gendna2

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=8aa13e4d77d73210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=8aa13e4d77d73210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD

The above link takes you to the USCIS page that explains a law which supposedly allows a foreign spouse, who has her green card, conditional or otherwise, to receive her citizenship if her US citizen spouse is deployed overseas.

For any of you familiar with this law I have two questions.

1. Does this apply to one year or greater deployments to places where you cannot bring your foreign spouse, aka Afghanistan?

2. Does this law apply to US territories overseas?

Please let me know what you all think.

Dave&Roza, thank you for your answer. Do you, or anyone else, have a citation from USCIS stating that getting divorced after being a LPR will not be cause for getting citizenship declined, or even worse, removing the green card?

I just want to make 100% sure.

Update: I apologize to the RAPIDS folks here in Guam, they were not knuckleheads and I did not even have to argue with them. The RAPIDS personnel here knew to provide my wife a foreign identification number, and all they needed were a copy of my wife's passport and the original marriage license along with a translation into English. If you have a copy of your marriage license and translation; they should not stop you because all they do is scan the documents into the records, that's it...a scanned quality copy is the same as a scanned original.

As for the identification, your wife must be there, just like the cac.mil official website explains. I was surprised that at my location, the personnel told me my wife only needs her original passport and original birth certificate for ther military id; on the cac.mil site it clearly states two pieces of id, one of which must be state or federal issue. The proof is in the pudding on this one; we'll see if they give her an id with just passport and birth certificate. That would be great because it takes a while for her green card to get in the mail and in my location, base and commissary access is a must have.

Remember, DoD official instructions trump almost everything, they definitely trump some bureaucrats' internal rules. I've seen people on the net say a foreign spouse first has to get an ITIN from IRS before enrolling into DEERS, but if you do your homework, and read every detail, that is not true.

I think you'll definitely have more difficulty doing this in CONUS, but I believe OCONUS, there are more foreign spouses, so the personnel are already used to them.

I am about to try enrolling my wife into DEERS even though she is not here yet. She'll get the visa very soon, and I need her to be in DEERS ASAP, so that we can get her TRICARE and the ID Card. I live in Guam, which is one of the worst duty stations in the DoD and most of the employees here do things backwards.

What you need to do to convince the knuckleheads are official DoD instructions.

Go to this website:

http://www.cac.mil/uniformed-services-id-card/getting-your-id-card/#step-2

On the right hand side you can read and print the instructions for getting filling out the 1172-2 for DEERS enrollment. The instructions clearly state that a Temporary Identification Number can be automatically generated at the RAPIDS site for foreign spouses. This contradicts what the Tricare site says, or even the RAPIDS instructions that you see on the internet when you look at a site to set up an appointment. However, being a DoD instruction, you can argue all the way up the chain of command until you finally hit someone with a brain.

Unfortunately, for my wife to get an ID, the same cac.mil website clearly states that she must be there in person. Not only that, but she needs an American piece of ID.

Does anyone know if there is a way around that, so I can get her ID early without her there? Otherwise we're going to have to wait months until the actual green card arrives in the mail.

Well, clicking on your link worked, but took me to a page where it tells me I am not logged in. I got to that page before.

After entering my email address I manually edited my timeline.

I've had this problem before, where the timeline edit page doesn't recognize I'm logged in, but it's ok...worked around it.

While updating my timeline and reading about people's visa process in the past, I realized my wife and I may have skipped some steps. This is all good, we have a lawyer, and there's no problems.

I just wanted to bring this up in case someone else has seen this.

I updated IE and it did not work, neither did it work in Chrome. I bet I must be doing something wrong.

Honestly, I really like this site, I couldn't do without it. The timeline feature seems complicated to update...or I'm not getting it, or something. I just feel like it ought to be easier, it's not my first time not being able to work the timeline. Anyway, not ragging on the site, but the timeline miffs me.

I linger over my username, click my timeline, and it takes me to my timeline.

Whether I use IE or google chrome, none of the buttons in my timeline work so I can't update the timeline. Also, in IE, a popup comes on which says an addon for the website failed to work.

Thank you for the fix.

I'll walk you through the bug step by step.

1. I go to my username in the top left corner of the page.

2. I scroll down to "my timeline".

3. I've already created a timeline, so I click on option 1 for those who made one already but it's not linked to your account.

4. It takes me to a page where it says "Note: You are not logged into the forums (link to register or login). Forum members logged in can automatically add/edit their timeline.
"

That is the first bug, it doesn't recognize I'm logged in. If I do log in again, it will simply refresh to the same page and the same error message.

5. I give up on logging in, and simply write in my email and click submit.

6. It takes me to my timeline, where I scroll all the way down to input my member number so I manually link the timeline to my profile.

7. I cannot find my member number. It is not in a conspicuous location and I've looked everywhere in my profile.

8. I give up trying to link my timeline to my profile.

That's it. Hope this aids your bug hunting efforts.

Question: Do English to Vietnamese translations require a certification? I can get one, but just asking, as far as the Vietnamese marriage and I-130 is concerned.

I read the I-130 guidelines and a certified translator must be used, but I have read various reports on what this certification looks like.

Confusedasheck - When I said authenticated, I meant 100% done with the relevant department of state, apostilled, and signed by the Lt. Governor himself.

The mental health exam is also complete and good to go, apostilled, signed by the Lt. Governor.

I am waiting on some Vietnamese translations of letters vouching for me from my employer; they should really give the case a boost and if not, I can always use them for the I-130 packet.

AnhDoiEm - I will pm you to ask how to give them some coffee money. My fiance is as green as I am. Sure we both know how the system works, but I don't want an embarrassing situation where I am accused of attempting to bribe a government official with money. Like I said, I'll pm you for some tips on this.

I took care of all the forms that need to be authenticated and/or notarized. I even got a letter authenticated saying I was never married in my current state.

1. Do I need to translate all this stuff into Vietnamese? I already translated my personal history and will have letters from my current supervisor attesting to who I am and what I do; but what about the "no marriage" letter, birth certificate, supporting documents, etc...?

2. According to the Dept. of Justice in HCMC, you submit your packet and then 7 days later, you go for your interview. Have you guys done something similar? How is the interview like?

3. No kidding on this one, the advice from other Vietnamese people who have married a Vietnamese-American is that you need a lawyer or special company on your side, otherwise it takes much longer. This reminds me of the b.s. way of getting a visa on entry into Vietnam, sort of a "grease the wheels" of justice company. Has anyone heard of such companies?

I have all the papers I need from the US to get married in Vietnam except for one; the Certificate of Non-Marriage.

No such certificate exists in the USA because of our federal system of government. I did a forum search on this and different Americans, in different countries, "cooked up" this certificate in different ways.

How do US Citizens getting married in Vietnam generate this "Certificate of Non-Marriage"? I am hoping someone has done it before and knows a way which the Vietnamese government accepts.

That we cannot generate such a certificate is an issue and an anachronism, but unfortunately, that does not solve my immediate problem.

Can anybody else here vouch for Marc Ellis?

I read some of his articles and I want to get in touch with his law firm. However, I would like to see if there any more testimonials to him. You can pm me if there is some issue with not posting commercials on the forum.

Do any of you recommend a Vietnamese company to expedite the Vietnamese marriage process. I am not from the US so I have an idea of how the "game" works in places like Vietnam. Again, please pm me if you know some companies that "expedite" the process.

Thanks

Everyone has made it seem like getting married in Vietnam is really difficult. However, just going by the face value of the documents I need to provide, including a power of attorney for my fiance to turn it all in, it does not seem so bad.

I am getting all the documents for Vietnam and I figure in 5 months they will get processed.

I am also very interested in hiring a law firm. This visa thing is too important to just go by myself. If you know any good ones in HCMC, please send me a pm.

Thank you for the forum link, that helps a lot.

Can you elaborate further or point me in the right direction.

According to this website, there is an entire K-3 application pipeline and it is not obsolete.

The way I understand it, you do your I-130, then, once the feds tell you they got your I-130 you go ahead and apply an I-129 on top of that.

If you are lucky, the I-129 process gets complete, your fiance comes to the USA, and then she does her green card interview here.

CR1 just looks like what happens if your I-130 gets processed faster than the I-129 and you have been married less than 2 years.

Please point me to some references, I would really appreciate it.

Considering my work schedule, my family's schedule, traditions, and wanting to do things right, I will legally marry my fiance in Vietnam and use a K-3 Visa.

I wish I could put some of you in my shoes; you would see things differently. Alas, I cannot do that, but thank you for the helpful comments.

The next step is getting my marriage set up in Vietnam, but that does not seem to hard. As for the K-3, it looks like your typical US bureaucratic stumbling block, but I've dealt with plenty of them in my life.

Doing this process made me think "when did my country change from a libertarian republic to a Byzantine Empire?" You play their little game and hopefully you beat it.

Ok, now it is starting to make complete sense, thank you.

1. Do you think if I showed the embassy pictures of the wedding ceremony that looks a lot like the engagement ceremony they would be able to tell the difference? Could they look at the jewelry or pick out something and be able to tell? I don't know how sophisticated these people are.

One option would be to have the wedding ceremony and the wedding but tell the HCMC consulate that we just had the engagement ceremony and that is it.

2. Are original signatures required on immigration documents or can copies be made and sent in?

I did some more research and it just gets more confusing.

Honestly, the marriage and engagement ceremony are practically the same thing. Different websites note minor differences, but some websites do not even differentiate between the two.

The parents meet, gifts are exchanged, jewelry is exchanged, and a man gives a speech. My fiance made it seem like her friends do this ceremony one day and the next they have the big party. Sometimes people do both on the same day.

The way I understand it, engagement ceremony = marriage ceremony. To really be married, you also need to have the big party where your wife wears a white wedding dress. Am I understanding this correctly?

The reason I asked about the ceremony is that many others have said on this website that the marriage ceremony can be a K-1 deal breaker. Many have also said the ceremony is country specific. In some countries, having just the ceremony is no problem while in others the ceremony, for whatever reason, gets your K-1 rejected, even if you never performed a legal marriage.

I just want to hear from people who have actually done the whole ceremony and the party and also got their K-1 accepted.

Also, I am confused as to the difference between the engagement ceremony and marriage ceremony because it seems in Vietnam the US embassy keeps asking about this engagement ceremony. Of course I asked my fiance's family if I could marry her, but I do not think that is a ceremony.

If I understand it correctly, an IR1/CR1 is basically a K-3 visa where you wait for the I-130 to make its way through the system instead of applying for an I-129 as soon as you can.

If anyone else wants to look at the other questions and comment, please

Thank you for the great website and all the information. I have gotten a decent understanding of the different processes out there but sometimes, the more I read, the more I get confused. Hopefully some of you will answer my question or tell me "this is what I'd do if I were you."

I am engaged to a girl in Vietnam and have proof of this. Unfortunately, due to my job, my ability to visit Vietnam is limited. I can only go back in January of 2013.

My plan is to have the wedding ceremony in Vietnam in January, but start the K-1 process now.

Question: Will the wedding ceremony in the morning, and the party in the evening, disqualify me from the K-1 process if they somehow find out?

Question: Is the morning "Le Vu Quy" ceremony the same as an "engagement" ceremony that so many people mention here? My fiance said that my parents and hers will talk, and then we are married....but it seems like there might be some miscommunication here.

Question: Assuming the morning ceremony is an engagement ceremony, can we do that, and skip the party at night?

I basically can only come to Vietnam in January, then again 3 months later. If I put off marrying her in Vietnam in January until she can return, God knows when we will have the ceremony and it will be a real let down for her family.

Question: What is CR1? What is CR1 vs K-3?

Some people here were saying CR1 is a good idea, go for it. Almost like CR1 is better than K-3 or K-1 but I don't really know what the deal is.

My hope is that we can have the wedding in January with just the ceremony. Then, a couple of months later get the fiance visa and have her come over here. I have heard horror stories about the US embassy getting all antsy because someone had a wedding ceremony even though there is no legal backing to it....I am just not sure if Vietnam is like that.

I cannot wait to hear your responses so I can formulate a plan and start pushing some papers through.