BinhJerome

This has almost become an advertisement for Marc Ellis. The fact is that there are many lawyers out there that can help out anycase, and just because you hire ANY of them this does not mean you will get a visa. Some people swear by them, but this is not accurate, as they had an lawyer, so what if they did not have him? The outcome might have still been an approval, or maybe not, no one knows for certain. So before you hire any lawyer, just make sure that you know there is still the possibility that your case can get denied with or without him. Also take note that the interview itself will be done by a CO and your loved one only, no lawyer can go with your loved one into the interview, the lawyer mainly will make sure that your case is put together professionally, and that you can have answers to any possibly identified redflags resolved prior to your interview, this is truly about all that any lawyer can do in a visa case. Jerome

Me and Mark do not get along but I have to agree with him on this one. The US lied to get us involved in Vietnam, we promised many Vietnamese people we would help, some of the war crimes we committed riveled that of the VC. Then when we left we left many holding the bag and we did not care. We knew what would happen, hell HCM even came to us BEFORE he went to Communism and asked for us to help him get rid of the French and we REFUSED. Thus he went to China and Russia and found support. Also the South Vietnamese government we propped up was far worse than HCM was. Hell we kept Pol Pot in Cambodia in power and if you have not heard about the killing fields then do some research. After we left Vietnam the North went through both Cambodia and Laos getting rid of those corrupt murderous rulers. War is hell no matter who you are there are always good sides and bad sides but HCM was a far better leader than those in the south. If you think Mark or I am a liar on the real start of the Vietnam war, look for the classified documents in the freedom of information act or look online for many of the true stories of the Vietnam war. I have tons of "American propaganda" films where it shows how much good we were doing, but when they talk about the entire village that OUR men slaughtered (men, women and children) they only talk for a minute on the subject and to give more insight there was only 1 person charged and convicted for that crime, he served 5 years in prison ohh wait I mean house arrest at his barracks (private residence at a military base.) I know the North did many bad things but we were no angels so don't try to sugar coat it

Before you jump ship and run the other way, why don't you talk to her, better yet why don't you fly out here and "surprise" her, find out for yourself. Not to say your cousin would lie to you but..... Hell you are already married, went through all the hoops and you are asking how to throw it all away without any real proof. Maybe just call her out on it and see where it goes. Your life, your decision but to actually answer your question there is really nothing you can do, you can contact the embassy but if she has the passport with a visa in it they won't stop her when she leaves Vietnam to go to the US but at POE they might.

This is a public forum, if you air your dirty laundry be prepared for getting judgemental comments. As far as what you can and can not do, you can withdrawl the application, but if you go and file again you will need to request a waiver, this is just a letter from you, listing both previous k visa attempts, and put in the letter the reason the relationships did not work out. There is the advise, now here comes the jedgemental comment. You are acting like you are already thinking about a third k visa attempt, and you still have your second one pending, and you say that you want a foreign bride (this I dont blame you on) but to me you seem to be going about it like it does not really matter you go from one to another and now are looking for a third, I know this is not your case (at least I hope not) but what I would say is for you to take your time next time, how long did you know the woman before you went to see her? I have filed for 2 k visa's the first did not work out, 1 week before the interview she said like yours did (also from the Ukraine by the way) that she could not leave Ukraine and she just never went to the interview, and the second ended in a denial, so I moved to Vietnam to be with my second one, but the point I am trying to make is get to know them, take 6 or 8 months before you go and visit one, consider getting married there instead of in America, the Cr1 is cheaper, and you also have to make the commitment. Remember moving to a different country is hard, there are some people that cant do it. One thing I do not know if you did but did you have any of your family writing her? any of your friends? Things like this make the other feel more comfortable, how many trips did you make? Do you see where this is going? Many people here will give you h#ll over multiple k visa's with multiple women, you have to admit you asking about a third before the second was canceled or denied looks bad. Just something for you to consider, and remember you are not "shopping" for any bride, so treat it like that. Jerome

Don't worry about my past Dau Que, that is neither here nor there, I had a professional job in Missouri that moved me out to Indiana making over 50k a year, my crimes were when I was 18 so they never came up on a background check, and they had since been expunged years ago, I am pushing life in Viet Nam because unlike YOU I have ENJOYED my time here, and for ME it is a great place to live with a low cost of living. As far as informing the potential VNese bride/groom, my wife knew about my past history before I EVER came to visit her. I have nothing to hide when it comes to my past, it is what it is, and I have had a bad past, but I dont cry about it, because my past has made me into the person I am today, ever evolving and ever learning. Besides this post was about living in Viet Nam for $20,000 a year, not what a persons past is
Yes there is motorbike insurance here, not sure about apartment insurance, but I am sure someone would sell it to you, just dont know how good it would be. You can get about anything in Viet Nam you want for a price.

You do have to file even if you live in a foreign country, if you work for the government or business that is located in the United States then the first 80K rule is correct as is my understanding, however if you are not working for the government or an american country the 80k rule does not apply as is MY understanding, but for certain you are supposed to file each and every year even if you do not make any money. Jerome

You do have to file even if you live in a foreign country, if you work for the government or business that is located in the United States then the first 80K rule is correct as is my understanding, however if you are not working for the government or an american country the 80k rule does not apply as is MY understanding, but for certain you are supposed to file each and every year even if you do not make any money. Jerome

She can also sell on ebay to the US, there are many things that are cheap here that in the US are expensive. Westerners eat up Asian things, and if it looks Japaneese or Chineese they love it. All that is really needed is for her to set up a pay pal account or for you to do it and use that for her ebay account. Lacquers are cheap here, between 20 and 50$ and sell for $300 to $600, also the bags, and little things sell good as well

Ok, get a big box, and then a bunch of boxes that fit inside one another, then for the small box, have the envelope with the cash in it, the bigger the better, this way they can all laugh as they open box after box after box, and if you really want to add to it, throw a bunch of tape on each box, if nothing else you and the wife will enjoy watching them open the boxes. :bonk: :rofl:

In a perfect world this theory might work, not to say what Jim has said is all wrong, but some people seem to forget that most people are not made of money. I personally do not know that many people who can afford to take 5 trips in one and a half years( 4 trips that Jim mentioned, then the 5th trip for the interview date), plus pay for a huge engagement party, and a huge wedding party. The average flight round trip is somewhere near $1500 on a good day and usually closer to $2000 depending on how far inland you actually live, so lets do the math, on a good year with great deals on flights a person would spend $7500 just in airfare for 5 trips, then lets throw in visa fees, and all the other "Fees" that go along with that many trips. You are looking now at close to $8000 if you are staying at cheap hotels and not eating at 5 star buffets and not going on many if any trips at all while you are in Vietnam, and banking on only 5 days per trip, this also means that you must have a really good job, because it takes 2 days just to get there, but you get one day back when you return, so this means in one and a half years you need to have at least 5 weeks of vacation, I think that most people would be able to have 4 weeks if the year and a half was started in the middle of the year so you would get 2 weeks of vacation for each year, this still leave 1 week of unpaid leave, so tack on another $500 that you just lost due to no vacation time and you are now up to $8500, and we have yet to plan out the engagement party, I thought ours was really nice and it cost $1500, but I have heard that I got off on the cheap, so lets just say my cheap price is the norm or average, you are now up to $10,000 and still have yet to plan a wedding. My brother inlaw did a very traditional wedding ceremony and he is Vietnamese, so there was not any white man tax on his price and he spent over $2000 for everything, his actual bill was closer to $2500, but this was everything from the photos, and food, to the taxi's that took the wedding party to his wifes home. So now you are looking at $12000. I do not know very many people unless they dip into savings or have a really good job with a very low cost of living that can fork out that kind of money. Granted if a person could and did, then their chances on paper and on an opinion poll would be better than most, but even if a person did it to the T there is still NO guarentee that it would work, as I said in my earlier post people have gotten by with far FAR less and been fine, and there are also those that have made countless trips, and been denied, just do what you feel is right, dont let anyone tell you what you must do, after all it is YOUR life, not ours, asking for advice is a good thing, and Jim does have a very good formula that in most cases I would agree would give a person probably a 99.99% chance of getting a visa. The point for this post is not to discredit Jim's post in any way shape or form, but to clearly show and put some things into prespective, and to remind people that these are just people personal opinions on what to or not to do. Jerome

Lots of things I see here are concerning. You are going into HCMC blind, but this is your choice and as Scott said Good luck. The wedding does take 30 days to do, there are things you can do in the US and have them sent ahead to speed up the process, you will need to go to the US consulate even in the US and get an affadavit of single status, also go to your court house and have them sign something stating there is no record of you being married for 2 or 5 years, these things need to be certified in Vietnam and this takes a few days, so if you can get the affadavit done before you arrive this saves you time on your trip to the consulate when you are here, you can have your fiancee go to the local VN place to get the paperwork needed for the wedding application, and there are services that charge something like $300 to help speed up the process, but it will still take close to 30days and you HAVE TO SIGN THE WEDDING DOCUMENT NO MAILING. Look online and see all the exact requirements for both you and HER she needs to get lots of paperwork as well, and if she lives in the countryside, this means taking much time. The quickest way to do this is to have all the paperwork filled out that you possibly can then show up the first day go to the hospital for the mental exam, then send off everything for certification and translation where needed, then go and put in your applicatioin then sit and wait until they give you the appointment, you might be able to pay to have it done sooner, but I am not sure since we did not try, and for us it took like 32 days from when we went to the consulate until we went to sign, we used a service for the latter half and did many things on our own. Hope this helps. Now for your tax records, they do REQUIRE one years tax return, and not a 1040 that you print off, they want one from the IRS, it is free, all you have to do is call them up. To many people have tried to use the bank account only and had friends dump lots of cash in it or people in VN just for a print out so a current bank statement does nothing accept show for 1 minute you had x amount of money in it. All in all it seems like you want to do what you want to do, and that is great because it is your life, for 5 years now you have been writing a woman and have never met her face to face, I applaud you for that, you have done what most people cant do, and that is keep your initial relationship out of the bedroom and you have actually gotten to know her for who she is, the downside is that you now feel you truly know her, and that you truly love her and vice versa. For any relationship to work there also has to be physical chemistry, hopefully when you do show up and meet her it is there for you, I would say that it wont be a problem, but I have known people that showed up and both people truly did love one another, but when they are together it wasnt the same, and I have also known people that have showed up and found out the person had lied and they were not who they said they were, but after 5 years this should not be the problem with the both of you. My advice is to brouse this forum, read all our stories, and even send PM's to people and see what all of our different experiences have been, don't assume it is easy, but also dont assume it is impossible. I know a CO personally here, and from what you have written I am sure he would eat your fiancee alive, not trying to scare you, just stating the facts. All of your valid points about cultural norms are correct, and all of us agree with you that what you feel is the right and correct thing, HOWEVER the people with the pink piece of paper are the ones with the final say in the matter, and if you read a few of our stories you will see that what you think is right is more often than not wrong. Jerome

Jim, you are basing this on what? The fact is that even if it is in the petition when you file, this does not make it a truth, it does not force them any more than having it submitted after the interview. I know this from my personal case, we had photos of our engagement ceremony with the front and rear shot with over 100 guests in the photos, and that was still one of the reasons for denial. The fact is that I feel you are basing frontloading on the assumption that if it is in there prior to the CO getting it that they cannot deny you for that reason. This is a false hope. My friend who is a current CO in HCMC even agrees with this because they don’t have to accept ANY front loaded evidence, and in fact they only use what was submitted to ask questions, but they do not consider it fact, it is just as I have said, “more ammo for them to use.” What is required for the initial petition is just that, proof that you are eligible to “FILE” for a petition, and that is what happens, when they deem you eligible to proceed with the petition it is approved, and that is where it stops, they cannot approve a visa, just as the CO cannot actually deny your visa. This is because of the previous lawsuits. What they base their “request for denial” on is the interview, and what investigation the CO has had initiated, and nothing more, then when it goes back to the US they do not look at what you filed with your petition, they look at what the CO has submitted, and then based on that information they will reaffirm/deny/let expire. This is what I was told through my lawyer, not just things I am grabbing from he said she said, this is my personal experience. So to try and justify front loading stating that the CO cannot use those reasons you addressed against you is very untrue, as well as unfounded. Maybe the CO accepts it as truth, maybe not, again the guessing game, but one thing is for sure, what you submit they will have and then be able to use in the interview (ammunition against you) This will likely be a long running debate with conflicting points of view, but in my personal experience and what was told to me completely contradicts your above statements. To make my point, how can the CO have said our engagement ceremony was small and inconsequential when they had 3 specific photos with Binh and me, and in the background 100 guests? Why did they outright call her out on it? How could that be one of the reasons for denial? We frontloaded those photos, and based on your assumption they should not have been able to do that, and also based on your assumption (sorry Scott) why has Scott been put in AP he frontloaded the proof of his divorce. These are facts that you cannot argue against, and your key statement “The consular officer is not bound by the presumption that the evidence is valid” I know I stopped your quote short, but the evidence that is submitted early is only to deem you eligible to apply for a visa, and nothing more, and with that said even with it being screened, it still does not bound the interviewing CO to accept it as proof. Once again this is just my opinion on the matter, with real life personal experiences affecting my personal opinion. Jerome

The police report is only good for 6 months