Hi all,
This forum has been a great help for me and would like to give back by sharing my full journey/experience. Reading these experiences form others has helped me a lot in easing my mind and setting expectations.
Our situation
My husband is American and I'm from the Netherlands. We married in Hong Kong 6 years ago and have 5 year old twins. We were living in Singapore when we had an opportunity to move to the US last May (2021), due to a job offer for my husband. We decided to file the I-130 with exceptional circumstances (job offer in the US with start time in 2 months).
We did engage a lawyer (because we really wanted to be accepted for DCF through the embassy) but found out half way through the lawyer wasn't much help and ceased the engagement to finalize the process ourselves.
Our Journey and experience:
1. Sent all forms and documents etc to the lawyer in the 3rd week of May 2021
2. I became a bit disgruntled that it took the lawyer 2 weeks to submit papers to the embassy, but was submitted in the first week of June
3. Within a few days we received approval for DCF from the US Embassy in Singapore and an appointment to file the I-130 in person on 15 June (big sigh of relief)
4. In the list of needed documents to bring to the embassy, it said 'Petitioner's birth certificate', this scared us because my husband is a naturalized American, born in China, where they don't give out birth certificates. We checked with his parents and indeed they confirmed there was no birth certificate. Our lawyer told us it was not usual procedure to ask for the petitioner's birth certificate (as naturalization doc and/or passport suffices) and it could be requested or waived at the embassy's discretion. He said it might be waived if we explained the situation.
5. On 15 June we went to the embassy with a big file full of documents and were pretty confident. Until... the question of my husband's birth certificate came up. We tried to explain it but the guy who collected the docs (not a US officer but a local Singaporean contractor) cut us off quickly and said we should have gotten it earlier as it was in the letter and we should get a certificate from his birth place in China. This made us panic because my husband was about to leave to the US to start his job in 2 weeks and we had no idea how to go about this. They gave us a paper on how to get the Notary certificate of birth (which is pretty straightforward when you live in China but not from outside of China), collected our other documents and that's that. They accepted the petition but said they couldn't process until we had the birth certificate. All other documents were in order.
6. This started a stressful week where we mobilized family and were lucky to find a cousin in Beijing (his birth city) who knew where to go and went to the right office to get this paper. Unfortunately she was denied because the office in Beijing was not able to certify that the child in his passport from the 80's was the same person as the 39-year old American passport holder. Also because he added an English name to his Chinese name. So we tried a different path: we collected all kinds of IDs over the span of his life (like driver's license, high school card) to show the progression from that boy into the man he is now. Including a name change certificate from his naturalization (picked up by a friend at the courts of Chicago). We were lucky his cousin is a feisty lady; she went there again and basically bullied the guys at the Beijing office to issue a notarized birth certificate. Which they did after she obtained a note from the Police in Beijing that his name was in the family register (hukou). As you can imagine we sent that cousin boxes full of chocolates as a thank you. Not sure how we would have managed without her. It only delayed us for 1.5 weeks in the end. But could have been months.
We also found out that the lawyer was useless and just confused the situation so we ceased our commitment with them to get some of the money back
7. I had also mentioned to the embassy (personally and through email) that I needed a letter from them requesting police clearance from all countries I lived it. I had already requested most police clearances except for Hong Kong (where I had lived for a few years). Hong Kong has a bit of a cumbersome process where you need a letter from the embassy to request the police clearance, with your name and case number, and after mailing that to the HK police, they will mail the result directly to the embassy. Counting in the time for the post to deliver, this would all take 6 weeks as well. So this could definitely slow down the issuing of my visa. The embassy would only be able to give this letter once my I-130 was approved.
7. Once the birth certificate was in, I received the approval of the I-130 within 3 days and they remembered my request so they directly issued a letter for the HK police. So I was able to start that process (with the help of a friend in Hong Kong). I directly called for my medical exam and was a bit lucky. They asked me about my Covid vaccination and I was just about to receive my 2nd Moderna shot in 2 days. They told me I should postpone that shot because I can't have the DTP, MMR and Influenza so close to the Covid shot. Otherwise I had to delay medical exam with 3 weeks. So I delayed my Covid shot instead (only 2 weeks, 3 weeks seemed excessive and wanted to be fully vaccinated before travel) and went for the medical the next day already and the results were all delivered at the embassy after a week. Super fast!
8. Once the medical was received on 8 July, and I had sent the checklist back (noting that the HK police certificate would be sent directly to them within a few weeks) they directly invited me for my visa interview on 27 July. I was overly prepared, being quite traumatized from the previous session at the embassy. But in the end they only requested the standard documents and asked a few questions on how we met and how our relationship evolved (I had brought photos, evidence of co-mingled finance etc but did not need to show). I also received a folder on domestic abuse and they asked me to summarize. All easy and done quickly. They issued me a 221(g) for the HK police certificate.
9. In the meantime I had been emailing with the HK police, indicating the timeline and The Police Clearance was coincidentally also sent out to Singapore on 27 July. They provided a tracking code and on 2 August it already arrived at the embassy. The embassy confirmed it the same day by requesting my passport.
10. I handed in my passport on 3 August and on 7 August I received the note that my passport was ready for pick up. Will pick it up tomorrow (it's a public holiday today) and we are ready to fly with kids and dog on 13 August! Woooohoooo
So including the hick-ups it took about 10 weeks. But if we didn't have the problem with the Chinese birth certificate and the HK Police Clearance, all could have been done in less than 2 months.
My take-aways:
- We really did not need a lawyer. The US Embassy in Singapore was very responsive to email and quick to move forward whenever the right docs were received.
- Even the Hong Kong Police was very responsive through email on the police certificate
- If you have all documents in order and you qualify for exceptional filing, DCF is a very straightforward process at the US Embassy in Singapore
Hope this helps others in setting their expectations and preparing for their journey.
Cheers!
Chrisial Ling
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2:41 am August 17, 2021
