mjrussell

My wife's little sister (15 years old) is visiting us on a tourist visa from Chile. Now that she's here, she doesn't want to go back and is talking about overstaying past her required exit date. I'm against this, and raised a number of concerns about her staying, not the least of which is that my wife is planning to apply for citizenship in the next six months (she's in the US with her green card).

Am I right in thinking that, as part of the process once she applies, they'll likely make the connection to her sister and it will cause problems?

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I will discuss with my wife, I'm sure for now we'll just continue to send financial support.

I suspect that my situation will be similar to this question from a few weeks ago, but I wanted to put it out here to see.

My wife got her green card a little over a year ago. She's 33, and has a younger sister who's 12. Their father passed away a couple of years ago, and their mother is not capable of giving her the support she needs. There's another sister who's been helping out since my wife came to the US, but that situation isn't working out well.

So we've discussed the possibility of taking custody of the little sister, and their mother is on board with this. But first, I want to understand the process of getting her to the US. From a little reading, it looks like we would have to have custody for two years. Even meeting that, it sounds like it would be a fight, since there's still family there who could care for her. Does this pretty much sum up what we'd be looking at?

Thanks!

Thank you KLS2010,

Hw can i talk to a supervisor? what time i need to call to get a supervisor

I don't think you actually need to talk to a supervisor to have them review the documents. I also had an RFE for our marriage certificate. When I talked to an operator, the only thing he could tell me was to be sure I send an original, and that we need to obtain it from the Registro Civíl (in Chile). I told him we did that, he said we could either provide a new one, or he could request that a supervisor review what we sent, but that could take up to three weeks. I ended up just sending another, because I already had a second one in my possession (one of the few times I had the good sense to request two originals).

If you're in a situation where you're sure you sent the correct document, and it would be a hardship to get another original, I would call the NVC and ask the operator to have a supervisor review it.

hi everyone...

so we paid aos and iv bill on the night of dec 6.since then it was saying processing.just now i checked on it and they are both showing paid.problem is when i click on email receipt it just says data base error.this cant be normal can it?what to do?

Wait a day or so and try again, or just print the page and save for your records. The very first time I went to that page to pay, it wouldn't let me pay because of a database error. When I contacted their support with the exact error, his only response was, "Try again in a day or two." As someone who works in IT, pretty amazing system and customer support they've got there.

Just wanted to share that my wife had her interview yesterday and her visa was APPROVED! It's been a long road, not helped by a couple dumb mistakes on our part and a clueless "abogado" in Chile.

I'll try to get more details from my wife about the interview and post in the embassy review section. I know we shouldn't have been too nervous, we've been married long enough (2.5 years) that she knows me and my family well. And I gave her a three-ring binder full of documents (copies of what we sent to NVC, as well as proof of relationship), I told her to walk in with it as though she was an attorney, that she should intimidate them with how much proof she had. The only small trip up she had was when they pressed her for details on exactly where the town is where I live; it's a town of about 100 people in a very rural area, so no one had heard of it, and it's not really that close to any major metro area.

Anyway, just want to chime in with another success story, for those of you still in the process, keep the faith.

Thanks for commenting anyway, I thought the same as you at first, that it looked a little shady, especially since it wasn't a .gov site.

Once you register and get to the final page, there actually is a place to select immigrant, family-based visa service, and the option for in-person pickup of your passport and visa at a DHL office, or home delivery. I was just really surprised that the Embassy asked us to use this site, I see a lot of people talking about setting up their DHL delivery at the Embassy or consulate after an interview. If it works, super, we've got this part done. My wife's bringing the confirmation sheet with her to the interview, guess we'll find out if there's anything further we have to do for delivery of the visa.

As part of her packet from the Embassy for her upcoming interview, my wife received a letter indicating that she should go to the website chile.usvisa-info.com to select our preferences for receiving her visa via DHL. When I went to the site, I didn't find the exact menu option mentioned in the letter, but I finally found what I think we need. What was really confusing was that I kept seeing statements about scheduling an interview, and at one point a mention that we didn't yet have an interview scheduled (even though the embassy obviously thinks we do).

Once I got the account set up, I found at the bottom where I could select Immigrant Visa -> Courier service only (forget the exact wording).... Up to that point, I found it very unintuitive, with all the spots it talked about having to schedule an appointment and pay the MRV fee (which I guess is only for non-immigrant visas?

Just posting this so maybe someone could confirm that this is really all I need to do, and see if anyone else was as confused as I was? I still don't see anywhere on their web site where it ties my wife's information to her actual interview.

If you want to be safe, translate to English.

However, my understanding is that requirement is dependent on the embassy. I wasn't sure, so I just sent an email to the US Embassy in Chile, and they replied back that as long the documents are in the language of the country the embassy is in (in this case, Spanish), they do not need to be translated.

Edit: Yeah, what magical said

Congratulations! We have our interview two weeks from today, after such a long wait, it's exciting to see it finally coming to a close. Looking forward to posting our own good news announcement soon.

Did your get a package from the embassy with all the forms you need to fill out for the interview?? it supposed to go in that package and by the way, go to Dr. Grossman she is much better than the other Dr.

God bless you!

Patty

Thanks for the update, my wife didn't mention getting anything from the Embassy yet, I'll tell her to be sure to keep an eye out for it.

I was reviewing the information provided on state.gov for the medical exam required for our interview in Chile, and they say we need to bring three things to the appointment:

a) Carta de citación para su entrevista (our interview notice)

b) Formularios para el examen médico (forms for the medical exam)

c) El pasaporte vigente con el cual Ud. piensa viajar (passport that will be used to travel on)

My question is about the second item: Are there some forms that we should have received or grabbed from somewhere? Or maybe is this something specific to Chile? I'm not quite sure what they might be asking for. I may go ahead and contact the embassy, but thought I'd ask here also.

Thanks!

You should !!! It's the law see #15 of checklist http://www.visajourney.com/content/i130guide1

Is this something fairly new? I'm sure that we didn't have have to submit that with our I-130 packet last year (priority date of July 7, 2010).

Congratulations! My wife's interview is four weeks from tomorrow, we can't wait!

Please read all the recent comments about MIA in the POE section at the top of this page, and you will learn a tremendous amount of information...and you will fell pretty good afterwards !!!

Heh, didn't even notice that there was a section for POEs...Thanks!

My wife will have her interview on December 7 in Santiago, Chile, and I'm tentatively planning to have her come through Miami as her POE. From Chile, typically one would come into the US in either MIA, ATL, or DFW. I usually come in through MIA, I used to go through DFW, but after being selected (twice!) for "random" searches, I stopped entering through there. Her English is okay but not great, MIA strikes me as maybe being more "latino-friendly", maybe because I would hear more random people speaking Spanish than in my other airport travels, so it crossed my mind that it might be easier for her to ask for help if she has a question.

Anyway, was wondering if anyone has any experiences with MIA (or DFW, for that matter).

Thanks!

Congratulations! Every time I see one of these threads, I have more confidence in getting my wife through her interview (Dec. 7) and seeing her before Christmas.

thank you so much for the info. NVC said e-mail should be out 5 to 7 business days...NVC is always telling people to wait. lol But Christmas is going to be so GREAT this year!!!

Amen to that, I've missed two Christmases with my wife, will be a great way to celebrate getting through this process.

cheaptickets.com works for me. Also, one-way tickets tend to be more expensive than round trips. Maybe if you purchase a round trip and just miss the return you'll end up saving more money..... who knows.

I'm going to echo what the others said about one-way vs. round trip. I just checked American Airlines this morning to get an idea on Chile to the US... $2500 one way versus $1200 round trip. It's crazy.

I found out about two weeks ago that our case was completed, and just today received an email that our interview is scheduled for December 7. When I last called, they gave me the scripted line about scheduling during the second week of the month, so this was a really pleasant surprise, especially that it's so early in December, we should be able to be together for Christmas!

I want to thank everyone who posts on this forum, there's a lot of great information here, and even just seeing all the questions that get asked remind me that my wife and I aren't the only ones going through this stressful process.

My wife and I had one RFE on her DS-230, which was really just a dumb mistake on our part. We fixed the problem with the DS-230 and the additional marriage certificate they requested. I called yesterday to check to see if they've reviewed it yet, and they said now we're missing something different - a police record for Peru (where my wife lived until the age of 17).

We had already gone to the Peruvian consulate and requested a police certificate for the visa. They gave my wife her Certificado de Antecedentes Penales, similar to what she received from Chile (where she is now, and where her interview will be). But according to the operator I talked to, they also need another court record certificate, which can only be obtained in Peru. She referenced the reciprocity page for Peru on state.gov, and it does say that the US Embassy in Peru requires both those documents, but doesn't say anything about other embassies.

Does this sound right that they would require this? This is going to be a real hardship for us to have to either travel to Peru twice, or travel and wait the 1-2 weeks for the processing time of this document.

If I may ask.. what is the difference between an I-864 and I-864EZ? Thank you.

Not sure what all elements of the form are different, it seems that if you have a "simple" case (one sponsor, one beneficiary) you can use the EZ.

This is from the EZ form:

Who May Use Form I-864EZ?

1. You are the person who filed or is filing the Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, for a relative being sponsored;

2. The relative you are sponsoring is the only person listed on the Form I-130 petition;

3. The income you are using to qualify is based entirely on your salary or pension and is shown on one or more Forms W-2 provided by your employer(s) or former employer(s).

Who May Not Use Form I-864EZ?

1. The relative you are sponsoring is not the only person immigrating based upon the underlying visa petition;

2. You filed or are filing a Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, for the immigrant you are sponsoring;

3. You are a joint sponsor;

4. You are a "substitute sponsor" filing because the original I-130 petitioner is deceased.

I'm nervously waiting to see if I get a stupid RFE for this: For some reason, I started thinking about our marriage certificate, and our date of marriage. My wife and I were married in a church with our families on March 21. Then it dawned on me, that's not the date that will show on the marriage certificate, since we were "legally" married (signed the marriage documents) on March 14. I grabbed a copy of what I sent to the NVC, and sure enough, I put March 21 on the DS-230.

All of the information is technically correct, and we provided all requested documents, I'm really, really hoping that this is something they'll just let my wife explain at the interview, since we have items from the day of the church wedding that she can show as proof.

I submitted the following documents and it was accepted 3 days ago:

Cover Sheet

Form I864EZ

2010, 2009 and 2008 Federal Return Tax Transcripts

Letter from employer stating annual salary

Most recent pay stub

I don't think there is a need to submit any citizenship paper work if you are the only sponsor. They know you are citizen since USCIS processed your application.

I was just approved on Tuesday with the following:

Cover Sheet

Cover Letter

864EZ

Copy of my 2010 Federal return + W2

Letter from employer

3 recent pay stubs (that were basically all the same since I'm salaried)

No RFEs, thank goodness. I know the form only requires one year of tax info, but I was nervous after sending it that they might want to see more anyway. I would have sent for '08 and '09, but couldn't find my W2 for one of those years, and was too impatient to wait for transcripts from the IRS lol.

Prior you husband's interview, he needs to get his biometrics done and pick a DHL branch, he can actually get it anywhere in the Country.

Is this something that's required at all embassies, or only certain ones? It's the first time I've heard of having to do this.