OK.  But that might come after a denial.  There are appeals to denials.  Your example may be one of the exceptions that could be accepted by DOJ once the DHS procedures have been completed.  In my experience, it still takes a long time and even then sometimes the answer is no.  Is it because of the "culture of no"?  Whereby a bureaucrat just says no to get you to move along?  Or is it no because you make a request to come here for such and such reasons, then the requestor is asked to provide certain documentation to fulfill the parameters regulating entry into the US, and the documentation is uncertain, incomplete or has been found false or unverifiable?  Then the requestor is told to provide better documentation, etc., etc.  If a statement from a US citizen should suffice, that's up to the deciders to decide.  "I didn't make the rules, but I gotta go by them".  Da judge doesn't make the rules.  Congress does.