying to reach her since last Friday to find out what is going on with our appeal. He hasn’t been able to get in touch with her.
On Friday the 10th, my husband and my mother went to Milwaukee on an Info Pass appointment to talk to them about what is going on with our appeal. They went up to the window when they were called and the lady started looking into things. She tried to tell my husband that a letter was sent to us in April regarding our case. We never received anything and my husband was trying to tell her that. She asked my husband and my mother to sit down while she looked into it. When she called them back up she apologized and said it was a computer error. She also said that our appeal was sent to the Board of Immigration Appeals office, but could not tell him when it was sent, or where exactly it was sent. She then told my husband and my mother she could not answer any more questions because there time was up.
Yesterday morning I called the clerks office for the Board of Immigration Appeals and they do not have our appeal either. So apparently Milwaukee did not do what it was supposed to do with it almost 18 months ago and we have been waiting for nothing. According to the immigration officer from our second interview he can not make a decision on our application until a decision is made on our appeal. By the looks of it we won’t get a decision on our appeal because it wasn’t taken care of properly. Even though we have a cash register receipt I still feel like we are waiting for nothing. Every person I have spoken with at immigration says that because I have that receipt it is being processed and that I just need to wait for a decision. I’m afraid that I’m waiting for nothing.
To sum it all up this is what we all have going on.
1. Pending asylum application in Boston with the next hearing date of September 8, 2008.
2. Pending I-601 appeal (or so we thought)
3. Pending I-485 and I-601
4. Pending I-765
My husband and I would appreciate any help you can offer us, and if there is any way that we can find for my husband to become a permanent resident with out any of this hassle that we are going through, we would really appreciate it. We would really like to start a family, be able to hold a steady job without immigration coming along a year later and taking it away, and buy a home. We would like to look forward to the future instead of waiting for an answer from someone else. I am tired of someone else making the decision on how we should live our lives. I have spoken with several people about our situation that includes family, friends and strangers. It is no wonder why so many people come into this country illegally. When people like my husband and I try to do the right thing, we get treated like dirt and get strung around in circles. The people that do come to this country illegally must know of all the hassle of doing things the right way and that is why they don’t. My husband was fleeing from a Communist country. A country where he was kidnapped, beaten and sexually assaulted for believing in freedom. He left his entire family, his mother, his father, and his little brother back home to come to a country where he thought he could be safe and free. It is very unfortunate that he and I a United States Citizen born and raised in Sheboygan, Wisconsin have had to go through all of this hassle.
Please help us any way you can.
Thank you so much.
update: My husband and I found out on Thursday that his EAD was denied. We won't know why until we recieve the letter in the mail, but it's crazy. My husband has been in the U.S. for over 5 years and he can't even work!
K.
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this letter to notify you of the situation my husband and I are currently encountering with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. Here is our story.
On April 13, 2002 my husband who was 17 years old at the time entered the United States in Miami, Florida with a photo-switch passport. My husband was caught at entry, inspected by the INS and then paroled into the U.S. based on a pending asylum case. My husband filed for asylum in the Miami Courts.
When my husband was paroled into the U.S. he moved to Michigan to be with a distant relative he had here in the U.S. After about a month in Michigan, my husband moved to Manitowoc, Wisconsin to be with some more distant relatives. At this time my husband’s asylum case was still pending.
In January of 2003, I met my husband while he was working for a restaurant in Manitowoc. It was love at first sight. We began dating and have been together ever since. During our dating process, my husband went down to Miami, Florida twice to do his asylum case, but while he was down there, only a few hours before his hearing, his case was continued by the immigration court because they were moving locations. The second time his case was continued because his lawyer was not prepared to do the trial. Both times my husband flew down to Miami ready and willing to do his hearing.
My husband’s asylum case was then continued, so his asylum was still pending when we decided to get married. My husband and I got married on October 14, 2004 in Sheboygan Wisconsin. Once we were married I filed an I-130 petition for alien relative. This application was approved with in a couple of months. Even though the I-130 was approved a visa number would not be available for my husband because he entered the U.S. with a fake passport.
A few months after the I-130 was approved my husband’s lawyer got this bright idea for us to move to Massachusetts because something about that circuit’s court was approving the permanent residency applications better or easier or something like that. We paid for our lawyer to switch my husband’s asylum case from Miami to Boston, and my husband and I ended up moving to Worcester, Massachusetts. We stayed in Massachusetts long enough for the court to do the master hearing and then I wanted to move back home, so my husband and I moved back to Wisconsin. While at his master hearing the Immigration Judge told my husband that he could not adjust his status. Only an immigration officer could do so because my husband is in asylum-only proceedings not removal proceedings.
In July of 2005 my husband and I applied for his permanent residency. We followed all the laws, got his fingerprints taken, took the medical examination and then waited to have our marriage interview.
In November of 2005, we also filed an I-601 waiver of excludability to remove the fraudulent passport from my husband’s record. The only way for him to become a permanent resident is for the I-601 to be approved. On January 11, 2006 we went to the INS office in Milwaukee to do our marriage interview. We went prepared with two photo albums of pictures since we have been together, and two portable files of utility bills, insurance documents, and everything else possible to prove that my husband and I are truly married. While at the interview the Immigration officer never asked us anything regarding our marriage. He just concentrated on my husbands pending asylum application, which had nothing to do with why we were at the appointment. He continued to suggest that he could not adjust my husbands application because that can only be done by an Immigration Judge. We tried to explain to him that the Immigration Judge in Boston said that he couldn’t adjust my husband’s status because he is in asylum-only proceedings not removal. For this interview we had flown in my husband’s lawyer all the way from Miami so he could go with us. When the interview was over our lawyer thought everything went well.
According to Immigration law, an applicant with a pending permanent residency application is eligible to receive work authorization while the application is pending. My husband filed for his EAD in July of 2005. It had been longer then the 90 days allotted for an EAD application so we decided to go to Milwaukee to get an interim EAD which is available if it had been longer then 90 days.
The day we went to get his EAD card, we were denied his permanent residency application. We went there to get his card and walked out with three denials. One for our waiver, which then in turn denied his permanent residency, which then denied his employment authorization.
We filed an appeal on March 10, 2006. We received a cash register receipt notice from Milwaukee saying it is taking about 06 months to process that kind of case. When the 06 month passed we wrote a letter to Milwaukee to see if we could find out what was going on with our appeal. We still have not heard anything back from them.
In late December 2006 our lawyer thought we should try re-filing for my husbands permanent residency application and re-file the waiver with more evidence then the first time. So we followed our lawyer’s instructions and sent in another application for his permanent residency. We paid all the application fees over again, and redid his medical examination and fingerprints.
On April 26, 2007 we went back to Milwaukee for our second marriage interview. While at the interview, we ended up with the same immigration officer as the year before. The same officer that denied us the year before. He asked why we were back. We told him our lawyer told us to re-file so we did. He said that wasn’t allowed and that we were supposed to wait for a decision on the appeal. He also told us that my husband needed to finish his asylum stuff before he could make a decision. We tried to explain to him for the second year in a row that the Immigration Judge can not adjust my husband’s status because he is in asylum only proceedings. He then tried to tell us that he could not make a decision on the new application until a decision was made on the appeal. He also said whatever the appeals decision is, will be his decision on our second application.
So here we are waiting…
Also, because my husband has the pending asylum, according to law he is eligible to receive work authorization based on his pending asylum. We filed for a renewal of his current EAD on May 11, 2007. It has passed 90 days since we filed and my husband’s application is outside the current processing dates. His current EAD expired yesterday and his employer was aware of it. He lost his great paying job at Kohler Company, and is now currently out of work. I am the only one supporting our household at the moment and my income is no where near enough to cover our expenses. We called customer service with immigration and notified them that my husband’s application is outside of the processing dates. They put in a request and told us we would hear something within the next 14 days. That was over a week ago and we still have not heard anything. It still does not help us; my husband already lost his job.
So here we are waiting…
I thought something was strange that our appeal has been taking so long. According to a website my husband found, I-601 appeals are currently taking about 18 months to process. That means we are in the 16th to 17th month of our appeal. I still could not get around the notion that something was wrong.
On August 8th, my husband found an 800 number for the administrative appeals office. He called them and it looks like they never received our appeal that we filed for back in March 2006. We notified our lawyer and he has been trying to get in touch with someone in Milwaukee. He has her fax and phone number and has been trying to reach her since last Friday to find out what is going on with our appeal. He hasn’t been able to get in touch with her.
On Friday the 10th, my husband and my mother went to Milwaukee on an Info Pass appointment to talk to them about what is going on with our appeal. They went up to the window when they were called and the lady started looking into things. She tried to tell my husband that a letter was sent to us in April regarding our case. We never received anything and my husband was trying to tell her that. She asked my husband and my mother to sit down while she looked into it. When she called them back up she apologized and said it was a computer error. She also said that our appeal was sent to the Board of Immigration Appeals office, but could not tell him when it was sent, or where exactly it was sent. She then told my husband and my mother she could not answer any more questions because there time was up.
Yesterday morning I called the clerks office for the Board of Immigration Appeals and they do not have our appeal either. So apparently Milwaukee did not do what it was supposed to do with it almost 18 months ago and we have been waiting for nothing. According to the immigration officer from our second interview he can not make a decision on our application until a decision is made on our appeal. By the looks of it we won’t get a decision on our appeal because it wasn’t taken care of properly. Even though we have a cash register receipt I still feel like we are waiting for nothing. Every person I have spoken with at immigration says that because I have that receipt it is being processed and that I just need to wait for a decision. I’m afraid that I’m waiting for nothing.
To sum it all up this is what we all have going on.
1. Pending asylum application in Boston with the next hearing date of September 8, 2008.
2. Pending I-601 appeal (or so we thought)
3. Pending I-485 and I-601
4. Pending I-765
My husband and I would appreciate any help you can offer us, and if there is any way that we can find for my husband to become a permanent resident with out any of this hassle that we are going through, we would really appreciate it. We would really like to start a family, be able to hold a steady job without immigration coming along a year later and taking it away, and buy a home. We would like to look forward to the future instead of waiting for an answer from someone else. I am tired of someone else making the decision on how we should live our lives. I have spoken with several people about our situation that includes family, friends and strangers. It is no wonder why so many people come into this country illegally. When people like my husband and I try to do the right thing, we get treated like dirt and get strung around in circles. The people that do come to this country illegally must know of all the hassle of doing things the right way and that is why they don’t. My husband was fleeing from a Communist country. A country where he was kidnapped, beaten and sexually assaulted for believing in freedom. He left his entire family, his mother, his father, and his little brother back home to come to a country where he thought he could be safe and free. It is very unfortunate that he and I a United States Citizen born and raised in Sheboygan, Wisconsin have had to go through all of this hassle.
Please help us any way you can.
Thank you so much.
update: My husband and I found out on Thursday that his EAD was denied. We won't know why until we recieve the letter in the mail, but it's crazy. My husband has been in the U.S. for over 5 years and he can't even work!
K.