WeatherEmperor

I was going to post about this tomorrow night in my monthly update in AP. If this is true, I think this is a real bonehead decision by the Consulate. I dont know what this EMS courrier service is but if it uses the regular mail system in VN it could be trouble. How in the world could they use the mail system to deliver extremely sensative documents like passports with visas in them using mail delivery? I just dont get it. Scott, Roger, Curtis or anybody maybe you guys can shed some light on this but I dont think it is a smart move at all...

You have red flags that are likely the cause of the blue slip (immediate family of fiance living in the US and the residency issue). Just submit the documents that the blue slip requests and hope for the best. Really there is not much else that you can do at this point.

They want 10 year residency for both of us.

What if she submits the documents early? It says you can submit them on a different day any working day, but does that pretty much guarantee she will not be given a pink on that day?

Some people submitted the documents early and got a pink slip and other people (like myself) submitted the documents on the date listed on the blue slip and still got put in AP. There are no guarantees either way.

Submit all the documents the blue slip asks for on the date listed. In your case, it is Nov 14th. On the date of submission, there are a few options that can happen:

a) Give her the pink slip, or

b) Give her another blue slip which puts your case in AP, or

c) Give her a denial paper

There won't be another interview. One thing I want to ask is did the blue slip request a 10 year residency document for your fiance only or for you as well?

From your original post, I understand that you already filed the petition and are now getting ready to submit your I134. If this is true, I will say the chances of getting the k1 visa approved is very small. I do believe in miracles but I just want to be honest to yiu about your chances.

If you did not file your petition, please stop now and do more research to better educate yourself on the visa pricess. Spend more time with your loved one and have a proper engagement ceremony. Build up your evidence to build a strong case to prove your relstionship and put it with your petition. This assumes you did not submit the petition but if you already did, there is nothing you can do except bring as much evidence to the actual interview and hope the CO accepts it.....

Hello,

As Roger already told you, co-sponsors are not accepted for K1 visas. You will have to find the income and/or assets to sponsor your fiance by yourself. If you do not satisfy the income requirements, the Consulate will probably not issue a visa. If you did not have an engagement ceremony, that can be a big problem with the Consulate. If you can find the assets in your bank accounts, saving accounts, etc to meet the minimum requirements the best thing you can do is go forward with your K1 and bring as much evidence to the interview and hope that the Consular Office will accept the evidence. They have been known to reject evidence at the interview but this is pretty much your best chance.

Congrats on the pink! I hope that you and your wife will live a beautiful life together. Best wishes

+1 to Jim's comment. My gosh that was a powerful post and brought a tear to my eye. I was starting to think that I had it bad but it is nothing compared to what you are going through. I feel like such a spoiled brat complaining about being stuck in AP for only 3.5 months

Learning about what you are going through adds a whole new perspective for me about the AP waiting. Please be strong and get through this. I hope your story will give me and my fiance the strength we need to get over our challenge. God speed!

Do not worry about front loading. There is nothing you can do about it now. It seems like you are very prepared for the interview. All of your documents look good. I wish you good luck and please post the results of your interview. Good luck!

Another pink! Good news. Very good news. I am hoping everyday that my fiance and I can enjoy the joy you are feeling now.

Wow! Congrats! I hope everything goes well for you guys.

Wow congrats! I am so happy to hear your success story. Best of luck in your future!!

It's now 3 months in AP purgatory. Ugh...what a miserable feeling

Received a letter from Senator Nelson to give the Consulate until November to process our case. Funny thing is that last week my fiance went to the Consulate in person and one of their robot employees told her to wait an ADDITIONAL 1 year

It is obvious that the Consulate is just pulling numbers out of their rear end. I guess they are nicely trying to tell us to f&*# off until they feel like getting to our case. I see that about 50% of cases in this AP thread are resolved in 3 months or less. Now our case is going into the other 50% of those waiting beyond 3 months. I really hope that the Consulate will begin the preliminary investigations into our case in the next month or so. The signs I am looking for are random phone calls to my residence or to Thu's residence, random visits by Consulate investigators to Thu's residence or village to question people, etc. This may not be the case for us because some members reported that none of this happened while they were in AP.

On a personal level, I am still in school doing my MBA online. I also will begin job hunting next month. My current job is manageable but the pay is lousy. I am also looking to move up state to Central/Northern Florida. I also got a new phone a few weeks ago (HTC EVO 3D). This is my first ever Android phone so it will take me a while to get used to this smart phone stuff Thu got sick a few days ago because she got soaked by a rain storm while on her way back from the Consulate. She is doing a lot better now. She wanted to get a job at a Nike factory not too far from her home but the fumes made her feel nauseous so she quit after 1 day.

Other than that everything else is okay. Once again, I hope the Consulate gets moving on our case soon considering it has been 3 months now. If we don't hear anything by Thanksgiving, I am considering pushing Senator Nelson harder and harder to try to do something. That's it for now. I hope to report something more positive next month. Later!

What visa do you plan to apply for? K1 or CR1?

If you plan to do the K1 visa, if you "sign" the marriage paperwork you will be officially married and this voids the K1. This is a big no-no.....

If you want to get married, go for the CR1 visa. You said yourself that shortcuts should be avoided. Make up your mind which visa you want to apply for and follow the procedures documented on VJ on how to proceed next. Good luck

After visting Vietnam in the last few years, I throughly enjoy it.

The culture and the people...you got the goods and the bads.

Have any you consider buying house in Vietnam after retirement?

Dat Lat is a great place to retire in.

My wife definitely wants a house in Vietnam when we retire. I like to spend 6 months of summer in Dat Lat and 6 months of winter in good old Houston.

Pros: Cost of living is low, people in Vietnam are easy going, wife would be really happy, less stress, time to see all of Vietnam and surrounding countries.

Cons: Hot and humid (Houston is a worser Hell if you look at it this way...it hotter and more humid in Houston than Vietnam), cost of travelling back and forth and travel time

Hey there,

I suggest that you do what makes YOU feel happy and comfortable. You enjoy the culture and people in VN and if you have the money to go back and forth between VN and Houston that is a big plus.

My maternal grandparents are now retired and living in Thailand. I personally would not live in Thailand but they are retired and are older people now. They do it because it makes them happy and comfortable. I don't see a problem with you wanting to spend your retirement in VN. Now if you were in your 20's or 30's and wanted to move to VN to build your life this would be a different story but we are talking about retirement. Do what makes you happy and don't listen to what some stranger says on the internet says. If you decide to go to VN, relax and have fun

Tha'ts so funny because I cross the streets the same way he does! When it comes to crossing streets in VN, I am a total wuss!!

If you are considering ending a relationship because of this fear then maybe you should reconsider the relationship and stop wasting time and money and the emotional damage that will come.

+1 to what Curtis said.

OP(confusedasheck), if you have doubt/confusion/fear or whatever about the situation in your relationship, I think you should think about ending it. In your comments you already indicated that you are considering ending the relationship because of the picture issue. If you are not 100% determined to go through with this, you should stop the relationship ASAP.

Here is an excerpt from your original post in reply to my original question on this thread, which I do not consider to be at all positive, and turned out to be entirely wrong: "Regular mail delivery in Vietnam is horrendous so I wouldn't keep my hopes up...."

This statement is very negative, and added no information other than an incorrect opinion. And, as I stated it turned out to be false, as my international letter got delivered, and the mail that I sent, AGAIN, was REGISTERED not Regular Mail. And, there is no need to comment about what others posted, as you are no more a mind reader than I. If you did not think they were at all negative I can clearly understand why. Suffice it to say some of the posts were not taken in a postive light, or I would have never commented as I did.

There is a big difference between being helpful and constructive and simply chiming in with your two cents that are negative and / or unhelpful. Let's leave it at this, and take whatever you can garner from my imploring those that respond here to be helpful and kind in their gestures, or likely it is best to not respond at all. Enuf said, OK - have a nice weekend too.

.....Good luck on your case!

OK. You would never mail anything to the Consulate in VN, but you would mail it to your wife in VN who would then hand deliver it to the Consulate. Either way gets it to the Consulate, right? My wife lives an eight hour one-way absolutely intolerable bus ride from HCM, and ends up sick after every trip, and her father is very ill right now and needs daily assistance, so mailing the documents directly to the Consulate sounded like the prudent, responsible, and unselfish thing to do given the circumstances. And, just to clarify things again, the 10 year residential for P, 2010 tax return, and P's biography about how I met my spouse were all sent by REGISTERED INTERNATIONAL MAIL from the USA, which is not Regular Mail; it is actually considered to be the safest form of mail - by far. Whether any mail, special, regular, or non-descript gets delivered to anyone in VN I presume is a matter of personal opinion and conjecture. I am sure it is as bad as some claim, and as good as some "lucky" people claim - depending on one's personal experience. I got LUCKY I guess, as I received an email from the HCM Consulate yesterday letting me know they had received my REGISTERED letter, and that my case was Pending review by a Consular Officer, and that they would be contacting my Beneficiary Spouse with the results after this pending review. YEAH (I hope) !!!

So, given she is a CR1 with this being her first marriage and she is rapidly approaching forty years of age with no children, and this being my second marriage only after a twenty five year wait between my divorce and this my second marriage, I am hopeful for PINK sometime soon. I can only keep my fingers crossed, as our marriage is very real and totally bona fide in all manner and regard.

All the "Nay Sayer's" should maybe think about reserving all their criticism and leveling of apparent stupidity on people who are new and coming here for advice rather than negative criticism. Offering to share a little love, consideration, and kindness goes a long way, and might prompt someone to stick around this forum who are not as think skinned as someone like me; if you were fortunate and lucky to do everything "correctly" the first time so-be-it; you were fortunate and lucky, so perhaps you should show some gratitude for your fortunate and lucky situation, and extend kindness to others instead. Thanks for all who offered helpful and sincerely kind suggestions! As stated, I will keep you posted. Best wishes and good luck to everyone!!!

None of us were being "Nay Sayer's". You created a topic on this forum and we gave you our opinions to the best of our knowledge. Please be mindful that the responses you have gotten come from people that have gone through this process before and want nothing more than to help educate you about this frustrating visa process with the Consulate in VN. That's how it works around here. I am glad to hear that the Consulate got your documents safely

Now you are going to have to wait for the Consulate to give you the results of their investigation. If they feel satisfied with the documents, a pink will most likely be issued right away. If they need more time, prepare yourselves for a potential long wait in AP. Please keep us updated on your progress. Best wishes,

Carrick

Well today marks 2 months (60 days) in AP. Sent the Consulate an email a couple of weeks ago. They say my case is still pending. Involved Senator Bill Nelson. Thu calmed down a lot from last month. Still expecting this to drag on for another 4 to 5 months.

For those that are also going through AP, please try to find something to keep yourself busy. Start doing some night classes or learn to cook some different dishes or take a painting class. Find distractions or this waiting will make you go insane. Will update next month

For such important documents, I would use USPS Express Mail International. This gets documents to VN in less than 5 days with a tracking number. FexEx and UPS are also good. There is not much you can do now except for pray that the documents get delivered. Regular mail delivery in Vietnam is horrendous so I wouldn't keep my hopes up....

buggy22,

Please listen to Scott's advice. Do not jump to any conclusions because you heard something from another person. My fiance used to do this all the time. Somebody told her this, somebody told her that. Trust me when I say this but you need to take a breather from the visa stuff. Our minds are very fragile and the smallest thing can cause a person to start freaking out easily. These immigration "lawyers" aren't worth it in my opinion. Don't let them put ####### in your head.....

Given the details you provided, your case is in AP which means it requires more processing from the Consulate to make a final decision. We discussed this previously. AP cases can take many months to complete. I told you before, find a way to relax and find a distraction like picking up a hobby or taking cooking classes or whatever. Good luck.

Absolutely buy a ticket to go to VN One of the things I still feel bad about is not being with Thu when she went for her interview. If you are able, make the effort to go and give your wife emotional support. Going to VN 4 days before your wife's interview is fine. I know of a few members that arrived in VN just 1 day before the interview so I think you should be fine. Keep us updated and good luck!

Wow that was a very detailed description. Thanks for providing that. I am sure it will help others in the future. Congrats!!

I remember reading this thread months ago and thinking what it must feel like to pick up your SO. Now, I'm doing it tonight! Can't believe it.

Oh gosh I hope to have this experience very soon. Still waiting in AP. Hope to get good news soon