ekistler

Check AT&T GoPhone. Closest thing you can get to Verizon (IMHO) Nationwide.

Here is a link on Amazon for a starter card. You can buy minutes at any Walmart.

http://www.amazon.com/Prepaid-Go-Phone-Minutes-Included/dp/B000YHCEQM

Hope that helps. They say you can buy this at an AT&T store but they will try to pressure you into buying a2-yr plan as well...

The best airline I have flown with from EU has to be Lufthansa hands down.

I'm flying United this time because my time window is tight and it was easier to get the tickets.

I always fly first class though on transatlantic and transpacific flights though... I can't deal with those little seats in coach for that long. LOL

Wow! Thanks to all for the info.

Darnell, Thanks for the advice on the transcript! You seem to be the "Papa Bear" of the Chinese forums. We will do that..

Oh.... I have to ask. Who are the 2 beautiful little girls in your sign-on? Are they yours? So cute!!!

Hi All!

My wife and I are going home to the USA!!! :dance:

Well, It's not her home yet.... But I want it to be something she can say with pride in the future...

Anyways, I want some ideas from other persons on what worked for them in bringing their education and job experience to the USA.

Background:

My wife has a 4 year college degree in Information Science from a Chinese University with 5 years experience with a large American company (Flextronics) and almost 5 years with a major Japanese company (Sony). Chances are if you bought an electronics product in the USA in the last 10 years my wife was involved somewhere... Sorry. Just proud of her. She designed PC boards and determined safety requirements for international distribution (UL) and she has all of her International certs...

Anyways, she has some contacts with people in Flextronics that would write a recommendation for her but no direct supervisors. In Sony it would be different, I hope. Her manager is based in Japan and he has been a good guy but, he was offering her all kinds of raises and incentives to stay in China with them when she turned in her notice (Makes me wonder... ). I HOPE he would write her a letter of recommendation.

Do letters of recommendation help when they are from a person in a large foreign company??? What are your thoughts?

Oh... Her English is very good (Sony requires that in China) and I say "very good" because sometimes she doesn't understand my USA jokes .

Anyways, I definitely want to say thank you to everyone that ever posted for helping us.... This site is ABSOLUTELY the best!

Eric

hello everyone

my question is if my immigrant visa CR1 is approved this upcoming monday March 6TH, when can i expect to pick it up at the DHL office in ciudad juarez?

any help or advice is very much appreciated

thank you!

Not sure how Mexico consulate does it but my wife's visa in China was available the next day. I have heard that some South American countries give the visa the same day.

Good luck!

From what I understand it depends on if he claimed her as a dependent on his last tax return. If she was a dependent then he needs to include her in his count on the form otherwise he just lists you and any other dependents he listed. Either way they will need to do 2 I-864's as she is sponsoring you as your spouse.

Hope that help

Best wishes to you both

Congrats on your marriage.

We processed in China via DCF so that is different but I'll give you what info I have. I'm sure someone will come along soon that knows more. They will also probably move your question as DCF doesn't exist in Japan anymore...

From what I understand the NVC will mail you an I-864 form to complete and send back to them after you initially file the paperwork. You will need your last 3 years 1040 as well. I believe that you should only need the transcripts. I got mine from an online service as the originals were in the states.

You can't use your overseas income or your wife's as they will not continue after you enter the USA. You probably have to use a co-sponsor to complete your application. They claim you can use assets if you have investments worth at least 375% of the poverty level. The story that I have been told is that this is kind of a fast and loose calculation when it comes to the consulate because they have been known to refuse people that have well in excess of that amount of assets. They apparently prefer co-sponsorship.

You need to bring the I-864's and tax documents to the consulate interview as well.

I'm sure someone will be along soon to correct anything that I may not have understood properly.

Good luck with your petition!

Was that woman told she would be issued a visa soon or was she told the visa was approved pending the SAO?

She was told that she was approved and given the white paper. She was told her visa would be mailed out in 2-3 days.

Hi Lynnlin,

I just wanted to let you know that CCP membership is not always an immediate AP at GZ. The woman that was in front of my wife at the interview yesterday was CCP and she indicated that on all of her forms. The questioning at the interview was more intense than normal (45 minutes) but, they did approve her and it was her first attempt. I'm not sure how often this happens but at least there appears to be some hope.

Good luck. Message us if you have an other questions.

WooHoo!!! Mission accomplished. My wife got her visa approval.

Thanks to all for the great info on this site.

We filed via DCF on Sept 2, 2011 so that was almost 6 months total (That included a 2.5 month delay because we asked to reschedule the interview date ).

I left a short overview in our timeline on the interview process at GZ.

Looking to be in the US before Easter!

Congrats! Good to hear about news like this.

My wife has her interview in GZ on the 27th. Was there anything in your wife's interview process that would be helpful for us to know?

Thanks!

Eric

The difference between his sponsor's income ($21000/3 people) and required income is only ~$2200.

Dude only needs ~$7000 in assets to make up this difference.

Quick question. I guess I don't understand how they do these calculations. (Big surprise there... LOL )

I thought that when he is including a sponsor that they add him in the number as well. Is this not true? That would put him at $28,813 if that was the case. The difference being $7,800 +/-. Wouldn't he then need $23.4k in assets? Help please! I'm confused on these procedures.

Thanks.

Congrats j&v!

My wife has her interview in GZ on the 27th.

Just one question if you don't mind. I'm assuming since you did a DCF that you were employed in China, qualified on assets alone or used a co-sponsor. What route did you take? This I-864 stuff has been the most confusing aspect for us.

Thanks and best wishes,

Eric

I understand your pain. My wife is scheduled for her interview on Feb. 27th.

I have been living in Shenzhen for over 1 year now and my current income is foreign based. I do have over $60k sitting in the bank in the States so we are going to declare that as well. Before I came here my average tax returns for 2008, 9 and 10 were around $70k a year. I am hoping that will be enough in our case to convince the Officer.

The poverty number listed for 2012 @ 125% (for 2 people) is $18,913 and (for 3 people) $23,863.

So for assets only I calculated $56,739 for the 2 of us.

In your case, if my calculations are correct (Please feel free to chime in Others... ), your number should be $71,589.

I wish I had better news for you but, those are the numbers.

You filed in the IR/CR forum but, did you actually file through the consulate (DCF)? I am curious about the time length on the Blue form from DCF. When was your wife's interview date?

Good luck. You'll work through it. It's just frustrating.

Eric

We finally got our interview date from GZ, China..... WooHoo!!!!!

Feb 27th

Wish is luck for the interview. Hopefully we will be back in States before summer.

Hi. Just to let you know, we have been waiting for DCF reschedule since early Nov. so I think they are running slow right now because of the holidays. Just an FYI. Good luck.

Well I finally got a response....

Thank you for your email.

Please be advised that your beneficiary's case is still under processing. Her via interview appointment will be rescheduled in about 1-2 months. Appointment notice with instructions will be sent to her as soon as the interview appointment date is set. Please advise her wait with patience.

Sincerely,

Immigrant Visa Unit

U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou

Not sure that our processed moved forward at all....

I was under the impression that I could not call DoS because I was DCF. Is this not true? Do they have the same info as regular filing?

Thanks guys. Anything at this point would be a godsend. I keep telling my wife it's not because she's from china but that feels kind of hollow now. She thinks they don't want her. Really sad.... She is one of the best engineers China has. I don't understand why the USA wouldn't want her... Info transfer in the correct direction!

She needs to be a legal resident for at least 6 months in most countries. Phils is a little different. Seems they shoot fast and loose with requirements there. In China you need to have a resident permit which can be obtained by having a job here or by marrying someone that has a job with legal residence permit. In China they count time in the country on a tourist visa as going toward total time on the residence permit but you probably need to check with someone in Korea to see if it is the same there.

Good luck!

Wife says, reschedule is a no no in GZ, you go to the back of the bus or line, her friend waited almost 1 year on a reschedule. I hope it is not do your case.

Thanks for the reply. I was afraid of that. We were told by the hospital that they were required to inform the embassy so that we could not attend the Interview on the original date. I would have rather gone and had to wait for the medical results to get approved. Was your wife's friend's interview rescheduled for medical also or was it another reason? I saw a post from another person in GZ that did not get their appointment letter in the mail and their reschedule took 1.5 months. Just hoping.

Also, for you or anyone else that may know, how many times per month does GZ do scheduling? Any ideas at all?

Nice to see someone else from Phoenix here. We have a home next to Lookout Mt. How has your wife adjusted to living in the incinerator in the summer? LOL

Hi All,

Waiting for a reschedule appointment from GUZ China since Nov. 6 and have still heard nothing. I emailed them for an update Jan. 3 and have still not received any contact from the Consulate at all. Is this normal for GUZ to take this long to perform a reschedule???

To give some background we originally received an appointment date of Oct. 31 for GUZ. We were surprised because that was only 35 days after we filed the I-130 app. When my wife went for her medical exam 1 week before the appointment they found an infection that needed to be treated before they would issue the health certificate They informed us that this would take 3 weeks to complete so, we had to notify the consulate that we needed to postpone the interview. They responded that this was ok and that we should contact them when we were ready to continue. When I emailed them back on Nov. 6 they responded withing 2 days and said that they were continuing with the process and that we should receive an appointment letter in 1-2 months.

It has now been over 2 months. What concerns me as well is that they did not even reply to the request for information sent on Jan 3. Does anyone know if these delays are normal for a reschedule at GUZ? Is this maybe because of the holidays or could this be an indication of larger problems? Also, does anyone know if I can use the DOS phone number to get info or is that not possible because this is a DCF?

Thanks in advance.

Hi LBeachy,

Thank you so much for the info. I have not registered with PSB yet because we were trying to decide if we should file to move her Hokou here to Shenzhen since the home she owns is here. From what we understand, when they add me to her household registry, it will become more time consuming to perform the change. We are just trying to decide if there is a neccesary benefit to the move. I have never overstayed my Visa time so I am hoping that I don't have any problems. I travel to Hong Kong quite a lot. My passport looks like a stamp festival.

My time requirements are not very strict at this point. My Wife has a good corporate job here in Shenzhen and our overhead is very low. Also, my family is coming in Aug. to celebrate our wedding so we will at least get to spend time with them. My main concern is that my Mother is terminally ill. There is no time frame because it is an odd illness but, we were hoping to be able to travel to the USA on short notice for extended time if needed. If I knew she could reasonably get a tourist visa that would be ok but I have read that our marriage may actually hurt her chances. Like I said, my Wife has a good job and a nice home here by Shenzhen standards but after reading this forum I have no faith in the US government to apply common sense to a situation. :S

Thanks again,

Eric

Hi All,

Just found this site a week ago and I am trying to get this process straight for the DCF requirements. I just married my wife in northern China near Beijing this month. I have been living in China on a 1 year L visa for the last 11 months and am in the process of renewing it right now. I have read conflicting posts on the residency requirements in these forums and now I am totally confused as to what our options are. Some have said only an official chinese residency permit is valid and others have said just living in china on a L visa for more than 6 months is enough to prove residence. Does anyone have 1st hand knowledge of being accepted or refused the DCF process on an L visa after being here more than 6 months? If so, did you have to do anything out of the ordinary? What consulate office did you use? If we can't, what options do we have??? I really don't want to leave my wife to go back to the USA. We are thinking of using an immigration lawyer but every law website I looked at says something different. I just can't tell if they are good law firms or if they are just blowing smoke for getting business.

My Wife's Huoku is registered in Henan province which falls under Beijing jurisdiction but, we live in Shenzhen, Gungdong province where she works and owns a home. That falls under the Guangzhou consulate. Any idea where we would have to apply?

Any help on sorting this mess out would be GREATLY appreciated! (Now I understand why so many come in illegally... arghhhh! )

Thanks!

Eric

P.S. - before the question is asked... I have sufficient business assets and residence in the US to meet the entry requirements for my Wife. That is why I could afford to just leave with no employment lined up in China.