JoeMc

7 hours ago, flfreddy said:

Quick Q to all.. our interview is coming in China... at the walk in when embassy staff take your docs........do we provide copies of paystub, employment letter, irs transcript, SSN benefits, bank statement, 1040, W2 OR must be original OR certified copies?

I do not know about the other documents. I sent my fiance a PDF document/file with my affidavit of support, employment letter, IRS transcripts, and W2. She printed them and brought the copies she printed.  Her interview was on 8/29 at Guangzhou consulate and they accepted the documents she printed out.

(We received a 221g. But, it was for different documents (proof of relationship). The consulate accepted the ones related to income.)

38 minutes ago, Mezyan said:

Waiting is fun. It's my favorite.

Already had the interview here. They gave us a 221g and requested a few more documents. We sent the documents and are waiting...

Most of the steps in this process are a waiting game. Hope that your interview is soon!

Wow... you are correct. I hope that  @Greenbaum is OK.

2 minutes ago, Peng Fei said:

Just got the news! She passed!

Congratulations 🎉👏!

3 minutes ago, Peng Fei said:

This does sound encouraging ! please keep us updated

Good luck with your interview!

In the I-129f you will probably want her address in the Philippines.

That way she will get the mail from the consulate after NOA2

CEAC was not working for a few days.

It finally gave me the status.

Visa type changed from immigrant visa to nonimmigrant visa. Case created date changed from June to September 23. Case last updated September 24...

From what I see in other forum threads this looks encouraging.

27 minutes ago, Agha- said:

Everyone is facing same issue from  almost 2 days now, most probably is some website server issue.

Yup...  Most people are having the same problem you reported. Hope they fix it soon.

Not working for me either.

So...

My fiance' brought all of the documents the 221g asked for to the local CITIC branch (the drop-off location for documents in China) on Monday morning.

When I checked late Wednesday I noticed that they updated the information about her passport to show that "The current status of your passport is Delivered To Post." I found that status means that the consulate had received the passport.

When I checked today (Thursday night in China) the passport status is the same (the consulate still has her passport). The CEAC status is still "Administrative Processing" but the 'Case Last Updated" date was changed to Sept. 19th.

Now it is back to waiting to see what happens next...

An update:

Today my fiance' received all of the documents (requested by the 221g) and submitted them and her passport at CITIC bank. (At the interview the CO told her to send her passport with the documents.)  The documents will be sent to the Guangzhou Consulate on Monday (this is a holiday weekend in China for the Mid-Autumn Festival). 

Just now, ilovelondon said:

why send all the sink thick papers from US.you just send digital documents to your fiancee,except the notarized letter.let her print out.

One of the documents with chat and SMS messages file is too large to email. It is 268 pages (approximately 135 sheets of paper printed double sided, two columns per page). I had it printed on printed it on 30# paper and spiral bound (with a nice cover) at a local office store. I also prepared another document (comb bound) with and  a photo album... I think that it would be easier (since everything is already printed and bound) to send her the prepared documents...

10 minutes ago, ilovelondon said:

within one year.as soon as possible.FEDEX  only need 4 days to SH

The paperwork I assembled is approximately 5 pounds. It looks like FedEx would charge more than $200 for express international shipping (the one that arrives in 3 or 4 days). USPS has a "Priority Mail International Medium Flat Rate Box" that would be about $74 dollars. The USPS web site states that 'Normal Delivery Time' is '6-10 business days to many major markets.'  

I could 'spring for' the $200+. But, wonder if it is worth that much more only to shave off a couple of days.

My fiance' is not even home from the interview, yet. She still plans to write her own letter which she needs to get translated and notarized. I could pay $200+ only to have it arrive before she is ready to go to CITIC Bank to send things to the Consulate....

Any thoughts about the other question I asked (or should I start another thread)??

How long will they wait for a reply to the 221g?

Right now I am kind of in a 'holding pattern' because of Hurricane Dorian.... Banks and public offices are closed (cannot get my letter notarized right now). Post offices in my area are closed. (Because of the approaching hurricane.)  I expect them to reopen on Monday (unless there is landfall here in South Carolina). Once I mail these documents to my fiance' (hopefully on Monday) it will probably take approximately 10 days to arrive in Beijing...

Will they give us time (the 3 weeks or so needed) to get these to them or should I send an email to the consulate informing them of the delay (from the hurricane)?

6 minutes ago, Allaboutwaiting said:

The IO could have assumed that being retired and having all these travel expenses, she must have some sort of financial support from you. I personally don't think it is an odd assumption.

To put it in perspective. Before we first talked/met my fiance' (in the past few years) had already traveled to Italy, England (UK), Austria, and other places. (She has a Schengen Visa.) So, it is not like she only traveled after we met. 

37 minutes ago, Rose711 said:

Also, her traveling all those places alone to visit friends might be seen as more evidence of a single lifestyle than a couple. She could easily have just been seeing you as a friend as well.

Good point. I can see how they could have misinterpreted things that way.

1 minute ago, Rose711 said:

What evidence of your relationship did she bring besides photos? Photos without chat logs or correspondence don’t mean much. Sounds like they want more proof of a relationship. 

You are correct. She had plenty of proof that we had met (photos, boarding passes, a hotel receipt, and things like that). But, did not have any chat logs with her for the interview.

How long will they wait for a reply to the 221g?

Right now I am kind of in a 'holding pattern' because of Hurricane Dorian.... Banks and public offices are closed (cannot get my letter notarized right now). Post offices in my area are closed. (Because of the approaching hurricane.)  I expect them to reopen on Monday (unless there is landfall here in South Carolina). Once I mail these documents to my fiance' (hopefully on Monday) it will probably take 5 to 10 days to arrive in Beijing...

Will they give us time to get these to them or should I send an email to the consulate informing them of the delay (from the hurricane)?

11 minutes ago, JFH said:

I could send you money. I can assure you it’s not true love. 

Just now, Boiler said:

Happy for you to send me money.

I was just thinking the same thing.... lol.

3 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

Did she retire well before normal retirement age?

The mandatory retirement age for women is 50 (55 for some government jobs...which does not apply to her) in China. (We are both in our 50's.)

11 minutes ago, JFH said:

Why would you be sending money? I’m assuming she coped just fine financially before she met you? 

 

She is a retired dentist and has her own resources. Just this year (to keep herself busy while waiting for this process) she has traveled to visit friends in Milan, Rome, and Palermo Italy. She also visited a friend in Innsbruck Austria. Maybe the officer saw all of these passport stamps and wondered where the money (to pay for these trips) came from? (Do you think that the consulate incorrectly assumed that I was paying for these trips?)

I am a single parent (with a child who is a minor) and my contract with my job is such that I do not accrue vacation time. So, my visits to China have all been less than one week long.  

I visited her in Beijing once last year (for less than a week).  

She has a US tourist visa and visited me for approximately 3 months last year.

This year I met her in Guilin (to meet her sister). Again, it was for less than a week (I had to return home to care for my son.).

She wanted to visit me again. But, she is worried that she would be denied entry after we filed the I-129f... She is retired and was afraid that she would be denied entry for not having strong ties she could demonstrate to her home country and for also being engaged to a US citizen. 

She brought copies of all boarding passes to the interview....

On 8/29 my fiance' had her consulate interview.

She was asked many times during the interview to provide receipts for any money that I sent her. The only problem is.... I only sent her money once... ever.... (I sent her $300 dollars via Western Union for the visa application fee she had to pay before she could schedule the interview....)

She had lots of photographs. But, forgot to bring chat records with her. Do you think they were 'fishing' for another way to show more evidence of a relationship? Or, does not sending her money over time weaken our case?? (I offered to send her money. I even found an old chat transcript where I offered to send her money for a train ticket (she was going to visit a relative). My fiance's reply was to save my money for when we are together. (My furniture is from the dark ages and one of our first expenditures will be for furniture. She wanted me to save money for future expenses like this.)

Well... we got a 221g.

They requested:

• A notarized letter describing the history of the relationship and so on.... 
• Copies of chat messages. (I have gone back almost one year and printed out approximately 300 pages of chat messages to send them.)
• A copy of all pages of my passport. 
• Receipts for any remittances sent. (I have the one Western Union receipt to send in. But, that is the only time she accepted money from me....)
• More photographs...

Does anyone have any thoughts on why they kept asking her for nonexistent receipts for nonexistent money transfers??  Any other advice/suggestions/comments would be appreciated. I am going crazy.. I printed out all this stuff and cannot get the letter notarized nor can I send it to her right now... (Thanks to Hurricane Dorian the banks and post offices in my county are closed until further notice. It just gives me a few more days to worry about this stuff...)

Well.... I am not thrilled with the interview's outcome. But, it could be much worse...

She left with a 221(g) letter and a checklist of documents to submit.

Verbally, the CO only requested 6 months of WeChat messages. But, the checklist she was given included a few more items.

They checked each of the following:

• A notarized letter explaining the nature of our relationship. When the relationship began, the history of the relationship to the present.
• Photographs showing progression of relationship with petitioner. Please indicate where and when each was taken. (She went in with a photo album and had post it notes on photos for where and when each was taken. So, I found this request surprising. Maybe it was because the post it notes were written in Chinese?)
• Evidence of correspondence over time. (emails, text/WeChat records).
• Photocopy of all pages of petitioner's passport.
• Evidence of remittances sent by petitioner.

I would have preferred an approval. But, I took this as good news since these are all documents that I have archived/saved. 

Do you think that she will be approved after they receive all of the documents on their checklist??? 

In the past few days I....

• In the initial petition (I-129f) there was a letter similar to the one they ask for (describing how the relationship developed). Since it was written last September it will require some additional information/editing/work and will need to be notarized...
• I have been organizing the photos into a booklet. Right now I have 13 pages. Two of the pages have one photo, most pages have between 3 and 5 photos... The pages are organized by time (oldest to newest) and where/when they were taken... So, for example... there is a page that I labeled ... "At Times Square and MOMA (July 2018)" and 4 photos from there....  .... another page is  "In Guilin... (April 2019) .... and 5 photos there..
  • Question... Are these types of labels detailed enough? Should I try to label each individual photo (even if it would be the same as others on the same page)? Is giving the month and year sufficient?  (I could guess the day for most of them....based on where they are in my Google Photos. )
• Correspondence over time. I might have went overboard. But, I also did not want to take any chances. I have 7 months of WeChat and SMS messages. Formatted each page into two columns.... Had it printed and spiral bound at the local office store.... Approximately 125 pages printed on both sides (if I printed it single sided it would have been 270 pages)... Probably overkill. But, it looks really nice. If they return it to us it will make a nice keepsake. If not, I can print out another one (I still have my original PDF document that I sent to the printer....)
  • Thoughts??? Overkill or not enough? I could do more... 
• Photocopies of all pages of passport... Easy... I got this...
• Evidence of remittances sent... 
  • She mentioned during the interview that I used Western Union to send the Visa application fee to her.... I can only guess that this is the remittance they are referring to. (Since that is the only time that I sent cash to her...) I just printed out the copy of my Western Union receipt..

Does it sound like I am on the right track?

1 hour ago, Liddy92 said:

Yesterday i Had my interview.... Visa approved.... Thank you for being part of this process, see you at the next stage

Congratulations!