toddandhien
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Posts posted by toddandhien
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Trang and I barely talked over the phone. In fact most of our communication is through Yahoo chats. We also use the Yahoo Messenger Phone Call feature which is kinda like Skype. We use this alot as well. So basically we make phone calls to each other over the internet. I made screen shots on the webcam of both of us wearing our headseats as well as the call durations for our conversations on the headsets. Will the CO think this is strange or will they want copies of actual phone bills instead?
-Travis & Trang
This is the 21st century. I'm sure the consulate will forgive you if you don't use regular phone calls very much. Yahoo chat, Skype, and other VoIP services are virtually free, and someone would have to be practically insane not to take advantage of that. The downside is that you can get spoiled by having free voice communications available, and not be prepared on the occasion you might need conventional phone services. I called Phuong for a total of about 3 hours during Typhoon Ketsana, and I just got my phone bill yesterday - $522. I've got a calling card now, but I don't know if I'll need it before her interview.
Have copies of your Yahoo call and chat logs available at the interview and you should be ok. I think webcam pics are also nice, but I haven't heard much about whether they were specifically helpful at the interview. I have more than 2000 webcam pics of Phuong. I collect more almost every day.
This may be the 21st century but I would not expect that the Consulate will have adopted every modern way of thinking. Many of the things that they look for are conventional in nature. I would strongly recommend to anyone to get a calling card that tracks all of your call records and has them available to you on-line. The records need to show the phone number called from and to and the duration. Then you can show that the phone numbers called are yours and your SO's. Use this card to call at least once a week for 20-30 minutes or so. At 8 cents/min that's $10/month. Then make all of your other, longer calls on skype or other VOIP.
Remember the onus is on YOU to prove the bona fides, not for the CO to interpret it. Make it easy for them. There is something very familiar in being able to look at a phone "bill" that lists numbers and durations and is from a credible source.
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My wife and I have had a joint bank account in Vietnam since Feb of 2009 we also have a connecting account between wellsfargo and vietnam income bank where I can transfer her money from my computer. She also has access to my credit cards and pin numbers I couldn't get her name on the title to my house yet until she moves here. I would not have done if for a K1 that looks really bad like you are trying to manufacture evedence because you have a weak case.
For a K1 you only have to prove intent to marry not closeness of relationship. The consulate might not always follow that logic but as you can see here by case law you can appeal it very successfully.
http://www.uscis.gov/uscis-ext-templating/...errFrameset.jsp
Section 214(d) of the Act states that CIS shall approve the Form I-129F when a petitioner submits evidence to establish that he/she and the beneficiary have met within the two-year period preceding the filing of the Form 1129F, have a bonafide intention to marry and are legally able and willing to marry within 90 days of the beneficiary's arrival in the United States. The Department of State's interview of the beneficiary raised questions regarding the level of intimacy between the petitioner and the beneficiary at the time of the latter's consular interview. However, the approval of a Form I-129F does not depend on the level of closeness between the two parties, and the AAO finds the director to have erred in imposing it. While § 214(d) of the Act requires the petitioner to establish that he and the beneficiary have a bonafide intention to marry, this language is not synonymous with a requirement that the petitioner establish the closeness of their relationship. The AAO has found nothing in the record to indicate the petitioner and beneficiary do not intend to marry within 90 days of the beneficiary's arrival in the United States.
The difficulty is rarely in getting your petition approved by USCIS. It is getting the HCM Consulate to approve the visa. Two totally different hurdles. I believe that for the Consulate, you need to worry about both the real AND perceived closeness of the relationship.
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Hey guys,
This is kind of a dumb question but I wanted to know how to go about getting a loose-leaf visa for a single-visit one month stay in VN. I call and email them every day with no response. I always used to just mail my passport to the Embassy in D.C for the sticker visa, but I want a loose-leaf this time. There is no emergency here, so I dont know if I can get this. Has anybody every tried this? What would be the wait times?
-Travis & Trang
A word of caution on loose, single-entry visas: The entry stamp will be put on the visa (not in your passprt) and the visa will be retained by the Passport Control Officer when you leave the country. You will have NO record of your entry and exit of VN. If this is important to you for documentation purposes (it should be), you may want to consider getting a permanently affixed visa in your passport. That way, they HAVE to stamp your passport going in and coming out.
Burning: you don't have a timeline so I don't know if you are already married to a VN citizen. If you are, you can get a visa exemption for 5 years for $20. Available in loose-leaf or permanently affixed.
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Many of us have had our cases go past the validity period. It is a normal occurrence...no need to worry. This is an excerpt from the HCM Consulate website:
"Although a K visa petition is valid for a period of four months, a consular officer can revalidate the petition provided the officer concludes that the American citizen sponsor and the applicant remain legally free to marry and that they continue to intend to marry each other within three months of the alien’s admission into the U.S."
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my wife got it here. insurance paid and we did it as part of an office visit to meet her new doc. cost $0
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Todd, Having been through AP already it may be a good thing for us when it comes time to get interviewed... As many have said in the past.. most of the time they have some form of decision made before the interview based on the paperwork submitted and research/investigation they have conducted up to that point... Most of the people that I see that have gone through AP @ NVC are approved or denied at the interview and the majority are approved... I am with you on the beaurocracy aspect of it...
I will email them later this week to see if pkt 3 is sent.. then I can resend the forms.... a week later I can see if they got them and ask about the interview date so we can get the medical out of the way when I am there.. If not she will have to make an extra trip to HCMC or spend a longer time there when she goes for the interview to get the medical done a few days before... The later may be the best way to go, since her mother will be with her, if we cant get it done when I am there...
I'm not sure if being in AP at NVC helps but I know a lot of people that were in AP and all of them have been approved (though none were interviewed at HCM). I hope that it goes smoothly for you and you sail right through. My wife had no problems at Cho Ray but she is used to the conditions in HCM. If Thuy wants to talk to someone who has been there for the medical, PM me and I can have Hien call her.
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My husband got his medical done with the email attachment stating his interview date (is this the appointment letter everyone keeps referring to??). He had no problems. Of course, it may or may not be different since we did CR-1 Visa. One would think if you have a letter/email from the consulate with your interview date, you'd be able to get a medical or immigration with no problems... HMMM...
CR-1 folks get an e-mail appointment notification from NVC via e-mail. This is acceptable to be used for your medical because that is the means of coordinating your interview date. For K visas, the Consulate does the scheduling and they notify the applicant by snail mail. Having an e-mail with the date on it is not acceptable because there is a formal appointment letter generated by the Consulate that is required.
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This is typical. The paperwork says that she may continue the vaccination program in the US. There will not be a problem at the interview regarding this, assuming all other aspects of her medical exam were acceptable.
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Hello,
Thank you for your help. I am not sure if Wachovia will allow me to create a joint bank account with Thuy while she is still living in VN. Perhaps when I visit her again in a couple of months, I can ask her if she would like to create a joint bank account with me in VN. In any case, does anybody here who filed for K-1 have any experience with using joint bank accounts as evidence of bonafide relationship? I heard the HCMC consulate is tough to deal with and may look at this type of activity as fraudulent.
You're going to get different opinions on this, so ultimately you're going to have to make up your own mind. In my opinion, the CO expects to see financial ties between the petitioner and the beneficiary if they are married, but not if they are engaged. It's possible it could even backfire, and the CO might presume the beneficiary is a gold digger. This is not so common in Vietnam, but it's a huge problem in the former Soviet states. Personally, I would leave the financial evidence out.
Good point Jim.. or even worse they could assume the two are already married and thus ineligible for K-1...
I agree. I would avoid the bank account thing on a K-1. You cannot get her added to an account here without an SSN as was stated earlier and I think creating an account in VN might look strange. For front-loading I would focus on the evidence of your relationship, not money (including the beneficiary of the life ins). Focus on time together, things you've done, hotel receipts, photos, boarding passes, a timeline. Make them feel your love story for the first 10 months.
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Scott, I was in AP at NVC for 52 days, so I know your feeling of anxiety. FWIW, I followed up with them 5 days after I believed they got the file just to confirm receipt. 5 days later (10 days after receipt) they sent an e-mail back saying thet they had mailed the Packet 3 and also attached the PDF.
The issue is this with large bureaucracies: There is a process and there is a queue. When they are busy, the process does not get skirted, the queue only gets longer. The reason that they don't want your papers now is that they can't do anything with them. It is not time for them to be there and without the case properly logged into the HCM system, your papers would have no home. And they are not going to move you up in the queue.
The only thing you can do is follow up again with an e-mail asking for the status so they can confirm with you that they have mailed the Packet 3. THEN, you can shoot the DS-230 and the DS-2001 in there pronto so that you can get the Packet 4 clock started.
Packet 3 is nothing more than notification that you have been approved to apply for a visa and to get your preliminary paperwork in so they can complete their investigation/review and schedule you for an interview. Don't try to schedule an interview when you get Packet 3. And you cannot do the medical without an appointment letter. It will be snail-mailed WITH PACKET 4. If it gets lost, you can go to the consulate for a replacement but it will not be e-mailed to you.
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The Consulate will email an interview date for you when you email and request for it, including Package 4 info, but not the appointment letter. That was my experience.
To be clear, the Consulate in HCM will not proactively e-mail ANY information to you. After certain information has been mailed to the applicant, they will provide that information to the petitioner or applicant if an e-mail is sent requesting it. This includes Packet 3, Packet 4, the interview date, status updates, etc. As stated, the appointment letter will not be e-mailed, which means that you cannot have the medical exam until you receive the letter in the mail or go the the Consulate and get a replacement if it is deemed lost in the mail.
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For CR-1/IR-1, you can print the e-mail appointment letter and take that for your medical. K visas have to wait for an appointment letter in the mail or directly picked up at the consulate.
Thanks Todd (or Hien)
How come the difference? Is it because the Consulate doesn't email the appointment letter when they schedule? and NVC emails it?You got it. The Consulate deals only in snail mail for communication with the applicant.
Todd
They say the Ds230 and DS2001 can be emailed so they do work by email to some degree...
I was referring to the way that they communicate with the applicant. They will not e-mail an interview date to you. They mail it.
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For CR-1/IR-1, you can print the e-mail appointment letter and take that for your medical. K visas have to wait for an appointment letter in the mail or directly picked up at the consulate.
Thanks Todd (or Hien)
How come the difference? Is it because the Consulate doesn't email the appointment letter when they schedule? and NVC emails it?You got it. The Consulate deals only in snail mail for communication with the applicant.
Todd
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For CR-1/IR-1, you can print the e-mail appointment letter and take that for your medical. K visas have to wait for an appointment letter in the mail or directly picked up at the consulate.
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Congratulations, John and Kim Hai!!
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Sorry to hear about this, Scott. Best wishes to Thuy for a speedy recovery.
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Did they say that more documentation was required or that no further information is needed? It sounds like you are in AP, which just means that you have to wait until they make a decision. Sorry.
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OK, please forgive me, but this is still confusing. What proof of my wife's Vietnamese citizenship do I have to provide? I have read and re-read everything multiple times and am not clear at all.
When I fill out that online form and hit Complete, does it then have me print the completed form, or is it submitting the form to them online?
And same questions I asked before: Do they require an actual marriage cert for my wife and I? Or can we send them a photo copy? Or do I send an original, which they send back to me, plus a photocopy for their files?
I just filled this out. The only thing that is not clear is whether or not you must submit proof that your wife is a VN citizen. After thinking about it, I am assuming that they do want proof because how else could they be sure that the person on your marriage cert is actually Vietnamese? You can choose from about 15 different methods of proving that she is VN.
When you submit it, they will give you back the info filled out in a form that you must download (it is a PDF), print and sign. Send that to the embassy along with your passport, the proof of your wife's VN citizenship that you chose on the form, your marriage cert (a certified copy) along with photocopies of everything that you are sending, two passport photos and a check for $20.
Mine's going out tomorrow. I will let you all know when I receive it back or if I get RFE'd.
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Why do you say he is no longer qualified for follow to join?
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You summarized the weaknesses well. And there is not much you can do about what has happened in the past, how you met or when you had the dam hoi. Those are potential issues and you will have to be prepared to address them. But they are not going to get better with age. My advice would be:
Document everything very well from here on
Go to VN again for a visit and then again when she has her interview
Frontload the petition with as much evidence as you have
Develop a very good timeline that can be used at the interview
Prepare her extremely well for the interview
Good luck
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how old is the son?
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Carrick, you really need to chill. The situation you have is what you have. Dau Que's comments notwithstanding, if you plan to move forward and bring this girl to the US, you need to take stock of your circumstances and apply a dose of reality now because if you don't, the CO will have plenty of reality for you. As people have been telling you, document everything, get a LOT of evidence of your ongoing relationship and make an (honest) list of your red flags, then deal with them in whatever way necessary. If you are going to do this yourself, you are going to have to take a very practical approach and be self-critical. But don't stress! It won't do you or your girlfriend any good.
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Scott, we had ours at Hien's parents' home, which is in a small, rural village. We had about 100 people and the only things we paid outsiders for was tables/tent, a cake, booze and two ao dais (rental). Her sister used my camera for photos and her sister's friend used my video camera. All the village women came and cooked the food. Total cost, just about $1000. For 30 people, I would not expect to spend more than $400-500.
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yes, you should apply for it now, as long as you can part with your passport for a couple of weeks. I thought you said you were going in January? I would do it here. Do it there and it will be more confusing, I think. I'm doing it here. I will post once I finish the process and give a summary on how it worked.
K-1 Visa - Submit now or later?
in Asia: East and Pacific
Posted
Disagree. The first two are things that neither he nor a lawyer can change. The third one HAS to be changed or he cannot get a visa approved. The key is in preparing this case from the beginning, starting with the filing of the petition. If his case is well-prepared and credible and he addresses those two red flags properly, he may get blue-slipped or AP'd but he will prevail.