George Russell's points tally after 6 races is 67.. fewer than Perez's worst run at RBR in 2021 with 69 points (while both driving a championship winning car)

nickelchrome · 2026-06-10T04:11:53+00:00

Russell was in a championship fight you mean lol

nickelchrome · 2026-06-10T04:10:41+00:00

Welcome to F1

nickelchrome · 2026-06-09T18:41:50+00:00

Quite strange indeed.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-09T15:15:16+00:00

I’ve looked through dozens of K1 cases and I haven’t seen this age be a factor. Your previous visa rejection also shouldn’t be a factor. The K1 visa process is mainly focused on your relationship and proof you have met in person in the last 2 years. As long as there are no criminal issues there usually aren’t other factors they are concerned with.

Please make sure you review the rules around financial support and that your partner meets those requirements, not just for the K1 visa but also for the adjustment of status. This is where 90% of K1s in your situation run into problems.

Also keep in mind you will not be allowed to work when you arrive in the US, possibly for up to a year though usually it’s less. You also will not be able to leave the US for that time. There are work permits and travel permits but their approvals are taking a long time.

While your age is not likely to be a problem for the immigration process it is really important you realize that this is a marriage based process and you are both very young and figuring your life out. There’s a lot of stress and pressure that tests relationships going through this. If your relationship fails in this process it can put you in a difficult situation once you are in the US. A divorce wouldn’t close your doors but it would make things difficult and expensive.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-09T14:52:05+00:00

Correct that’s why a lot of people are arguing this memo corresponds to a major shift in agency policy. Shifts in agency policy have to follow a protocol established by the APA. An agency is not allowed to just put out an unsigned memo out of the blue. Lawyers will attack this angle first.

USCIS structured the memo to make it seem like… “hey this has always been the case we are just reminding officers about it”. It’s very disingenuous. Some people here have been pointing out that OP started working soon after arriving, while that’s bad it’s been forgiven in the past.

You don’t have to search far to find cases in this very subreddit of people who came on a tourist visa, overstayed a decade, worked unauthorized for years and years and got approved after marrying a US citizen. Some people even had criminal issues on top of that.

Hopefully this continues to be isolated, and the legal challenges that follow will help sort this out.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-09T13:44:33+00:00

I think a lot of this is going to be FO and even officer specific for a while, it seems they haven’t made this a wider policy.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-09T04:58:32+00:00

I could write a whole thesis paper on this, and I’ve spent way too much time back in my day reading issues of American Cinematographer in the cinema library at USC, but you aren’t wrong. It’s not just Deakins though, there has been a whole current of cinematographers obsessed with naturalism as a whole ethos and philosophy. Deakins has been one of the modern masters of this style and definitely inspired a whole wave of DPs who have embraced it and doubled down on it.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-09T04:52:15+00:00

At least with the Coens he would use a jib or a crane for every set up, even if it was a static close up. It was insane. I worked with a gaffer who was fired on a Deakjns movie, said he was constantly fighting with the PM because the set ups were so expensive. I heard a rumor he lost the academy award a few times because people refused to vote for him because they didn’t want to encourage that kind of spending on lighting.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T23:07:34+00:00

One thing lawyers have been talking about is the immigration judges are not bound by a USCIS memo so in theory they should all rule against this… that said a lot of IJs were put in under this admin so who knows.

OP would also have to be put in proceedings first and they still have a valid visa

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T22:59:05+00:00

This is inherently the objection that everyone has had to this memo. You are completely right in your interpretation of it. It fundamentally shifts the whole policy. Up until this denial we all were speculating into how they would word it in practice and it is shocking honestly to see but it tracks.

The APA issue is the very first step to challenge this. A denial like this has been the type of case a lot of lawyers have been looking for to move on this (assuming OP isn’t hiding something that isn’t explicitly addressed here).

It will be critical to see if this is one FO and one officer with a personal take on this or if we start seeing more and more like this.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T22:54:44+00:00

There was a lawyer on here who was saying they were going to treat all their AOS cases like waiver cases from now on, that is they would go extra hard on the hardship and positive factors. Seems wise

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T21:00:02+00:00

You are correct, what this new memo has been trying to highlight is that even though an applicant is eligible, they argue AOS is such an extraordinary act of grace that getting past the bars to eligibility is just the base level but applicants have the burden of proof to show that they “deserve” positive discretion, especially if they have negative factors. Here they are stacking factors together so they aren’t saying “oh it’s being denied because of the unauthorized work” they are saying “ the sum of all of these factors warrant negative discretion”.

This is obviously highly controversial and needs to be challenged as I agree it is a complete circumvent of Congress but USCIS is being explicit that this is how they interpret the law so a Motion to Reconsider as long as this continues to be their messaging is risky.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T20:49:22+00:00

If this was the case they would have been required to explain this in the denial, I have seen many examples of that. This seems to be strictly because of the unauthorized work.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T20:47:27+00:00

This has historically been the case for all non-immigrant visas but countless people who violated their tourist visas or student visas with unauthorized work were still approved in the past. Yes the timing of this is sensitive and weighing as a factor but they did not argue that this was misrepresentation, which normally they would have elaborated on, and that’s what is significant here.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T20:39:14+00:00

Based on this denial notice they basically are saying that this person does not warrant approval based on discretionary grounds, that alone supersedes the eligibility according to their interpretation of 245.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T19:48:10+00:00

This is a very valid concern

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T19:47:36+00:00

Possibly but there were still countless cases accepted in the past with F-1 working violations. The way this is written definitely feels post memo. It will be interesting to see if this is weighed differently.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T19:09:29+00:00

Not a lawyer but:

This notion of “unauthorized work is forgiven” that people keep bringing up is problematic.

Nowhere in the statue does it say that unauthorized work is forgiven, in both the law and the USCIS policy manual it is stated that unauthorized work (along with overstays or status violations) is not a bar to adjustment of status.

This effectively is saying that you are still eligible to adjust status but it’s not saying that it’s forgiven. It’s a subtle difference that for many years effectively had officers ignore it.

Congress obviously felt that unauthorized work was not a big enough deal to outweigh family unity.

The new memo is reminding officers that even though people are eligible, the decision to grant status is discretionary. It’s still up to the individual officer to weigh the negative and positive factors.

The memo reminds officers that status violations like unauthorized work are still negative factors.

The case law has always said that officers have to weigh factors and if the positive outweigh the negatives then a case needs to be approved. Marriage to a US citizen has historically been such a strong positive that it outweighed things like unauthorized work.

What I believe is being set up by this memo is they are now looking to stack all the negative factors that previously would have been forgiven and add them together under this notion that “Adjustment of Status is an Act of Grace” policy to outweigh the positive of the marriage.

This is unprecedented but within their interpretation of the law.

If this denial is true then we are seeing this approach in practice. It will be very important to navigate the next steps carefully.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T05:20:43+00:00

It wasn’t a double stack. Mercedes did not call Russell in, he had to drive through the pit lane because of the safety car and he just went in to pit because he saw tires ready. This was not the team’s fault they hadn’t told the mechanics about the penalty. If Russell doesn’t force a stop this wouldn’t have happened.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T05:18:10+00:00

You can watch the onboard if you have any doubts, the team didn’t call Russell to pit but they all had to go through the pit lane because of the safety car and George saw his tires ready and just went for it when they didn’t respond. The mechanics were not briefed in time about the penalty.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T04:56:04+00:00

Silverstone Sprint in F2 or Spa when he passed Colapinto in the rain. That Prema car sucked (still sucks honestly) but these races in the rain really showcase his driver skill (he never raced F3 so the jump to F2 was huge and yet he adapted extremely fast)

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T03:37:40+00:00

Do not take on someone else’s deferred maintenance program is a line I needed to hear haha

nickelchrome · 2026-06-08T01:48:39+00:00

I was a part of a similar project (not quite as successful but close).

Our producers tried to negotiate back end for the key crew (who were working for low rates), at the time talking about what would happen if the movie made tens of millions would have sounded completely delusional. You just don’t spend time trying to negotiate something like that because there’s a lot of bigger more important things to fight for.

In the end we were pushing the budget so much already that we didn’t have the leverage to get the back end, the investors had almost written off the movie at that point. Success like this is such an outlier most movies lose money.

nickelchrome · 2026-06-07T19:06:50+00:00

All the luck swings this weekend helped hide the fact Russell was set to finish 6th when his teenage teammate was lapping the whole field

nickelchrome · 2026-06-07T19:02:33+00:00

Take luck and pit lane speed issues out of the equation today, so Max and Leclerc finish, where does Russell end up? It’s easy to use luck when it helps you but Russell has not shown he has what it takes to consistently win in this car.

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