Hi all. After a particularly nasty, biased, and unprofessionally conducted interview in Tunis, my husband was refused in May of this year, I previously wrote about our experience in this forum. We then filed for appeal in June and just received the blue book this October. It came while I was in Tunisia.
Upon opening it, I expected to find that it would contain our complete file and copies of all the evidence we had previously submitted, minus whatever chat logs they noted that were shredded early on in the application process.
In fact, what they sent contains little more than the application its self, the support letters from my mother, son and best friend, a few pages of hangouts chat, and 3 printed pages of pictures that i had submitted additionally as an afterthought depicting the engagement party my work held for me, a couple of pics of our first meeting, and 3 other pictures of me and my husband together, selfies actually. They did not include any significant pictures. Nothing of our wedding or engagement, nothing showing friends and family were included with the blue book documents.
I submitted over 300 original photographs with our application and my husband brought 50+more with him to his interview. There was also a ton of other relevant evidence we submitted that we had accumulated over the course of our 3 year relationship, receipts, itineraries, love letters, proof of gifts from both of us as well as from our families to each other, emails, among other things, and yet the immigration officer sent almost nothing depicting our relationship or anything else supporting our application.
In addition, the notes they wrote regarding the interview are riddled with sloppy mistakes and several blatant lies. For example; they botched the name of the interpreter completely, not just by a wrong letter here or there but completely wrong name. They stated the only people from my husbands side to attend our wedding was his brother, sister, and a few uncles, when in fact his parents were also of course there at both the formal contract ceremony as well as the party, as noted throughout the application as well as in numerous pictures. She did not record his answers verbatim, but wrote some simplified "dumbed down" answers, excerpts of his full answers and other things completely of her own creation.
She harped in the interview notes about my wedding dress not being culturally the norm there (sweetheart neckline, arms not covered), even though she admits that she is not sure and had asked an assistant post interview about it who also was not entirely sure but "guessed that people in his region might wear arm coverings under the dresses".
I had submitted several emails between my husband and I of the whole process (very personal and special, quite a big deal) of us checking out different dresses and finally excitedly choosing my wedding dress together. I clearly asked if it was ok to wear there, it being a Muslim country, and him clearly assuring me he would never let let me wear something not ok. My sister was also included in the conversation voicing the same concern (she is Muslim by the way) and again his reassurance that my dress is not only appropriate but so beautiful and he cant wait to see me in it on our wedding day. I included a picture of his own mother who on her wedding day wore a similar dress with arms bared and decolletage visible and without her hair covered, he also told the interviewer one of his sisters also opted for this kind of dress as well.
We submitted tons of our wedding photos with over 70 guests all dancing and having a good time, his parents included, everyone posing with us for pictures, several women were not wearing a hijab. None of it mattered except her own biased, misinformed opinion that my dress must have been inappropriate. All one has to do is google Tunisian wedding dress and the majority of modern day wedding dresses you will see is similar to how I was dressed. Was she expecting me to wear some archaic traditional outfit that is still sometimes worn in some of the more remote rural regions or what? My dress was fine with him and I, his family, all our guests. I had so many compliments and offers to buy my dress even!
Sorry to go off on a tangent, just wanted to give an idea of how skewed this all is. My question is, what can I do? I called the appeal board to tell them how skimpy my blue book is, they said call cbsa. I called them, they said the interviewing officer includes what supports their decision, so they were of no help either. I assumed they need to show everything they were presented with in order to come to whatever conclusion they came to?
Is there a way to get them to forward everything we submitted in the name of fairness? Who can I contact to help with this? My MP? Immigration minister?
Or not only will i have to supply all our evidence since the refusal, but everything else we originally submitted as well? The appeal board should see what the officer had to go on.
They have already dealt us such a blow in the refusal alone, I feel like they are purposely trying to sabotage our appeal now
Thanks for reading all that, any help or guidance would be much appreciated. By the way I have not yet obtained counsel, was waiting for this to come first to see where I stood. If anyone can recommend anyone good that is reasonably priced, I'd also be grateful.
