BurningFinger

From what I have heard, there appears to be major backlogs at CSC and VSC. California has been approving petitions right around the 5 month mark and Vermont appears to have stalled in petition approvals. Most of this backlog situation is rumored to be about the service centers focusing their attention to the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) petitions possibly related to the devastating events in Haiti this past year. This could explain why your petition was transferred to the Texas center. It is always best to get the official word from them, provided you are able to successfully inquire about your case.

If you read the K1 or CR1 Case Filing and Progress forums you can see some intense debates about whether it is a good or bad thing for the USCIS to switch their attention to the TPS petitions while putting the I-129F/I-130 petitions on hold.

From my understanding of things, you and your wife should prepare yourselves for a long wait because the backlog is shaping up to become quite heavy.

I am currently employed as a Director of I.T Operations at a small software company. The paycheck is pretty good so I can't complain

What did you major in by the way? I am currently wrapping up my MBA and should graduate in a few weeks.

Oh gosh I hate those darn motorbikes in VN. Every time I came back to the states from visiting my wife, I hugged and kissed my BMW for the safety features I always took for granted.....

I think the issue here is not so much about what insurance or what car loans are being used, but instead the association to his father that could be a problem. In other words, if the billing address of your loan/insurance is showing your father's address instead of your own address, it could be a problem since your name is also on the insurance. There was a guy here a few months ago that got a blue slip for residence of the last 10 years because he had opened a P.O Box in his name years ago that he forgot about a long time ago. The P.O Box linked him to a different address then where he was claiming to really be living at in his petition. This Consulate is known to make a big deal about things that we consider to be trivial issues.

Having said that, I still would not lose sleep over this. Focus on getting ready for the interview and let things fall in place.

Congrats!

Your fiance can take the notarized time line with her to the interview. There is no guarantee that the CO will accept it though. Some VJ members have gotten the CO to accept the time line and others have tried and failed. It wouldn't hurt to have your fiance try.

There are a few things I would like to point out. You submitted your I-129F which means you are going the K1 route. The fact that you did not have your Dam Hoi before you submitted the I-129F can become somewhat problematic at the interview since you did not have the chance to front load evidence of the engagement ceremony with your petition. I say "can be" because this is not carved in stone. I would personally stay away from any wedding ceremonies in Vietnam since this could cause even more complexities at the interview, should the CO ask questions about this. One your next trip, have a Dam Hoi with your fiance and bring evidence of that to the interview and hope they accept it. The CO's at the HCMC Consulate are VERY picky about the Vietnamese cultural traditions and providing them with proof of such ceremonies is essential to your visa success.

I understand that you just made your 4th trip to Vietnam which means you made 3 trips prior to filing the I-129F. I am assuming that evidence of all those 3 trips were put in your petition. This is a good thing. Your age difference should not be a big deal and the fact that your fiance has no family living in the USA is also another good thing. Have you or your fiance ever been married before? Divorce is seen as a red flag by the HCMC Consulate. If either of you have been divorced before, I hope that you front loaded adequately with your petition. Good luck,

Travis

It's not over yet. In my opinion, they were just trying to ruffle your feathers. Examine the blue slip closely and supply the Consulate with what they want, when they want it. A friend of mine mentioned he heard this happening to a few people while we were eating lunch one day....

Vietnam is definitely in the top 5 of most difficult consulates/embassies to get a visa from.

My wife and I married in Singapore before we started the CR1 process. She ultimately got the pink slip at the interview and lives with me now in the US. My wife, who is Vietnamese, was asked a lot of questions about why our wedding was in Singapore instead of Vietnam. I prepared my wife for this and she answered all the questions correctly at her interview.

A few questions though. When and how did you first meet your girl? How many times have you been to Vietnam to visit her? Did you have an engagement ceremony? Do you have any red flags such as divorce by either you or your girl? Were you introduced to each other by family members? Does your girl have family living in the US? I think those questions are more important then what country you want to go to go get married. I think this information can help us give you better advise.

she will be at the consulate in 4 hours... we should know something soon... everything they said in the letter that was preventing us from getting the visa is in hand and there should be no issues now... I'll let ya know what they say...

Good luck Scott. I have my fingers crossed for you and Thuy

Travis

Congrats! Happy to hear that things may be changing for the good at the Consulate.

Seriously, what part of the words "all" and "pages" do people not understand? When compiling documentation for the petition your job is to do what the instructions tell you to and NOT to guess or assume what things mean. It's simple English people. Please try to pay attention to the language we all agreed on.....

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-130instr.pdf

Thanks for the suggestion. Does the notary public need to be authenticated?

--jc

The stamp from the notary public is all that you need. You should be fine with that. Good luck

You would not believe how many times I was offered money by people living in my wife's village in order to marry their daughters and bring them to the US. I was shown plenty of pictures of girls in the village who they promised would be a "good wife" for me.....

You can also try getting in touch with "bweeks" for some advice. I believe his fiance was pregnant at the time of the interview and she was approved.

How the hell do y'all get to have sex with the fiancee before marrying? I need to talk to my wife and ask why we had to wait.

I had sex with my wife before we got married. It's the 21st century. Things like that can and do happen

A raise in income is a good thing. If you really want to show it at the interview, it would not hurt to bring a pay stub and/or a letter from the employer showing the raise. It surely will not hurt to try this. Best of luck at the interview!

I prepared a Time Line for my wife just in case she needed it at the interview. It turns out that it was not needed. In any case, the format that used is the format that comes directly from the standard Blue Slip that the Consulate issues and goes like this:

"PETITIONER: In a sworn, notarized statement, please provide a detailed chronology (timeline) of your relationship. Please explain clearly when and how you first met, how you were introduced and when you began corresponding with each other, when you felt your relationship became serious, date and circumstances of marriage proposal (location, time, place, situation, setting, etc...). Did spouse/fiance(e) propose in person or by phone? Where were you when s/he proposed (give exact location)? Did you accept immediately or ask for time to think about it? If s/he did not officially propose, when did you first discuss marriage? How many trips did you make to Vietnam to visit your spouse/fiance(e)? How many times have you seen him/her in total? How long did you stay each visit? Please give as many details as possible"

In my personal opinion when you are writing this, do not focus on the length. Focus on the details that they are asking for and provide clear explanations for each. Also make sure to get the Time Line notarized. Good luck!

I will pretty much echo what Jim advised you to do.

BTW, congrats on the AOS Jim!

Mr.2000,

I really feel where you are coming from. I personally do not believe that potential immigrants should be treated as guilty until proven innocent, but the HCMC Consulate does what it does for a reason. I don't approve of the way they conduct their business but I kinda see why. Look, none of us here are CO's. None of us know the kinds of fraud they have to deal with on a daily basis. For these people, this is their day jobs. They have seen every single scam that you can think of.....and more. It's just that they see it on a daily basis and we don't.

There is some truth in the fact that scammers commit visa fraud because of the restrictive policies enforced upon them. Most people from Vietnam that want to immigrate to the US just want to move here and just get a darn job so they can make money and live the good life. So you can make the argument that if that is all they want, why not just let them come in the US and live the good life? The answer to this lies in entitlement. A lot of these potential immigrants feel that they "deserve" to move to the US to improve their lives because they are poor. It is not the US government's job to take care of all the poor people in VN. That is the job of the VN government.

The root of the problem is poverty. If VN were a wealthy country, there would be no need for the VN people to want to migrate to the US as much as they want to now. In fact, VN could be on the "Visa Waiver Program" like most other very wealthy countries such as England, Holland, Spain, Japan, etc. Think about this: Why do we have this huge problem with illegal Mexicans in the US but NOT with illegal Canadians? Because Canada is a pretty wealthy country and the Canadian government takes care of it's people. The Mexican government continuously fails to bring it's people out of poverty and thus you have the strong desire to flee into the US. I bring back a point I made earlier on: Just because the country is poor does not give the people of that country the right to come in the US whenever they want.

If people do not agree with the current immigration laws, that is fine. I am totally fine with that. They should contact their Senator or Washington and get them to change the laws or vote somebody into office who is willing to change them. But until those immigration laws change, we MUST respect the laws we currently have in place. Either get with the program and win or be stubborn and lose. I wish you nothing but the best. Please do keep us informed on your progress Best wishes,

Travis

I may be wrong on this, but no airline in the world flies non-stop, further then Singapore Airlines. In fact, Singapore Airlines flies from New Wark, NJ to Singapore, non-stop. There is no airline that flies non stop from the east coast of the US to Vietnam so you are gonna have to do it with at least 1 stop, but probably 2.

Travis

You can try a Vietnamese travel agency. I never tried one so I don't know what their pricing is. I have used cheapair.com and their pricing is reasonable. One word of caution about layover times.....which comes from personal experience since I travel ALOT for business. Try to get layover times for at least 2 hours. I know it sounds crazy to recommend waiting longer but this really covers your rear end in the event any of your connecting flights gets delayed. It has happened to me before where there was a 1 hr and 35 minute layover between my connecting flights. My first flight was delayed by over an hour and I ended up missing my connecting flight. Anybody that travels alot knows that flights can be delayed. Best to cover your behind...

Scott is correct. The family living in the US most likely triggered the Blue Slip. Address ALL the issues from the Blue Slip and submit them on the date the slips tells you to. Good luck

I saw a VJ-er mention this in a post:

"I guess NOT having any of the "classic" HCMC Consulate red flags (divorce, children from previous marriage, beneficiary family in the US, introduced by family members)"

I'm just wondering why a divorce would be considered a red flag? And is the seriousness of the red flag the same if the couple is in their 20s or their 40s?

I am assuming you are quoting me from my interview experience thread. These "classic" red flags I mentioned are just assumptions based upon the experiences of others that have gone through the HCMC Consulate before me. I see that other members have already commented on this issue. I also notice that they are from other Consulates/Embassies such as Romania and Germany. For those members, divorces may not be a big deal for their respective Consulates but I can assure you that for the HCMC Consulate it is a BIG deal.

The HCMC Consulate is probably in the top 2 or 3 in the world for fraud volume it deals with on a daily basis. Long story short, there tends to be a huge need for families that were seperated after the Vietnam war to be reunited in the US. Since marriage to a US citizen is the quickest way to immigrate into the US, the scammers are quick to jump into sham marriages with US citizens to gain Green Cards and then get a divorce. Often times, these sham marriages are arranged by family members of the beneficiary. While family involvement in this process is a big incentive to commit immigration fraud, so is poverty. Poverty creates a BIG incentive for beneficiaries to scam petitioners to migrate to the US. A divorce by either beneficiary or petitioner is seen by the the HCMC Consulate as an attempt to hook up into a "sham marriage" for the purposes of evading US immigration laws in order to get a quick Green Card.

I hope that helps clear things up a bit. If you have more questions about the red flags, post away

-Travis

First, I would like to say thank you to everybody for being helpful. Without VJ I would have made many mistakes and I would have failed. Now on to interview day:

CONSULATE:

Trang arrived around 6:30am. There were a lot of girls already waiting. Anyways, she was one of the first ones to go in. Trang described the CO as being a handsome Caucasian male in his late 30's or early 40's. He only asked my wife 3 questions:

1) How do you spell your husband's first name? Answer: T R A V I S (correct)

2) How many times has your husband visited you in Vietnam? Answer: 4 times (correct)

3) What is your wedding date? Answer: September 30, 2009 (correct)

After he asked the questions, he did some typing on his computer. After that, he gave my wife a Pink Slip that was already signed. She wasn't able to see the Pink Slip during the interview because the CO hid the slip underneath some of his paperwork.

ABOUT US:

Trang and I are both 35 years old and have never been married before. We both hold Bachelor's degree's and have good incomes. Trang has no relatives in the US. We met each other on a business trip in Ho Chi Minh City in 2007. From 2007 to 2009, I made a total of 4 trips to VN, each for 10 days. Our big red flag was that since we got ripped of in VN, we got married in Singapore.

PETITION:

We did not have many red flags. The only big red flag was that we married in Singapore instead of VN. Initially, I wanted to front load the heck out of the petition but my wife talked me out of it. In the end, I submitted a bare bone I-130 petition with just the regular requirements, maybe just a little bit more then was required but overall it was bare bone. I did include a detailed explanation of why our wedding took place in Singapore instead of VN. I guess it was good enough, because none of it ever came up at the interview. I guess NOT having any of the "classic" HCMC Consulate red flags (divorce, children from previous marriage, beneficiary family in the US, introduced by family members) is what saved the day for us. I don't know for sure, but right now I don't really care

That's all! My wife is scheduled to pick up the visa on August 9th so we are not done yet. Words cannot describe how happy both our families are right now. We are still celebrating!

CONCLUSION:

I want to thank everybody for their contributions to this forum. I promise to make a better effort to contribute as well and help others that are going through the process. Thank you and God bless!

-Travis