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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
Loving the report bandi
I cant believe how much Lilla has grown!
Keep on posting..
Loving the report bandi
I cant believe how much Lilla has grown! Keep on posting..
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If you don't fight for what you deserve, you deserve what you get.
We are > Fossil Fuels --- Bill McKibben 350.org -
Re: Love and cough can never hide...
Goodness Lilla get big eeh, she looks like a happy baby
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
Love the pics, Reach Falls looks wonderful.
Bandimapreadingskillswoman!
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
Enjoying your pictures so very much. Your baby girl is just way too adorable...Comment
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
beautiful pics. lovely family. love shining thru the pics
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
larks Bandi, these are wonderful, really luvvvly,
ur baby sweeeet sah, me can teef her,
like someone else says, u can see the love shining thru...blessed family and friends~~
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
by the way ms b, tanks for the new wallpaper,
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
As usual, amazing trip report and photos Mrs_B!!!
Lilla is adorable....a real cutie pie!!
Bwaay....I'm jealous...all now mi noh reach REACH falls yet....cho!! One of these days...it looks absolutely breathtaking....Comment
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Mrs_Bandanna</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Auntie say oooohhhhh wata cole!! 
But she love it still
</div></div>
auntie baddy sexy doe! she look good in her suite
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
Thanks for the comments
Yes, the wallpaper sweet me too
The love is undeniable
The "cough" sometimes feels life threatening
Vegas, I love me some Auntie!!!! Through all that we have been through, she is always right there!!
And she pretty like wha!
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
In all my 10 years I have ALWAYS been real with my reports. I am just me, no pretenses, no ulterior motive but to tell the story of my journeys through JA. This trip is no different, just my story. Tho, the context has changed, and the stakes have been raised. It is still just my story, being told amid the beauty of JAMAICA.
Maybe someone out there reading can help me, maybe this can help someone out there reading...
Maybe its just words and pictures to be added to the archives...
but it's my story and I am going to tell it..
I will continue in written word; the fun and pictures stop here
Some of you may have wondered what happen to Bandanna lately, and the answer is immigration.
For over 2 years I have been researching, reading, learning and petitioning for my husband to come to the US.
I am not ashamed of my husband or his past. I love him, he is a good and kind hearted man. He wakes me every day with a smile, and he prays along side of me for our family's unity. He loves me unconditionally, and I thank God for him.
But the US wanna call him a criminal...
My husband was arrested twice in his early adulthood for marijuana possession. Both charges totaled less than 30 grams together, he paid a total of US$9.00 in fines (JA$200 and JA$500) and he did no jail time.
He did not lie to the embassy; he provided them with the information with our initial fiancé petition. On that first interview in March of 2010 he was given a refusal slip saying a waiver “may be available for such a small amount of marijuana possession.” He was also given a blue slip to return with an I-601 waiver application and hardship letter from me. I spent 2 months of my maternity leave preparing a waiver, sent it to him, and he went back in June of 2010. At that time he was told he could not file a waiver as a fiancé and that we must get married and file again as husband and wife.
I went to my congressman, who forwarded me a letter in response to their inquiry, written on embassy letterhead that said a waiver of this kind was only available to the spouse of a US Citizen. So we married in September, and then in Nov. of 2010 we consulted with a lawyer over the phone who told us we had no chance. He said the laws quoted in the letter were not even right, and that under the law we had no leg to stand on in getting a waiver. According to law, Only a SINGLE offense of 30 grams of marijuana or less is eligible to be waived…
So in January, after much depression, I went back to my congressman and asked my constituent services rep why the embassy would tell us to marry and re-file if we had no chance…? Did we really have a chance…? At that time my congressman wrote the embassy again inquiring as to our case, and whether we could file a waiver as husband and wife... The congressman again forwarded me the correspondence from the embassy, this time in the form of an e-mail stating that “since we were married, our fiancé petition was invalid, but that as soon as they received an approved spousal petition we would be able to file a waiver.”
Every inch of me hoped that they would take the waiver, but I knew it was very possible that they would not. I have read the law a billion times trying to find a loophole to him having two convictions…? Trying to understand why the embassy was so adamant we were eligible for a waiver, praying it was not complete idiocy!!??!! Either way, I wanted SOMEONE to hear all that I have been through, and all that his inadmissibility would cost me and our children.Comment
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
He woke me early that morning, and busied himself pressing our clothes while I showered. No metal, no jewelry, nothing in our pockets but $585 US dollars (the waiver fee) and a accordion file full of evidence. Uncle Joe drove us down the street, and Auntie stayed at the hotel with Lilla. We left the phone with a man across the street and took our place in the queue to enter the US Embassy.
We got through the security check point with no problem and waited in a short line that was moving fast. My husband was given a number, and I was made to wait in the courtyard. For 2 hours I waited while they shuffled the people through like a deck of cards. Finally my husband emerged, and as I see his face I know it’s not good news.
They would not take the waiver… the lady behind the window gave him a refusal sheet quoting the law he was ineligible under, and a pamphlet on how to schedule an appointment to file a waiver… the address for such an appointment? 142 Old Hope Rd… um, what?
we are here, we were scheduled for an appointment today!! WTH? I marched back into the double doors, and requested to speak with a CIS officer 
We were told that US citizens must come between 1 and 3. 
We went out and retrieved our phone to call for Joe to come for us. Back at the hotel, I called my congressman and was told my rep was out for the day, I left a detailed message telling what happened. I gathered all correspondence from the embassy over the past 2 years as well as the ridiculous pamphlet given today, telling us how to make an appointment to file a waiver.
We packed all the luggage in the car, checked out of the hotel, and headed back to the embassy…
We got another number, and were shown into the UC Citizen section of the embassy to wait. There was 3 windows and a room, all the people waiting were being called into the room, and for that I was grateful, cause I sure did not want to loose my cool at Window #3
When our number was finally called (maybe an hour later) we entered a little room where a lady was waiting behind the glass. I explained our story, and she was confused, she said “who told you to marry and re-file, your lawyer?” um, no… the interviewing officer… I handed her all the documentation, the refusal slip from the fiance' petition, both letters from my congressman, and the refusal slip from today. She was visibly upset, and she asked us to wait a minute and she left the room to review our case. She said she wanted to discuss our situation with today’s interviewing officer. When she came back she asked my husband to quote EXACTLY what the interviewing officer had told him that morning, specifically if she had given him any choice as to further action. When we handed her the informational printout on “how to file a waiver” her lips pierced like she just ate the sourest lemon imaginable. She was [censored]. She asked us to wait out in the lobby until she could have a chance to think about the situation they had put “us” in. Like she was in it too…
We waited there for at least another hour… at about 3:30 she came to window #2 and said that our case was being reviewed by a supervisor and that she just wanted us to know we had not been forgotten… by 4:30 the janitor was sweeping floors around us… Finally my husband’s name was called to Window 7 in the main immigrant visa section. As we rounded the corner from the bathrooms we see the same interviewing officer he got earlier that day. She hands us back the refusal slip where she has now written that he is not eligible for a waiver and printed the section of the law stating why. She is young, her face is unsympathetic, and she seems perturbed that she is still there being made to work when everyone else has gone home… There is no ring on her finger, and I know she has no clue what my husband and I are facing...
I start barreling questions at her, why this, why that, and she asks if I want to speak to her supervisor. LOL!! Um YES WOMAN, WHY YOU THINK I BEEN WAITING HERE FOR FOUR AND A HALF HOURS???!!!!
She disappears into the background, and eventually a man comes up to the other side of the window. I can see in his eyes that he is sorry. He says he filed for his wife and he knows how hard the process is. He says he is a Sr. Officer there and that he would like us to take a seat while he reviews the case. I plead with him, with tears streaming down my face… my husband is a good man, he is not a threat to our country, if the true purpose of a waiver is to weigh his crime against the hardship I will face if he is refused entry then he should be on a plane home with me!! The man says he will review the case but will not take the waiver I try to hand him… he asks me to please take a seat and calm down, he offers me the restroom to splash some cold water on my face and I laugh. At this point my husband tells him we have a daughter waiting outside in the car with her Aunt for all these hours… The man tells the security guard to let him go get her. I sit there and all I can do is bawl.
When the man returns to Window 7 he apologizes on behalf of the US Embassy for the miss-information we have been given, but that my husband is indeed ineligible to immigrate to the US under the current law. My husband asks him why we have been told on several occasions that we could apply for a waiver. The man says he would also like to know the answer to that question, but that it does not change the fact that my husband has 2 charges and is not eligible for the waiver. He says he hates to see this happen especially where a family is involved, and he looks on Lilla in my arms and the tears streaming down my cheeks. My husband asks about the money we have spent re-filing, which we never would have done if the embassy had not told us to. The man says he will look into that and gives me his card and asks for my e-mail address. My husband tries to ask again why, but I can tell we are going to get no further, and I squeeze his hand and thank the man for his time. I left the embassy at approx. 5:30pm in tears, holding my 18 month old daughter, my husband’s hand on my back. All I could think is that I hate this place…Comment
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
Oh I'm so sorry Bandanna
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
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Re: Love and cough can never hide...
Oh No. I had a feeling I was not gonna love this part. I am so sorry Bandi. [censored].
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