Tricia599

When I was 21, I could barely support myself (I became the queen of ramen noodle cuisine during my last years of undergrad), let alone another person. Does the daughter have the financial resources to satisfy the sponsor requirements and then the few thousand it will take to process the application? If she does, more power to her. If not, seems to me that the problem solves itself.

This is an unnerving process. Better to ask now then to miss information.

It's been about a year since our interview and we filed DCF, so if you filed from the US, there may be differences. Hopefully others can shed some light on that process.

-Immigrant Visa Application. This is the DS-156 that you fill out online and print out (it has a barcode on it).

-Financial Evidence. This is all of the financial stuff - the I-864 and all the associated documents - tax returns, bank statements, proof of employment, etc.

-Fee payment. You'll pay this at the Consulate. Between the pre-interview (where someone goes through your paperwork and makes sure it's all there) and the final interview, you'll have to go downstairs and pay the via fee, which is about $700 or so. This is in addition to the money already paid to file the I-130

-Photo. Bring an extra photo, just to be safe. For some reason, at our interview, they asked for a third.

Hope this helps.

They are going to ask you for all of that at the interview. Like the previous poster said, better to have things and not need them than not to have them. They won't ask for the originals, but at least copies. You need to bring everything that is on that paper. Once you get to the Consulate, they will hand you a list of what you need and the order they need to go in. If you are missing anything, you will be sent out to get it (if it is something easily obtainable like a photo or a copy - there are a bunch of places to make copies and take photos across the street from the Rio Consulate). If you can't get it, you will get sent away and need to reschedule.

Echoing the other poster, bring the original and 2 copies. Better safe than sorry.

Unfortunately, you're not going to get the 6-month residency requirement waived. In reality, you are talking about the same timeframe - 6 months in Brasil plus the three month visa processing time, or the 9 month wait while you file in the states.

If you decide to stay in Brasil, filing the paperwork for permanent residency in Brasil is not difficult, but they don't make it easy - there are a lot of hoops to jump through. Then, the DCF filing all has to be done in person - this is two trips to the consulate, at least. Not easy if you live far from them.

From what I can tell on this board, filing from the states is easier in that it is all done by mail, but you will be apart for those nine months.

The "right direction" depends on what is moost important for you and your wife. Can you make the sacrifice to live and work in Brasil for the 9 months? Can your marriage survive being apart for that long if you return to the states? No easy answers here.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

The Rio Consulate will accept documents in both english and portuguese, so if they are in those languages, you shouldn't have to translate them. If they are in another language other than those, then they need translation.

Brazilian Consualte wanted 4 things to schedule the final interview:

• Form DS2001;

• Form DS230 Parts I and II (Part II unsigned as per instructions);

• Copy of passport information page;

• Photo.

They will review your I-864 at the final interview. As a result, you will probably have to wait a bit longer than everyone else to be called for the interview.

Are you referring to the Brazilian Police Certificates? If so, my best guess would be that you need the originals, as they contain the stamp of the police official and are also on their letterhead. The Consulate likes to see letterhead, in my experience.

Again, as antoher poster said, you can check with the Consulate, but it's not so hard to get the actual reports. The Civil Police report can be obtained at your local delegacia (it doesn't have to be from the delegacias that are listed on the sheet from the Consualte, as they only list the ones in the capitals). At least in MG, they were both free.

How many times does my fiance have to see the certified physician? She has to travel to another city for the doctor.

She lives in Brazil. Will it matter if she cannot speak English yet?

Call the dotor to find out. We had to make two trips to the doctor. First for my husband to have the medical exam and get the bloodwork and xray done. The second time to pick up the results. What took the most time was waiting for the bloodwork to be done. The doctor my husband went to would not send the final report through the mail, so I had to go back and pick them up for him. This was in Belo Horizonte.

Brazil took two months - filed the I-130 on March 2 and were approved at the final interview on May 15. However, we received the notice of the interview in the mail on May 12 - only 3 days before the date the interview was scheduled. The only reason we found out about the interview is that I emailed the Consulate to find out what was going on. I would suggest sending polite emails to find out what is going on.

I used a co-sponsor for my husband's application (his interview was last Friday). I filed DCF and used my mom as a co-sponsor. So long as your co-sponsor is 125% above the poverty line for your household number and you have all the docs required for the co-sponsor, you'll be fine. At our interview, they only wanted the 2008 tax return for my mom, plus proof of citizenship (we had her birth certificate, simple copy).

You can have the visa sent anywhere. The shipping label has a spot for the Receiver's address and a Delivery address.

For what it's worth, we used a simple copy of my mom's birth certificate (she doesn't have a passport) for proof of citizenship as a co-sponsor. The Rio Consualte didn't require authentication.

Is this standard for all interviews or specific to London? We are in Brazil and my husband's interview is scheduled for Friday the 15th, and as of today, we have not received the letter in the mail. The only reason I found out about the interview was that I sent an email about two weeks ago asking what was the problem. I did send an email to the Consulate last week telling them that I hadn't gotten the letter yet and if they could send me an electronic copy, to which they reponded with a website listing all the documents. Would it be advisable to contact them again?

Thanks!

(I can't figure out how to quote, and am a bit too lazy to try, so I apologize for the mess here.)

dandkam: The approval for the I-130 is not instant. What happens instantly is that the Consulate will accept the filing (or approve the filing). Once they accept/approve the filing of the petition, that data goes to the US for further inspection. But, as Kaffy said, it is quick. We did our run to the Consualte on March 2nd, and we got an email this morning that the petition was approved, and the packet was sent to our home address. I wasn't expecting this until maybe June or so. Two weeks just blows my mind. I am hoping that scheduling the next interview will be as easy.

kaffy: Thanks! I appreciate your good wishes!

If you are planning on getting married in Brasil and want to stay here, then you are going to be applying for permanent residency in Brasil, and the US Consulate will not enter into the picture at all. The only reason you would do anything through the US Consulate is if you are planning on moving back to the US with your fiance/spouse.

From your post, you want to marry here in Brasil and then in a few years, move back to the US. If that is the case, probably the easiest thing to do is get married here in Brasil and then you will apply for permanent residency here (Brasil) at your local Policia Federal. Once you decide you are ready to go back to the US, you will go the K3 spouse visa route. Also, it looks like you want to get married fast, and if so, hopefully you have all the required documentation - which can be a bit daunting with authentications and translations and such. You'll want to check with the cartorio in the city where you are going to be married, as each one is different.

I can give you more details if you'd like, as I got married here in Minas Gerias last May and applied for residency in June. Send me a message if I can help.

Good luck.

I had been going through this site and had not found much about DCF in Brazil (but the posts that are here are very helpful, so thanks to all!), so I have decided to post my own experiences. Maybe someone will find them useful in their situation.

DCF in Rio de Janeiro

We scheduled our visit via email with the Rio Consulate. The scheduling was pretty quick. Ours was scheduled for the week following the date I sent the scheduling email. While we were waiting, we got all of the documents we needed ready. The list of documents was on the Consulate website (http://www.embaixada-americana.org.br/index.php?action=materia&id=7261&submenu=consular.php&itemmenu=183).

Some pointers on the documentation listed that may be helpful. For my proof of residency, I used a copy of my protocol from the Federal Police here in Brazil, as I have a case pending for permanent residence based on marriage (that I will be abandoning with this move to the US). Also, for proof of relationship, we had photos dating back about 2.5 years, mail and email exchanges. However, no one ever asked to see it at this stage.

We get to the Consulate for our appointment. Ours was set for 1pm, and from what I can tell, they do it in groups – they schedule a group of people in the morning and a group in the afternoon. We got to the Consulate about 30 minutes early, but had to wait outside as they won’t let you in until 1pm. However, the guards are very nice and will inform you of where you need to be. The good thing is that you don’t have to wait in the big line for non-immigrant visas. If you are looking at the door to the Consulate, that is the line that goes to the right of the door. The line for the Immigrant visas goes to the left of the door and is considerably smaller. The bad part is was that this side of the building got the afternoon sun, so it was roasting hot. We chose to wait under the shade trees close by and then get in line at 1pm, as the line was so short anyway.

At 1pm, we got in line with about 10 other people. We were waiting for the Immigrant Visas section to say it was OK to send us up. About 1:15, the tell the guard to let us go up. So after checking our names on a piece of paper, he lets us in. We pass security, and then are told to head up to the second floor.

On the second floor, there is one room divided into two parts – American Consular Services and Immigrant Visas. The Immigrant Visa section is on the far side of the room near the windows. We went over to that side to sit down. There will be a sign telling you to take a number, but that is for the American Consular Services, not Immigrant Visas.

Maybe another 10-15 minutes after we sat down, the front desk person started handing out numbers. I’m not sure what this was based on – the order in which the interview was scheduled or the order we came in the door. In any case, my husband and I were last. But there is a TV tuned to Globo and a bunch of magazines and a water cooler, so it seems a bit more comfortable that downstairs in the non-immigrant section.

What happens next is a two step process. First, they call you into a little interview area in the front to collect your paperwork and to make sure everything is OK. If you have everything organized, this goes fairly quickly. We were in and out of this part in 10 minutes. We were given a ticket to pay the $355 fee downstairs, and once paid, we returned the receipt to the woman at the front desk of the immigration unit. Then we waited to be called by the second part, which is a mini-interview by a Consular official.

Once we were finally called to the second part, my husband and I sat down, again behind glass. The man asked us a few questions based on our application – how long we had known each other, when did we meet, when did we decide to get married, how did he propose, etc. We talked about this for a bit, with both my husband and I answering questions, and then the man typed out a summary of the conversation in his system. He read back to me his summary of our relationship.

At that point, he said our application was accepted, and the next step would be for the Consulate to send our application to the National Visa Center in the US, where they will assign a case number. Once that happens, they will notify us and we will schedule the second interview. And that was it.

The process was more time consuming that anything else. But nothing to get nervous about. We were a bit concerned as we had recently gone through the process for a tourist visa for my husband about 4 months prior (we did this in Sao Paulo), and that was 100 times more nerve-wracking than this.

I will keep updating this post as our process continues. Hopefully some will find it helpful. If I can provide any further information on this process or the trip in general, please let me know!

First off, I have just begun my search for information regarding DCF here in Brazil. Thank you to all of you for sharing your knowledge.

I have a question thatI could not find an answer to using the search, but perhaps I am searching the wrong thing. I am a USC, married to a Brazilian in June of 2008. We have decided that we would like to move to the US.

When we married, I took my husband's last name (just tacked it onto my maiden name) and being the radical, my husband took my maiden name (he just tacked it onto his). So now we both have new names. Here in Brazil, he had to change all of his documents - ID card, CPF, etc. However, we have not changed his passport yet, as this was looking like it would take 4-5 months, and we had planned to visit the US over the holidays, and were working on his tourist visa. We went through the SP Consulate for the tourist visa, and we were told that we didn't have to change his passport, as his current one was still valid through 2013. We applied using his "maiden" name, and were told to translate the marriage certificate, showing the new names, in case there were any questions. The tourist visa was issued in his old name.

However, now that we are going to start the I-130 process, I want to be sure that we can continue to use the old passport or if we need to get his name changed for this process. I sent an email to the Rio Consulate, and got an impersonal response with a website that does not answer the question as to whether we need to change the passport.

So, my question, after this rambling, has anyone else experienced this? Can we continue to use the current passport that DOES NOT reflect his name change after marriage? Any ideas?

Thanks so much!