Consulate Review: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Review Topic: K1 Visa
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| Event |
Description |
| Review Date : |
April 4, 2017 |
| Embassy Review : |
Vietnam US Consulate Review for a K1 Visa:
Sorry, this is a bit lengthy…
The Interview went as follows:
After she got her number we waited a good 30+ minutes until her number was called. We went to one of the last windows (#19?) and the Vietnamese woman there quickly looked through our huge stack of documents/photos and pulled out just a few documents. Then we sat down and waited a good hour and a half or more for her number to be called again for the interview. We arrived outside at 7:20AM, left at 10:45AM.
We both went to the window the second time the number was called. I had my letter of self employment in my hand and tax forms that they didn’t take at the first window, but they didn’t care. The only thing the US interviewer asked me was about my job because he thought it sounded cool (I’m a forester) and wondered if I worked for the US Park Service or the US Forest Service and where. I told him I did contractor work for the US Forest Service. After that he said it had nothing to do with the interview and that he thought it sounded like a cool job, then he told me to have a seat. (Now I question if he even looked over my info about me being self employed, he genuinely seemed to like my job. I really don’t think he was asking about it relating to the interview.)
He asked my fiancée 3 questions. She replied in English without the need of the translator:
1.) How did we meet and where?
--- She mentioned that I was traveling throughout Southeast Asia at the time and we were both using Tinder. We chatted on Tinder for about 10 minutes and agreed to meet in about an hour later for lunch (we were both very hungry) in HCMC at a restaurant called…
2.) Have you applied for a travel visa to the US before? And why?
--- Yes, in early June. She applied for a visa because invited her to the US…
3.) What will you do once in the US for a job?
--- She said she cannot get a job at first so we will get married within the first few weeks at the justice of the peace because we don’t want to rush the wedding. Then later she will apply for a green card. And then we will have the wedding for her fiance’s family/friends later near the end of July, near the date of her fiance’s family reunion. She then mentioned that she wants to go back to college and that she went to college in HCMC for Architecture. But was not passionate about it and wanted to go for a new major.
Congratulations. You will get your visa. (Or something to that effect).
It all took maybe 2 minutes.
I was sitting there listening and I didn’t believe it at first. I sorta hopped up but sat back down thinking to myself “Wtf? Is it over already and she passed?!??†Then I jumped back up and ran to her side and asked if she got her visa and hugged her (*^-^)/!!
A few things about my fiancée, her English pronunciation is actually really good, but her grammar still needs work. She learned a little English in grade school but most of what she learned was on YouTube. Her ‘American’ accent is better than most Vietnamese people that can speak English. Also, she has a confidence about her and a warm smile/personality that really makes people like her right away.
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After reading the reviews on here about the interviews I was extremely worried about her going at it alone. I felt I needed to join her on her interview day on March 30th even though I had just spent 2.5 months in Vietnam with her and returned to the US on February 15th.
To our knowledge I had every document I needed if requested or in case a blue slip was administered.
On my end, the petitioner, my form i-134 signed, I had a notarized family tree (siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles info), a notarized time line of our relationship, a notarized 10 year resident history document, colored copy of all of my passport pages and the original, any old airplane tickets, my birth certificate and a copy, the original NOA1 and NOA2 letter (but I don’t think this was required). I'm self employed so I had a letter of self employment stating my gross annual income for the current year, and other documents showing that I am self employed as a contractor such as general liability forms in my name, a DUNS number, my bank statements from both of my bank accounts for the past 14+ months, amount of money in my bank accounts, my retirement account info, 1099s from the last 4+ years, tax transcripts of 2013, 2014, 2015, and my recent 1040 form from my 2016 tax returns, copies of western union emails of money I sent her, copies of emails to her, wedding plans, wedding invitation list.
This proved to be overkill. They didn’t request any of it accept for the original birth certificate and the form i-134 signed. I had already included in the 1-129f packet copies of my tax transcripts from 2013, 2014, 2015, and a few credit card statements showing I purchased plane tickets, so they already had that, too.
My fiancée, the beneficiary, had the following documents: (I'll add more later if I forgot anything) packet 3 instruction letter, government ID and copy, passport and copy, medical stuff and receipt, birth certificate (she didn’t have the original one issued after her birth [she lost it years ago], but it was an authentic copy issued 6 years after she was born) and a copy, receipt for the fee for the DS-160, justice report #2 from her province, family tree translated with red stamps, 10 year resident history translated with red stamps, house registration book and copies of that, a document listing her American relative living in the US, (Make sure everything of the beneficiary has red stamps from their government), letters/post cards from me, my mother, my sister, niece, and two of my aunts.
At the interview, the US Consulate did not request the family tree, 10 year resident history, or any of my letters/post cards.
Things I was worried about:
We didn’t hire a lawyer, her father wanted to hire one in Vietnam. It would have cost $1,000 USD but I thought that was extremely high for Vietnam prices so I wouldn’t let him. I did pay Rapidvisa, though I have mixed feelings about Radidvisa, most of the people there did not know what they were doing and would often tell me contradicting advice (but they were very nice). They had one person there that knew what he was doing (Bernard) and spoke great English but he was only there a few months. The main reason why I hired Rapidvisa was because my fiancée did not have a real street address (she is from a small village) and I didn’t know what to put on the i-129f packet. Also, it was very over welling at times doing it all myself so it was nice to call them even though sometimes it didn’t help at all. They did inform me about having Tinder’s terms of services and privacy policy in the i-129f packet. I believe that prevented me from getting an RFE. So that right there was worth the $475 or whatever it was.
I was worried because we didn’t do any research on a K1 visa before we got engaged. So I didn’t save many old airplane tickets before then, and we didn’t think about taking many photos together at Vietnamese landmarks and what not. The i-129f packet was lacking airplane tickets and decent photos (we included 10 photos). Also, we met on tinder (I included documents from tinder showing it was not an international marriage site or whatever, that was very important, many RFE’s were issued to other people for this reason) and I only had 2 screen shots of our conversation on there, by accident because I needed to save a screenshot of the address of the restaurant to meet her at and I never got around to deleting them. Our engagement wasn’t that romantic. She drove me to the jeweler store and helped pick out the ring. I gave her the ring hours before I had to board my plane to head back to the US. After we first met we communicated 99% through Facebook messenger, much over video chat. It’s kinda hard to prove how much we video chatted and for how long on that app. I’d recommend video chatting over Skype as it seems easier to prove video chat frequencies and for how long. Also, she tried to obtain a visa in early June to visit me in the US but was denied. She wrote on the interview form that I would help pay her way. At the interview she said I wasn’t her boyfriend but just a good friend. We thought they would not issue her a visa if I was her boy friend. Later, we were worried that would come back to haunt us. Another issue I was worried about was that my main bank account had my mother’s name linked to it as a joint account holder, I thought for sure they might question that.
The next time I visited her after we got engaged we took photos constantly with her family and friends during 2.5 months I was there and during the Tét holiday craziness. We whittled it down to 250+ photos, about 20 screen shots of her (and sometimes here parents) video chatting with me, my parents, sister, her niece, and both her and I together video chatting with my parents. We even had an official engagement ceremony in January (even though we got engaged in early August) for her family. My parents could not attend but my mother watched it over Facebook messenger video chat and we actually had photos of her on my fiancée’s iPad watching the ceremony at the ceremony. Screen shots of dated Facebook posts with comments from her and my family and friends. Screen shots of Facebook messenger chats. All together we spent 100+ days together and we traveled together throughout Vietnam and to 3 other countries in Southeast Asia. We had all the airplane tickets and receipts, bus and train tickets and receipts, receipts from tourist attractions we paid to see, hotel receipts, etc.
We brought all of this to the interview, but the US Consulate requested none of this (including the official engagement ceremony photos). They didn’t even know we had an engagement ceremony…
facepalm emoji…
They didn’t even look at the stack of 250+ photos we had in chronological order and all labeled thoroughly with date, place, people, and event in the photos. Also, we must have had a good 3 to 4 inch stack of documents. We spent hours/days/weeks getting all that stuff together. My fiancée had tabs on everything and tables of contexts for everything. They didn’t request any of it and never looked at…
facepalm emoji…
I took 10 days off from work and flew to the other side of the world to be there but wasn’t called up to the window for further questioning after they questioned her…
facepalm emoji...
Don’t get me wrong, I was happy it went so smoothly but I also felt like I had just gotten hit over the head with a hammer. Did my being there greatly improve her chances of passing? Maybe or maybe not but I like to think it did. But knowing all that now, I’d still hop on a plane and do it all over again just to improve her chances of passing. After all, that was the biggest day of both of our lives up to that point.
Things to note:
*I was there in person with her.
*My fiancée speaks English very well. The translator was not needed.
*We first met on Tinder about an hour and a half before we met in person in HCMC.
*As far as we know, we had every paper needed for the interview, just in case.
*I am not Vietnamese or have any Vietnamese/Asian relatives/ancestors (I was the only white person in the crowd of people there in the waiting room.) Did this help her chances? I don’t know.
*We did not wear fancy clothing. I read on VisaJourney that people should treat it as a job interview for a highly coveted job. But I had on a t-shirt and blue jeans, she was wearing a simple cotton ao dai and old lady pants/shoes… normal, comfortable clothes.
*We sat very close to each other in the waiting area joking, laughing, talking, and had our arms around each other. A lot of people were just sitting there quietly.
*She didn't have time to get all of her vaccination shot but that doesn't matter for the K1 visa.
*We have a 13.5 year age gap, she’s 23, and I’m 37.
*I am self employed but make well above the annual dollar minimum needed.
*Neither of us has children nor has been married before.
*I brought a backpack with me to hold all of our paperwork even though I read there are no backpacks allowed. But they let me keep it on my back.
*Bring a few extra pens with you as there seemed to be a few people without pens that needed one.
**As of October, 2016, the beneficiary in Vietnam needs to schedule the vaccination ahead of time. Before that month people could just show up after the medical exam to get a vaccination. This might save an extra trip to HCMC. As of March, 2017, the phone number to schedule a vaccination is: from a cell phone 08 1080 and is 3,000 VND/minute.
I hope this helps someone, good luck!
(updated on April 5, 2017)
(updated on April 6, 2017) |
| Rating : |
Very Good |
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ver 5.0