duyen&sean

Hi--

My wife and I have had the pleasure of following this site from our early stages of dating to our current stage--married five years with two kids--and I must admit it has been such a wonderful, exciting journey at every stage, and we owe a lot of it to visa journey for the guidance of others in similar situations.

We're now in a situation as follows: my wife's mother passed away recently, and her father will likely remarry to someone with kids under 18. I understand that my wife (now a citizen) cannot petition for her (potentially future) step mother (relationship established after age 18), but will the green card given to her father allow him to have his dependents accompany him (say, his wife and kids under 18)? I understand this is sometimes the case and is what is described in the USCIS brochure.

Thanks and all the best to everyone with petitions outstanding.

Sean

I realize this is a dead thread, but many international organizations that sponsor G-4 visas pay your taxes for you, so tax evasion is usually not a motivation. Typically the motivation involves receiving substantial diplomatic perks from the employing organization. I also know that certain staff of certain IOs are eligible to "convert" to green cards on the sole condition that they have been employed in the organization for at least fifteen years--this is completely outside the advertised process but it exists and is a common way for IO staff to retire in the US. For sure it will not be an issue to convert back to a green card.

Hi all--

My wife and I applied Feb 2nd, 2011 and still haven't heard back except for a receipt notice we received--from what I read, this isn't abnormal, so we'll sit patiently. We'd like to travel outside the US but don't have much confidence travelling with a receipt notice and an expired green card... Anyway, we'll just wait and see how long it takes.

Hi all--

We sent our I-751 in on Jan 28, 2011 to VSC by certified mail. It was received and they cashed the check immediately.

We have NOT received ANYTHING from USCIS regarding our application--now it is March 10, they day her green card expires.

What's up? Any advice? Is it worth while to wait or should I call?

Sean

Bonjour et bienvenue,

Est-ce que vous avez deposé votre dossier déjà ? Si vous avez des questions il y a du monde ici, mais vous auriez bc plus de reponses si vous les posez en anglais.

Hey! Has there been any news regarding this issue of financial support? Our interview is on the 28th of July, and my father is a joint-sponsor. I have a very small amount of part-time income as I am a grad student. My mother actually came to our engagement celebration in Vietnam, and it is so obvious that my parents will support us. I am a master's student in economics with no real work history, and I am still a dependent on my father's tax returns. I just feel like this was such a trap. If only someone had told me at the beginning that students cannot do the I-129F if their fiancees are from Vietnam!

Any advice?? I'm really hating all this.

Right, you can't tell the truth until you know the truth.

Hey, great, I just called and she said that she's never been involved with the Communist Party--not a member, never did the stuff in high school or college, etc. What luck! (Of course, she tells me it's pretty big stuff to be a member in the Communist Party--people try for decades to be in, but they can't. Well, she never was.) Of course, that doesn't help others who have been or are currently involved. I still want to hear the answer to this one...

Answer the question honestly. Never lie to an immigration official or on an immigration form.

If she qualifies for the exemption, she'll eventually get the visa. She should be ready to explain and if possible, document that her party membership was involuntary.

Caution though. The fact there is only one policital party does not in and of itself meet the standard. China has one political party as well and my wife's father is a member but neither she or her siblings ever were, even though she and her brother worked for State owned entities.

People with direct Viet Nam experience will know more about the circumstances there.

Of course the lying part was a joke. You know what? I'm not even sure if she is an actual "member" of the party--it seems there are like three echelons to the whole thing. From the sound of it, it's pretty hard to become a top-echelon member of the party in Vietnam--only 3% are "members" of this kind, but I know there are ranks and degrees of membership, and I know she's not part of that top 3%. (Is that what the consulate considers membership, or does "Communist Youth League for Six Year Olds" count?) I just know that you have to have some sort of (possibly lower-echelon) membership or affiliation in order to graduate from college, and she is a college graduate, so... I'll ask the precise details tonight. If she is not a "member" or "representative" (the terms from the form), then it seems we're clear.

I think I may just call the consulate tonight and ask them directly. I'll talk in a deep, scruffy voice and disguise my name... hah.

My fiancee is from Vietnam and is a member of the communist party, but so is everyone who graduates from high school there, and it's sort of a prerequisite for "normal" life in the country. (Maybe this is like China too, since both are one-party states.) On the form DS-230, Part II, Question 30© makes it very clear that anyone having such a designation is ineligible for a visa to the US.

So how do we respond to question 30 part c? Certainly others from Vietnam and China have had to do this, so it can't be a big deal. I'm aware of a exemption clause for which everyone in ours and similar cases would clearly qualify, but my question is how to approach the question in the context of this form. Do we check "YES" and state the corresponding exemption on a separate sheet? It seems like saying "NO" would be... lying... so I'm thinking that's not the right choice...

What have peoples' experiences been?

Here is the relevant law, taken from this State Department website:

(D) Immigrant membership in totalitarian party.-

(i) In general.-Any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.

(ii) Exception for involuntary membership.- Clause (i) shall not apply to an alien because of membership or affiliation if the alien establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer when applying for a visa (or to the satisfaction of the Attorney General when applying for admission) that the membership or affiliation is or was involuntary, or is or was solely when under 16 years of age, by operation of law, or for purposes of obtaining employment, food rations, or other essentials of living and whether necessary for such purposes.

(iii) Exception for past membership.-Clause (i) shall not apply to an alien because of membership or affiliation if the alien establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer when applying for a visa (or to the satisfaction of the Attorney General when applying for admission) that-

(I) the membership or affiliation terminated at least-

(a) 2 years before the date of such application, or

(b) 5 years before the date of such application, in the case of an alien whose membership or affiliation was with the party controlling the government of a foreign state that is a totalitarian dictatorship as of such date, and

(II) the alien is not a threat to the security of the United States.

(iv) Exception for close family members.-The Attorney General may, in the Attorney General's discretion, waive the application of clause (i) in the case of an immigrant who is the parent, spouse, son, daughter, brother, or sister of a citizen of the United States or a spouse, son, or daughter of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence for humanitarian purposes, to assure family unity, or when it is otherwise in the public interest if the immigrant is not a threat to the security of the United States.

Hello all, I have a question that maybe someone here can answer from experience. I am travelling to Vietnam on February 28 and I land before March 1st. My Vietnamese re-entry Visa expires on March 1st. Will I be able to enter Vietnam on this Visa and extend it when I am there? Or do I need to apply for a new visa. (I just hate applying for a new visa this close to the trip, in case my passport gets lost or delayed.)

You do not need to send in your passport to get a visa, actually. The last time I went to VN, I had a paper visa that was not attached to my passport, and I did not have to send in my passport to get it. Another cool thing to mention is that my mother once actually traveled to Vietnam without having received any paper documentation from the Embassy for her visa, but they had already "issued" it in principle and it was therefore in their computer system, so she was issued the visa on arrival after paying the $25 fee. You should know that you cannot get a visa upon arrival without actually "receiving it" from the Vietnamese Consulate General in San Francisco. Of course, if you walk in there with a pocket full of cash, and ask to speak to the Director of the Immigration Authority, usually he'll reconsider, which was my experience...

Good luck! My advise is to call the Consulate General in SF and tell them your situation ASAP before you start wasting unnecessary time and money on bribes...

Dear all,

My situation could very easily progress as follows:

Imagine someone files the usual non-immigrant I-129F petition for their spouse, whom they later marry in the US in accordance to the conditions of the K-1 visa. In addition to understand each other's native languages, both husband and wife speak a common (third) foreign language; both husband and wife have strong cross-cultural ties to each other's families and native countries. The foreign spouse's country of citizenship does not recognize dual citizenship, and renunciation is treated with extreme political and legal disfavor, causing loss of rights of entry and residence. Shortly before their wedding in the US, the US citizen spouse is randomly admitted to a somewhat prestigious doctoral program in a country speaking their common foreign language, taking at least five years to complete. Both consider this to be an excellent chance to improve their knowledge of this common third culture and its language.

In light of this new event, neither has any immediate intent of making the US their permanent place of residence, and for the time being, their intentions towards US residency are best described as temporary. However, since the US embassy in the foreign spouse's native land has one of the highest non-immigrant visa denial rates and no visa waiver program, and since the foreign spouse is married to a US citizen, it seems highly unlikely that the foriegn spouse could even consider getting a non-immigrant visa.

It seems that the foreign spouse is not an intending immigrant; yet neither is she an intending non-immigrant.

Well, no matter: assume they just change their "intention" and immigrate. So what then? Assume they file and are approved for an AOS, and then begin to live in this common foreign country while he is in school. They come back once a year, let her mail come to his parents' house, file US taxes, etc. Neither has any official permanent residence status in this foreign country or intention to immigrate there; they're on student and work visas.

Could immigration still say that she's abandoned her US residence? I've heard that, if you don't go back within six months, you're still screwed. Does anyone know about this sort of thing? My understanding of the problem here is this: it is so difficult to get a non-immigrant visa from certain countries that people who do not intend to live in the US forever get stuck applying for immigrant visas that are conditioned on maintaining a (perhaps falsely) presumed immigrant status.

I look forward to responses!

Hi all,

Some of you probably knows my fiance, Dave (BigCityDave)... We're still waiting for NOA 2, but we would like to make a backup plan too. We already have some ideas, but the new one is to get the work visa for me. So my guestion is, Do you know what it requires to get a work visa? Any ideas where can I read more about it?

Thank you so much,

Adri

Hi Adri!

I have a bunch of friends who are applying for work visas to the US, and FYI, they're all college-educated business majors, top-of-the-class types from top US schools. I remember that they always complain that they have a fifty-fifty chance at getting the visa, since they're rationed by a quota. They made it seem that their chances were equal to anyone else's--i.e., that they believed things weren't based on their high credentials, etc. I don't know if this is true. They mentioned that they could not have done it without a lawyer, and they were all sponsored by their employers. For their particular type, the "H1B," it was a requirement to have an employer sponsor your petition. The only way their employers would sponsor it was because they successfully completed an internship there.

I don't know about your case, but in the case of Vietnam, having applied for an immigrant-based benefit makes it significantly more difficult to receive a non-immigrant-based benefit. I'd try to find alternate means than the H1B to enter: go to college or do a master's degree, etc; as an F-1 student, you're eligible for one year of Optional Practical Training (OPT) following the conclusion of your studies. This gives you a more reasonable chance at finding an employer who will sponsor you for the H1B. In my opinion, you can plan it such that your "native skills" (foreign language & cultural knowledge, etc) and your education match up to make you extremely more desirable than US citizens. Yet it can work the other way around, too, so pay attention and plan carefully.

Look into the vocational student visa, too--the M-1 visa. I don't know much about it, but it could be another option. It also has an OPT period following your studies as well.

Good luck!

hi everybody ,i know you wont forget the day you met your honey,you can share it here....

In August of 2005, I had been living in Hanoi for over two months, staying with a Vietnamese host family, and it was right about time for me to go back to school. I was studying Vietnamese language in the French library, and we happened to be sitting next to each other one day. She was studying French, and I lived in France when I was in high school, so she thought I was French... We started a conversation, and lucky for me she didn't discover I was American until we had already felt comfortable talking to each other. I then learned she also spoke English very well, so that made things nice. We became acquaintances then, and it was definitely not love at first sight--even though I was definitely fascinated by her. In fact, we were extremely tentative, because--to me, at least--things seemed almost too good to be true. (Now I see that they really are that good--even better!)

We parted ways at the end of August and said we'd keep in touch--politely, of course. I returned to the US for school and we wrote emails about once a month or so. As we didn't think we'd necessarily meet up again, we were not afraid to be totally honest about ourselves and our thoughts, which was nice now that I look back. I then suddenly returned in 2006--mostly to meet her again and study language--and while I was at the university there, fell in love. I then returned to the US and was immediately busy with school, and we continued our relationship religiously via long distance--the usual: calls, emails, chats. (I hate long distance relationships, actually.) I guess it helps that I had no time for anything but school at the time.

I could not return to Vietnam for financial reasons (I think some call this "being poor"), and when I entered grad school that fall, I knew I had been ready to make *the* big choice for quite some time. In October I finally came out with it. We filed in November. I returned to Hanoi in 2007/2008 over winter break and held a formal engagement celebration--my mother came as well, and so did 720 people to acknowledge our commitment to each other. It was wonderful. In all, I've spent over seven months in Hanoi--six during summer breaks and one during that winter break.

I'll soon graduate penniless with a master's in economics, so my parents have agreed to sponsor her. I'm in a different position, I think, than most people I know: I'm not at all against the idea of living in Vietnam should the need arise--i.e., should my petition be viciously rejected or burned. (As an economics-type lad, I put great hope--but little faith--in the correct functioning of government bureaucracies. No fault to them, of course. It's gotta be Murphy's law or something.)

Anyway, that's a long-winded response.

(PS--I offer my infinite thanks to the members of this forum for providing such useful information and invaluable experience!)

Blah blah blah and do you really want to waste my time with this? Go post on the Moroccan portal next time.

Okay, so I'm just being a punk here, for the record...

So let's now make this a rule: for each country, VisaJourney members will all vote on whichever government they approve or disapprove. The outcome then decides whether the correct flag is listed beneath that country in forums.

Sound stupid? It should. The main point here is that our attitudes towards the Vietnamese government determine nothing of the nationality of our future spouses. They will all--try as we may--remain nationals of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam until further notice.

Nobody is petitioning for a national of the former Saigon regime. Let's forget about that defunct political administration and its flag for the sake of this discussion.

The discussion was actually forgotten four months ago...

Yes--how terrible! Good thing you and I have officially revived it!

No, but seriously, you've totally missed the point. The emphasis was on "for the sake of this discussion." I said to forget about the flag, not the discussion. I knowingly revived the discussion to press an important point. I mean, to hell with the date of the last post, right? I'll post whenever I want to--thanks--just as you post comments in whichever forum you please.

Okay, so briefly and more clearly: the question was whether or not we liked the current Vietnamese flag beneath our names, as we're marrying citizens of that Vietnamese state, and I pointed out that it was irrelevant to talk about the flag of South Vietnam, which doesn't exist and represents nothing of our future spouses. I did this to revive a discussion on a current topic of Vietnamese interest. The point here is that, even though this discussion board hasn't been actively supported, there has been active support of the Saigon regime's flag abroad by third parties, which is a ridiculous thing if you stop to think about it. Blah blah blah and do you really want to waste my time with this? Go post on the Moroccan portal next time.

So let's now make this a rule: for each country, VisaJourney members will all vote on whichever government they approve or disapprove. The outcome then decides whether the correct flag is listed beneath that country in forums.

Sound stupid? It should. The main point here is that our attitudes towards the Vietnamese government determines nothing of the nationality of our future spouses. They will all--try as we may--remain nationals of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam until further notice.

Nobody is petitioning for a national of the former Saigon regime. Let's forget about that defunct political administration and its flag for the sake of this discussion.