Red Flag concerns...

[NeverSeen 0]

LONG POST WARNING!!

Hi all, i mentioned some of the following in my NOA2 approved post a few concerns but i wanted to start a new one as these are pretty important things to address. I feel after reading around the forum that i will have a few red flags at the interview. I'm posting in this forum because I'm looking for advice from people who have directly dealt with the CO's in HCMC

Red Flag 1: Only 1 trip to VN

After doing a few days research on what HCMC wants I've decided to take a 2nd trip to see Tram. Unfortunately i only have 2 weeks of vacation left until next April. I think i will take 1 week and go to visit her.

I got my NOA2 on Aug 3rd. assuming a realistic best case scenario of 4 months until the interview being sometime in Dec, I would like to go see her sometime during the month of October. This would help the waiting process go by quicker by looking forward to seeing her. I've also read about a lot of people who visit during the time of the interview.

Will it matter to the CO if i come a 2nd time in Oct. or if my 2nd time is when the interview process is going on or do they just want me there more than once to ease the red flags?

Red Flag 2: Introduced by her uncle at my work and other family in the states

Currently Tram has 1 uncle in FL, an Uncle and Aunt in VA, and an uncle and aunt in Cali. There are also some cousins, from what i understand, in Texas.

How we were introduced:

Her uncle is a coworker on the opposite shift as me. While talking to him one day i found out he was going to vietnam for a month to see his family there. There is a running joke at work to ask the people going back to their country if they have any pretty nieces that are single. (there are more people from SE Asia at my work than "white" people). So jokingly i asked him and he said, yes, actually i do have one. Bring me a picture with your email address and i will show it to her. A month passes and no emails. So he comes back and i ask him if the picture went over well. he said no, she was not interested but he passed it off to another niece that he never really talked to before. (he still to this day doesn't know much about her and thinks its funny i know everything). A week or two later i get a random email and we start emailing back and forth. and the rest is history.

How will the CO feel about her having some family here already and they way we met??

Red Flag 3: Vietnamese at interview

Trams spoken English is broken and slow but she is able to communicate. I would like her to do the interview in English, however, I'm afraid the CO will ask something she does not understand and there will not be a translator there to help her. I also don't trust the translators after reading the posts. I plan to talk to her frequently in English and quiz her with random interview questions. She is also attending a school to learn English. She can read and write very good when she takes her time. I want her to at least try English before using the translator because i think she will surprise herself how much English she knows.

Advice?

Red Flag 4: Length of relationship

Nov 06

The first email i received from Tram was on 11/13/06. We immediately hit it off and started talking on Yahoo (logged every conversation) Messenger after a few weeks of exchanging emails. From there we started using webcam and phone and talking on headsets over the net and writing letters, we also started doing a lot of texting on the phones this past month.

Dec 06

Within a month of talking 11 to 2 times a day we were already finding out each others views of marraige and family and all the good stuff. By the end of Dec. we were already talking about getting married, and were "boyfriend and girlfriend"

Jan 07

Early Jan we start talking about me coming there and getting engaged and doing a traditional wedding/party. I never said "Will you marry me" it just came up as a known thing that we were a perfect couple and were going to go through with it.

Feb 07

More of the same

March 07

I go to vietnam (for 3 weeks) knowing i was about to get married to a girl that i never met in person before. We planned the wedding to be in the middle of my time there. i knew i could get out of it if it was a mistake. From the first time i layed eyes on her i knew it was all perfect. It was like we knew each other our whole lives. I went for it hook, line and sinker!

April - August 07

I-129F stuff

Now here we are today, Aug 07. I still stand by our decision to wed and will forever. I am in absolute love with her, as she is with me. HOWEVER! will the CO think this is just TOO fast a relationship? Even with all the proof provided will they fail me just because i haven't seen her 5 times over 2 years or something?

I saw a LOT of denials posted do to lack of evidence and lack of support.

For evidence i have:

IMs, IM log, emails, letters, pictures (including hundreds from the 100+ person wedding with all guests and all family, random pics of us together and professional studio wedding pics), receipts for everything purchased in Saigon and Da Lat (honeymoon spot), cash advances from HCMC banks, credit card statements, the earings, rings and necklace she will be wearing (pictures of me putting them on her at wedding and the receipts) , phone bills showing text messages to and from her with phone number and country listed, receipts from money i send her every month, boarding passes, itinerary, and so much more plus whatever i will add to it over the next few months including the 2nd trip i will take.

For support:

WAY above the guidelines for 1 or 2 people household (for about 5 years running). Stable job (2.5 years) in a massive company in a management position (company has a plant in HCMC too).

Okay so that sums up ALL of my current concerns. I know its early into the process for me but i know how picky HCMC CO's can be after reading all the posts. I want my ducks in the straightest line possible. Please reply with all the advice you care to. I am incredibly flexible and take well to criticism. Luckly i read a lot about the 129F before going so i knew what items and information to collect and such.

[CK&Tydi 0]

Hi,

Few comments on your case.

Flag 1 - Yes you should go back for the 2 nd times. This will prove to them you are for real.

Flag 2 - That is how people met. For my case, i got introduce through my friend brother and his wife (his wife is my wife sister). Don't worry.

Flag 3 - It will not matter much as long she can understand English. She can respond back in both either Vietnamese or English. Tell her to listen carefully to CO person, because the Vietnamese Translator is not that great of translating.

Flag 4 - Well, your time line is much longer than mine. I met my wife in June /06 and went back in August/06. and filed the I-129F the end of August/06. Don't worry too much.. Just go back one more time and remember to keep all the Receipt of the Flight Ticket.

Make sure you keep all your Email, Phone Logs, Pictures. The most important thing is your Income. Do you make enough to support you and her? For now, one thing you can do is Call the IRS, to get your 2005, 2006, 2007 Tax Transcript. It wil take like 3 weeks for them to send it to you. OR they can fax it to you on the same day. Make sure you get that and bring it back to her.

If you do talk to her on the phone, you can save some money from this company. Check it out, it is really cheap and the sound quality is excellent. They also allow you to print out the Call Logs. It will help you on her interview. www.savingcall.com it located in Texas.

Edited August 9, 2007 by CK&Tydi

[chuckandkim 0]

Red Flag 1: Only 1 trip to VN

Will it matter to the CO if i come a 2nd time in Oct. or if my 2nd time is when the interview process is going on or do they just want me there more than once to ease the red flags?

I do not believe it matters. Remember, they want you to help them to make the right decision in granting your fiancé a Visa approval. How will you do that? This is one of the many steps you can help them to help you  Go for it! I would rather go there if I could before and during the week of the interview.

Red Flag 2: Introduced by her uncle at my work and other family in the states

Currently Tram has 1 uncle in FL, an Uncle and Aunt in VA, and an uncle and aunt in Cali. There are also some cousins, from what i understand, in Texas.

How we were introduced:

Her uncle is a coworker on the opposite shift as me. While talking to him one day i found out he was going to vietnam for a month to see his family there. There is a running joke at work to ask the people going back to their country if they have any pretty nieces that are single. (there are more people from SE Asia at my work than "white" people). So jokingly i asked him and he said, yes, actually i do have one. Bring me a picture with your email address and i will show it to her. A month passes and no emails. So he comes back and i ask him if the picture went over well. he said no, she was not interested but he passed it off to another niece that he never really talked to before. (he still to this day doesn't know much about her and thinks its funny i know everything). A week or two later i get a random email and we start emailing back and forth. and the rest is history.

How will the CO feel about her having some family here already and they way we met??

Normal, CO sees cases like more often than they wish. Also, match making is still the most trusted way among Vietnamese traditional family, so if her uncle trusted you enough to introduce his niece to you, and she trusted her uncle enough to make the initial connection, I don’t thing there is anything WRONG with it. However, you and your honey must remove all doubt ( I don’t know how specifically) that her uncle PAYS you to bring his niece here to America. Or you marry this woman in returning a favor to your co-worker.

Red Flag 3: Vietnamese at interview

Trams spoken English is broken and slow but she is able to communicate. I would like her to do the interview in English, however, I'm afraid the CO will ask something she does not understand and there will not be a translator there to help her. I also don't trust the translators after reading the posts. I plan to talk to her frequently in English and quiz her with random interview questions. She is also attending a school to learn English. She can read and write very good when she takes her time. I want her to at least try English before using the translator because i think she will surprise herself how much English she knows.

Advice?

Ask yourself this: If you were a CO, interviewing my wife and you only have no more than 5 mins to make the decision to approve or deny my wife’s visa application. How would you do that and still maintaining the state of fairness and professionalism? I would rather trust my wife speaking ENGLISH directly to you than trusting a translator who has NO incentive to help my wife to get an approval. Back to your case, it is to your benefit and TRAM to be able to communicate affectively and be able to show that to the CO. You can’t tell the CO “Let me write down my answer on a piece of paper for you”, forget that route and be frank with Tram: Learn English and learn it fast, my Vietnamese sux but you know more English than my Vietnamese. Stop sugar-coating the situation and recognize her English is NOT up to the task, have her study English grammar, speaking to her in English for she will need that language skill once she’s here in the US regardless of what she’ll be doing for job (nail salon worker needs English too!). Here is my suggestion: learn English, interview in English, ignore the interpretor, they do more harm than good, plus since you can’t speak anything else fluently but English, it only helps your case if she can speak English well! Can’t have a relationship when you can’t communicate affectively, that’s how I see it and I believe the CO believes more so than that. Don’t you?

Red Flag 4: Length of relationship

Nov 06

The first email i received from Tram was on 11/13/06. We immediately hit it off and started talking on Yahoo (logged every conversation) Messenger after a few weeks of exchanging emails. From there we started using webcam and phone and talking on headsets over the net and writing letters, we also started doing a lot of texting on the phones this past month.

Dec 06

Within a month of talking 11 to 2 times a day we were already finding out each others views of marraige and family and all the good stuff. By the end of Dec. we were already talking about getting married, and were "boyfriend and girlfriend"

Jan 07

Early Jan we start talking about me coming there and getting engaged and doing a traditional wedding/party. I never said "Will you marry me" it just came up as a known thing that we were a perfect couple and were going to go through with it.

Feb 07

More of the same

March 07

I go to vietnam (for 3 weeks) knowing i was about to get married to a girl that i never met in person before. We planned the wedding to be in the middle of my time there. i knew i could get out of it if it was a mistake. From the first time i layed eyes on her i knew it was all perfect. It was like we knew each other our whole lives. I went for it hook, line and sinker!

April - August 07

I-129F stuff

Now here we are today, Aug 07. I still stand by our decision to wed and will forever. I am in absolute love with her, as she is with me. HOWEVER! will the CO think this is just TOO fast a relationship? Even with all the proof provided will they fail me just because i haven't seen her 5 times over 2 years or something?

I would like to say NO, he won’t fail you. But nobody knows. Remember, there isn’t one thing that will determine the approval of her Visa. THINK “Big Picture”. So what, if you only met her once and decide to marry her on the fist trip. People get married for various reason, yours is “LOVE” remember?  Nobody can fault you for falling in love with a Vietnamese girl just after 5 months talking to her online, Vietnamese women will do that to you! You stated the “doubt” and “what the CO might have thought of your case”, that’s good, now tell us how overcome and remove their doubt? Remember, Yahoo/Chat/Voice seem to be a secondary supportive evidence, they love to see “hand-written” postcard, snail-mail, actual phone bills is better than random used calling cards. Pictures of engagement ceremony/reception seem to be expected for most K-1, after all, traditional Vietnamese wants to have an engagement for their daughter before she gets married.

I saw a LOT of denials posted do to lack of evidence and lack of support.

For evidence i have:

IMs, IM log, emails, letters, pictures (including hundreds from the 100+ person wedding with all guests and all family, random pics of us together and professional studio wedding pics), receipts for everything purchased in Saigon and Da Lat (honeymoon spot), cash advances from HCMC banks, credit card statements, the earings, rings and necklace she will be wearing (pictures of me putting them on her at wedding and the receipts) , phone bills showing text messages to and from her with phone number and country listed, receipts from money i send her every month, boarding passes, itinerary, and so much more plus whatever i will add to it over the next few months including the 2nd trip i will take.

For support:

WAY above the guidelines for 1 or 2 people household (for about 5 years running). Stable job (2.5 years) in a massive company in a management position (company has a plant in HCMC too).

This looks really good! Again, how will you organize them to “TELL” your “love story” is the tricky part  Rule of thumb: When in doubt, throw it in anyway! Rather have MORE than enough evidence than MISSING that one piece of paper 

Okay so that sums up ALL of my current concerns. I know its early into the process for me but i know how picky HCMC CO's can be after reading all the posts. I want my ducks in the straightest line possible. Please reply with all the advice you care to. I am incredibly flexible and take well to criticism. Luckly i read a lot about the 129F before going so i knew what items and information to collect and such.

Never too early to prepare for HCMC. You will have a much better journey than some of us, who jump right into the process without knowing what is up ahead waiting for them. My only suggestion after all the posts I did, get Tram to learn English fast. Speaking to her, forcing her to speak and communicate in English. And last but not least, the CO’s in HCMC do know Vietnamese but sometimes they choose to have the Vietnamese staff speaking on their behalf. But don’t worry yet, you’re along way there. Think “BIG PICTURE” = Getting her Visa is your ultimate goal and objective from now until the PINK SLIP day 

Edited August 9, 2007 by chuckandkim

[STL_HCMC 0]

NeverSeen,

Your concerns are valid and your long posts remind me of myself and a few of my posts here on VisaJourney!

I agree with chuckandkim regarding English as the language of communication for the interview. I can personally recommend (link below) a good international English school in HCMC that my wife attended. I do know they also have an intensive English language course, where the student attends from 8:00am to 12:00pm, Monday through Friday.

Link: Hoi Viet My

I recall in one of your other posts that your fiancee communicates frequently with your family. I certainly think this would be good evidence. In our specific case, my wife had a great relationship with my family and communicated frequently with them. As a result, she received birthday cards in the mail, numerous email and chat conversations and gift packages sent from my family as well. These were hand written cards and mailed to her. We presented all of this family communication at her interview.

Looks like you're getting great feedback from valued members here on VisaJourney! Plan diligently, but keep a big picture mindset.

STL_HCMC

[NeverSeen 0]

GREAT! info and advice all. I am feeling more confident by the day.

I think 2 weeks would be amazing and i'm sure i can get a few personal days to meet her in cali and fly back with her. My boss is going through the same thing but he is a wait forever case with mexico. He flys out there once a quater for a week so he should be pretty understanding.

I also have her uncle here that works the opposite shift of me that she could hang out with during the night when i am not there. We'd have all morning, and early afternoon together for me to show her the ropes. My vacation won't reset until May 12th i believe.

My hope is to be able to take her to see my parents and family for Christmas. She wants nothing more than to be here with me, then her second thing she wants is to meet all of my family. I should get a free week during this time as we usually will not work the week of Christmas.

The letters to her from the family is a GREAT idea. I know i have a congrats card my aunt sent to her and i could easily have various family, friends write to her over the next few months for extra evidence. EVERY one of my family and friends are on the edge of their seats waiting right along with me to meet her. They are all so excited for me its almost unreal. OH! and i also have all the emails that were sent to me congrats about everything thats going on.

I <3 VJ. You guys/girls are all awesome.

Does the site sell tshirts?!

[STL_HCMC 0]

The great thing about the Vietnam side of VisaJourney, NeverSeen, is all of the valued and experienced members that continue to hang around and help others on here, long after their time through HCMC has passed.

No t-shirts that I'm aware of!

STL_HCMC

[SharynY 2]

i met my fiance last year in august - via a artwork forum - in january we met in person and he proposed and the rest is history, i'm moving over there in november ............

the consulate didnt question the length of our relationship or the fact that we only spent one time together, i did tell them that due to finances and work we were both unable to visit each other more regularly as it is expensive to fly over the sea............

[NeverSeen 0]

My wife plans to bring up allowed vacation time at work if they question why only 2 visits. I'm also in a new management posistion so it already looks bad that 5 weeks this year will be spent in vietnam. Of course... i don't mind .

[The_dip_sticks 0]

OK Im confused if she is your wife and you went and got married over there then why are you doing a k1? shouldnt you be doing the k3 spouse visa? This just does not seem right..... please enlighten me. Are you married or not?

[Anh map 2,098]

Take STL's and Chuck&Kim's advice to heart. Well reasoned and experienced.

I can't agree more about Tram's English. Not only will she be able to communicate better, she will be confident in what she is saying. It's her presentation at the interview that will tell your LOVE story. Don't assume that your fiance remembers all the details about your family, life, etc. Have her tell you all about you in English. As you've read here it is very common for the CO to rephrase the same question a few times to check if the story changes.

Encourage Tram to practice her spoken English. Let her know she does not have to speak English as well as you. My wife was very worried about this for a long time, that the American CO would not understand her.

Think Big Picture, think like a CO, and think about the great life you two will have together!!!!

[NeverSeen 0]

OK Im confused if she is your wife and you went and got married over there then why are you doing a k1? shouldnt you be doing the k3 spouse visa? This just does not seem right..... please enlighten me. Are you married or not?

heheh sorry! I have a habit of referring to her as my wife. We did have a semi-traditional wedding ceremony in Vietnam, however, we did not sign any paperwork making it official. We are considered fiance(e) in the government's eye but husband/wife to everyone else. I wear a wedding band and she wears both a wedding band and an engagement ring.

I hear it is common for this to be done as the family wants to see the wedding because they can not come here. We had a small family only wedding with a 100+ guest party afterwards. She wore her pink Ao Dai and i wore my typical light weight black suit. As i was told i had one of the top chefs in the area catering the party (food was UNREAL!!!) and the "mayor" of District 2 was there. We then went to Da Lat for a 4 day honeymoon. Both of these are things i could not afford to do in America and we will probably just have a small wedding/party when she comes here. it is AMAZING how far a few thousand dollars can go there hehehe. I want to say i spent about $3,000 or $4,000 for the plane ticket, wedding, party, all the pictures/album/dvd etc, honeymoon, food, clothes, and enough art stuff for my entire house and all the other random things i blew money on.

AHHHHH I'm so glad i'm going back in a couple months!!!

And for your viewing enjoyment:

Vietnam

Tram

Various wedding pics

Traditional wedding pics

Blooper pics my mom was kind enough to show the world

and finally there are a bunch of pictures on my MYSPACE as well as Tram's MYSPACE

[NeverSeen 0]

hey... after thought... the wedding pictures... the ones with the cake and ceremony and stuff... would those cause any issues, or will the "i'm single" papers cover Tram and not make them think we are really married?

[chuckandkim 0]

You've my mind! Remove the picture with the wording: "Lễ Vu Quy". No need to attract unwanted attention.

[poppscc 0]

I've never seen da lat before till these pictures. I will be going to vn in less than 2 weeks

Even though I've been given a blue slip, I am staying positive about my fiance's situation. Your case seems very straight forward and your complications can be solved right now. visit her in person for a week; that should seal the deal. I think your biggest concern is the 1 trip visit and short amount of time knowing each other. Her uncle introducing is a double edge sword, similar to my case; this in combination with the short time you've known your fiance will not help you. Hand written letters are good! phone bills, emails, chat logs, they dont care much, as long as you have it (doesnt work for you, but definitely against you if you dont have it).

I think your best bet is for you to visit your fiance before and during the interview. If she can speak english, that would be ideal as well; no need to worry about the translator injecting their opinions on the matter. if it doesnt go well, you can contact marc ellis for his help. He is an american lawyer living in vietnam (you can use his service prior to interview if you are uncomfortable with your case).

Personally, I dont think you will need a lawyer with your case.

beware: the consulate will be condescending towards your wife. She will look at her as if she is sub human. Your wife needs to be focused and hopefully speak english!

[*JG* 2]

Absolutely beautiful pictures. Thanks so much for sharing.