Finding Love Abroad, Then Support Online for Visa Quest

Virgil Moore of Catonsville, Md., said the site has been a godsend since he applied for his Filipina fiancee four months ago. When he wondered if she could be interviewed at a consulate rather than the U.S. Embassy, he e-mailed the embassy that question and also asked on VisaJourney. VJ'ers quickly said no. The embassy said no as well but took four months to do so.

Now he logs on daily to see if other VJ'ers have been approved. Few have recently. He reports this via Web cam to his tearful fiancee, Ana Deresa Cabarubias, 27, whom he met online.

"We felt so close," Moore, a divorced UPS employee, said of his one visit to see Cabarubias in May. "Now we've been separated. . . . I wonder if it's going to put stress on our relationship."

Brown calls herself obsessed with her fiance's immigration situation. She and Ilion Hasaj caught each other's eye in May 2006 in a bar in Greece, where each was vacationing. She has since made four trips to visit Hasaj, whose family grows tobacco behind their Albanian home.

She applied for his fiance visa last October and began to plan a Las Vegas wedding. The visa was denied in April. His application was returned to U.S. officials for another review. Brown has heard nothing since.

After writing to members of Congress and federal officials, she has learned only that the visa was denied on the following grounds: "The interviewing consular officer has reason to believe that the engagement was entered into to evade immigration laws."

Brown suspects that Hasaj was not effusive about their love at the interview because he's the macho type. Their age difference -- he is 21 -- might also have sounded alarms, she said. She is confident that his devotion is real, partly because he welcomes the idea of her moving to Albania.

So every night, Brown researches immigration regulations and checks in with VisaJourney, where she "hangs" in forums with other fiances of Albanians.

Her speech is infused with immigration lingo: Hasaj's denial is "what we call a soft denial," she'll say, or Albania is "what we call a high-fraud post."

She adds to the box of documents other VJ'ers have told her she'll need if officials request more evidence of her relationship with Hasaj. It includes a six-inch-thick folder of 14 months' worth of online chatlogs.

"It's addictive," Brown said of the site.

And that can be a problem, Keenan said. Like Brown, she logs onto VisaJourney constantly -- to ask questions, post sale fares to Egypt, buoy others. Sometimes it's too much, she said.

"You feel support, but you feel depressed, because you see other people approved," she said. "Sometimes you have to step back."

One bright spot, Brown said, is the friendship she forged with a California VJ'er who successfully got her Albanian fiance into the United States.

"On those many nights when I've had it, on the verge of a breakdown, the frustration with the process, to be able to pick up the phone and talk to someone who can sympathize with you is nice," Brown said, her voice breaking.

But the separation from Hasaj is too hard, the travel too costly. Come next month, she said, she is moving to Albania.

"Not that I want to be a farmer's wife," she said on a recent night, gazing at the ivory, ruched-bodice wedding dress she is waiting to wear.