BrianJenny

Hi Hope and Sun, you can get all your paperwork needed before you go to your interview now. You need to be getting it all together. You will need the DS-156, DS156K, and DS-157. You need 2 copies of each except the 156K, you only need one copy of that. Here is the exact requirements you will need to get together now so you will be ready to pay for the Visa and then schedule your interview date. http://photos.state.gov/libraries/manila/19452/public/Revised%20K1%20Instruction%20Packet%20_3__rtf2_001.pdf

Your Fience will need to ship to you all the original documents that were used for the USCIS, and a copy of the I-129, and the approval. You need to gather up all the pictures, letters, cards, copies of emails and conversations online, all to prove you have a real relationship, and you have met personally in the past 2 years. Look over the above link and start going down the list till you have everything you need.

Good luck to you. I know how you are feeling right now because it took over 190 days for me and my fience to get our NOA2. I felt hopeless and couldnt do anything to get it approved finally. I hope you don't have much more time to wait.

Have you gone on the USCIS web site at: https://egov.uscis.g...ectusertype.jsp You can register your case and get email and text messages of any news or updates automatically regarding your case? You just need your case number and setup a account. After you setup your account you will see a LAST UPDATE date. This is the last time anything was updated. If somebody looks at your case they will then change this date to the current date they made any changes.( refered to as touches) It means someone in USCIS has looked at your case:D . When you start seeing touches it can sometimes signal your case is now being looked at, and soon you should be getting some news about it. I check my case everyday and see if my last update has changed to signify something is finally happening. You will also get a text message and or email as soon as there is any news. I hope this information is useful.

dear Stevecolo:

Thank you for your kind words, and your not alone. I too have had that exact situation not once or twice, but many times, where Ill be fine one minute, just shopping for something to buy for dinner, then it happens, I see something I know my wife really likes, and I'll remember back at a time when we were together, then it's like i feel my heart pounding, and i feel weak, and I feel like I am going to just start crying, but I'm a big strong man, and I'm not supposed to just break down in a store in public. I'll do everything I can to stop the overwhelming sinking feeling in my stomach. I'll stop my shopping and gather what I have and get out. I notice the couples in love holding hands, and I wish I could be holding my wifes hand and walking with her. I notice the families walking together, and I feel so alone at times I just can't stand it.

I too have deep depression, and it goes in cycles. Some days I'm fine and other days I'm just miserable, and my health is also effected. I spend many hours just like you on Skype, and live messanger with our camera's so at least we can talk and see each other, it's all I have in my life right now, that I look forward to each day twice a day. I talk to her on the phone before work, then again at 6pm to 10pm every day 7 days a week like clock work. I just shipped her some things for my son, and an old computer tower, I just finished fixing, because her computer is failing, and finding anybody there who knows how to fix a computer is hard to find. We went for a month without internet dsl connection because the company there was sooo bad, wouldn't fix the dsl, so we had to switch to another isp, and that took a month to set it up.

The internet is our life line, and without it my phone bill is way up, so we have to have good service and she has to have a good computer.

Steve I know exactly what your going through. All I can say is keep thinking about the day you get to go pick her up at the airport, think about the joy you will feel when once again she is in your arms. This will help you make it through. Thanks again.

Dear Em40and krisi:

You are absolutly correct!!!!!!

Everyone going through this process is just happy to be done with it and they move on never looking back, so yes this reform in our Immigration policy will not change until people say enough is enough, and we come together even after our own cases are finished. I will write to my congresswoman representative allot more to just let her know there are allot of people that just want this process shortened to a more humane length of time, but I am but one man with one voice.

I find the stories I read on VJ madening, especially the trickery that goes on in the embassies and the interview (interagation) process. I realise we are reading only one side of the story in the view of the interviewee, but there are just to many stories of ridiculas situations to say this process is just, and fair.

Thank you for sending my post to the Obama web site, I only hope somebody reads it and realises what this process does to people, and how much suffering it causes.

Thank you

HI everyone:

I filed in August 8th, and they got me registered August 12th. I have had numerous touches, but nothing yet on our NOA 2. It's been especially hard on me and my wife because we just had our first baby boy November 22. It has been the most difficult thing I have ever had to endure without being with my wife and new baby. She is in the Philippines taking care of our boy alone, but luckily She found an apartment close to her mothers so she is there to help her. I find myself trying to fight back depression especially through the holidays, because back when i filed I remember it was on average 3 to 4 month wait, then all of a sudden they stopped showing the processing dates they were working on, and just put down 6 months. How disheartening it has been to think we were almost done to see them tack on another two months like it's no big thing. I am sick of waiting, and my feeling of helplessness, and lonliness grows with each day.

I come home after work every day and log into my account to see if my date has changed for the update area, and I get an instant feeling of joy when I see it has been updated to that day, meaning somebody is looking at our case, but then days go by with no news and no new updates. I have contacted two congressmen and one senator to try and find out what is going on. I was told that around the holidays less staff are working so the processing slows down to a crawl because of vacations. I was also told to not expect anything till early next year. January it should start to move again as all the staff return from vacations.

I think my biggest fear and overwhelming nightmare will be to see a denial for any of the reasons or problems I have read here on VJ. I don't know if I will be able to handle it, or what I will do if it happens. I don't understand why it is so difficult to bring my wife her to the US to live with me and raise a family just like everyone else here wants to do. To be treated like we are criminals, or bringing my wife and son here to the US will be a threat to this country is absolutly obsurd.

I do understand national security and it is necessary, but this whole process is excessive and needs to be reformed! To make a family wait hoplessly for over 6 months just to get through USCIS is ridiculas, and then it's off to another department the NVC to start the process all over again with more paperwork and more scruitany, then lastly off to the embassy for interagation, and medical and more paperwork and more costs and finally if you have the luck to get through it all the final ticket with visa to get through more inspections through the airport.

I have to keep my mind off of negative thinking and only focus on getting past the next step, and keep my mind on the day when I can go pick up my wife and son at the airport. That day will be the happiest day of my entire life! I will never complain about how hard I am working everyday to try and make extra money to support my wife and baby while they wait patiently for the final day. I can only hope and pray the time will pass quickly, but at the same time this day is yet another day lost in my life without being with my wife and son, another day lost forever. Today i didn't get to see my son or see how he is growing each day. I didn't get to hold him or watch him smile up at me, I didn't get to feed him or hear his voice. Today was another day I was robbed of being with my wife and son. I do feel bitter and angry that we have to go through this hardship, and the attitude of people working in the various departments through this long process.

I am just tired of the attitude that we have to pass through all the requirements, and any slip ups we face denials, like we have to be perfect robots incapable of making mistakes, all the while they rob us of the simple pleasure of being with our loved ones. The days missed are lost forever, yet we get nothing in return except the attitude that we must pass their scruitany or get denied. Their decisions change peoples lives forever, and this is nothing to take for granted.

I do understand that there has to be in place some guidlines to stop the bad people from trying to get into the US with less than honest intensions, but to make a honest man and wife and child to endure this long process is just unjust.

With all of todays government financial bailouts of big massive corporations and banks, I wish something could be changed with immigration laws, and allot more compassion and understanding could make some necessary changes. There is so many requirements, and scruitany, it has caused the process to become excessively lengthy. I can see this process becoming longer because the government will make more cut backs and there will be less workers processing applications, or they will shut down locations entirely. I fear that this will happen next year, and this process might become totally gridlocked.

I only wish the best of luck to all of you because I know what your going through and how you are feeling. I'm dealing with those same frustrations and fears you all have. Sorry if I have ranted too long on this post, but I just had to say something.

Thank you

BrianJenny

HSBC is your easiest solution for a joint account. They offer an on-line account that can be shared jointly and one can tranfers funds from ANT account into that HSBC account. Since HSBC is a large service provider in the Philippines, she can easil withrdraw money directly from an HSBC ATM.

I have done this and it has served as our joint acccount and is a very good way to get money to my wife without ANY fees...such as with Western Union and others.

THANK YOU BOORAI, and others for your replies!!!

I will look into HSBC. I was hopeing there would be a bank somewhere where we could just setup a account, but so far I haven't been able to find any, just the constant run around, or find hidden fee's they don't tell you about, or they require a social security number, which of course she doesn't have.

As far as her last Employer. They won't do a thing to help us, they won't give her anything because they are resentful because she quit after giving them notice of two weeks, they were discriminatory towards her, and the owner also loved to sexually harrass my wife, and right in front of his wife. The things that employers do in

South Korea are considered here in the great United States as on the job sexual harrassment. When an employer constantly says sexual remarks, and also touches an employee with unwanted contact, such as rubbing of shoulders, and rubbing her back, or hugging, and touching her legs, and doing this right in front of his own wife who also works there is really something that can't and won't happen here in the US because there are laws that protect women here. My wife told her employer many times to not touch her, it would work for a few days then he would start doing it again. My wife was also very scared of loosing her job if she complained to the labor board there.

Now for the real fun part regarding her wonderful employer. She was there on a work visa, which needed to be renewed. He told her he took care of it, but he lied. We didn't find this out till she tried to fly home to the Philippines. Immigration told her that her work visa was never renewed. After hours of talking and showing paperwork to immigration, they understood, and gave her the exit stamp on her visa. I lived with my wife for 6 months in South Korea, and they were very memorable, and I loved it there, but there were also at times difficult situations that I had to deal with. I understand it is a different culture from here in the USA. It's a very modern, and hi tech country, and the people there are very wonderful, but they are also still doing things from the past and havent kept up with the 21st century, and I also realise that some things just take time. At times I was very frustrated by the way the banking industry is there. They still have the mentality that the man is head of the houshold, and the wife doesn't have equal rights.

Well I want to thank everyone for your responses

THANK YOU!

CONGRADULATIONS LEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your valuable information, you helped me allot and I really appreciate it!

BrianJenny

THANK YOU PUSHBRK:

I will go the CR-1 visa route, thanks for verifying it. I am so thankful for all and any information I can get to make sure I don't msake any mistakes

BRIANJENNY

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OH THANK YOU LEAH!

I have read through your link, and will now go by the CR-1. I see the timeline is the same, so why should I go through the extra hasstles? Plus make my wife have to return to South Korea is ridiculas!

I want to thank you so much for your help so far! Also congradulations on your approval!

My wife is going to have our first child in December or erly January, and I am worried because I won't be able to be with her, and wish she could come to the US to have our baby, but reading all the information on how long things take, I dont think that will be possible. I cant stand the thought of my wife doing it all alone. We want a family so bad, but I thought she could be with me by the time she gives birth. I will just keep praying, and hope everything moves smoothly.

Thank you Leah!!!!!!!!

Brian

HI everyone:

I am totally new to all of the visa processing. My question is this: My wife is Filipina, and I am a US citizen. We got married last March in Seoul South Korea, while I was there visiting. I understand from reading all the information, the I-129f is processed in the country which the marrage took place. This would be Seoul South Korea. My wife is returning to the Philippines next October to give birth to our first child, then remain there to await the visa processing. My question is, will she have to go back to Seoul South Korea for her interview? This might be a difficult process, since it took a year to get the work visa to go to work in South Korea in the first place. Since she is a Phillipine citizen, will the interview take place in Seoul, or in the Phillipines.

Thank you for your help and advice.

BrianJenny

If you fill up your timeline and have more information on what forms did you file, people would be able to answer your questions more accurately.

Yes, for K3, it has to be interviewed at the country of marriage.

It looks like it would be better for you to pursue CR1 to avoid having to go back to Seoul for interview.

Leah

Thank you Leah:

I just mailed in our I-130 paperwork on 08/05/08

I got confirmation my check was cashed, so I am waiting on my first notification that that recieved my I-130 petition.

Then I was going to file the I-129f with the recipt from the I-130

BrianJenny

Don't file the I-129F if your spouse don't want to go back to Seoul for visa interview.

Leah

Thank you again Leah!

I am still major confused about all this process. So what should I do next? I am not familiar with the CR-1. Does it take longer than the K3. I have been reading conflicting information on it. Is the I-130, considered the CR-1? What should I do when I recieve the I-797 regarding the recipt of the I-130?

I have a million questions, and need guidance, because I cannot afford a lawyer, so any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

BrianJenny

HI everyone:

I am totally new to all of the visa processing. My question is this: My wife is Filipina, and I am a US citizen. We got married last March in Seoul South Korea, while I was there visiting. I understand from reading all the information, the I-129f is processed in the country which the marrage took place. This would be Seoul South Korea. My wife is returning to the Philippines next October to give birth to our first child, then remain there to await the visa processing. My question is, will she have to go back to Seoul South Korea for her interview? This might be a difficult process, since it took a year to get the work visa to go to work in South Korea in the first place. Since she is a Phillipine citizen, will the interview take place in Seoul, or in the Phillipines.

Thank you for your help and advice.

BrianJenny

If you fill up your timeline and have more information on what forms did you file, people would be able to answer your questions more accurately.

Yes, for K3, it has to be interviewed at the country of marriage.

It looks like it would be better for you to pursue CR1 to avoid having to go back to Seoul for interview.

Leah

Thank you Leah:

I just mailed in our I-130 paperwork on 08/05/08

I got confirmation my check was cashed, so I am waiting on my first notification that that recieved my I-130 petition.

Then I was going to file the I-129f with the recipt from the I-130

BrianJenny

HI everyone:

I am totally new to all of the visa processing. My question is this: My wife is Filipina, and I am a US citizen. We got married last March in Seoul South Korea, while I was there visiting. I understand from reading all the information, the I-129f is processed in the country which the marrage took place. This would be Seoul South Korea. My wife is returning to the Philippines next October to give birth to our first child, then remain there to await the visa processing. My question is, will she have to go back to Seoul South Korea for her interview? This might be a difficult process, since it took a year to get the work visa to go to work in South Korea in the first place. Since she is a Phillipine citizen, will the interview take place in Seoul, or in the Phillipines.

Thank you for your help and advice.

BrianJenny