Consulate Review: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Review Topic: K1 Visa
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| Event |
Description |
| Review Date : |
November 24, 2015 |
| Embassy Review : |
My visa was approved after a hard time at the consulate, but it was approved faster than I expected.
On my initial interview on Nov 2nd, I was given the 221g blue slip. I was required to submit additional proof. To be fair, my case had quite a number of red flags: 23 years of age gap; getting to know each other from an online dating site in Jan 2015; having met in person for only once, for 2 weeks in March 2015; getting engaged after only 3 months of talking online and meeting in real life for half a month; not having a traditional Vietnamese engagement ceremony; my American fiance's divorce was just finalized in Sept 2014; he filed 2014 tax jointly with his ex wife; he stayed at his ex wife's house (previously their old house) for 2 months last June and July (to help fixing the house and sell it); he was divorced twice (his 1st marriage last only one year, his 2nd marriage last 18 years); he has three children...
On the initial interview I was interviewed by a male American CO. He asked me many questions in around 20 minutes. He was pretty friendly. His questions were basic as people described in their reviews. He had a couple of concerns about my fiance's current residency, whether he was cohabiting with his ex wife, and whether our relationship was a bona fide one. I could feel that he didn't really believe our love. He kept questioning me about my fiance address, his ex wife's address, his children's address, and a big part was why I love my fiance, what in him that attracted me. He also asked many details of our relationship, his family members, what we did together, what we talked about, etc. and concluded with our wedding plan. I answered all in English pretty fluently. He looked at our photos of meeting in person (we had only around 50 photos), photos of video calling screenshots, and our chat log. I showed him thousands of pages of Skype chat, emails, Line chat app, Google hang out, phone call history; he quickly skimmed through like 20-30 pages. He said he was impressed that I really knew so much about my fiance and his family members, his past relationships, his background, work, co workers, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. However after he worked a bit on his computer, he printed out a 221g blue sheet, saying he wanted to verify three things:
- my fiance's current residency, to make sure he's not living with his ex wife
- a list of his ex wives and their addresses and phone numbers
- a detailed relationship timeline from the petitioner's point of view.
On the very next day, Nov 3rd, I came back with three kinds of evidence requested.
I wrote a six-page relationship timeline for my fiance to sign. He had his father and step mother write an affidavit of his non-cohabitation with his ex wife and testify that they knew our real love and relationship. He also used his car title paper, driver license and bank statement and bank card transaction history to prove that the area he was living in wasn't the area his ex wife was living in.
Together with those, I submitted other proof that I had no chance to show the American CO the day before, such as hand written love letters, my fiance's love poems he wrote for me, love cards, birthday and holiday cards, money tranfer receipts, gift mailling receipts through DHL and FedEx...
While I was waiting for my number to be called, I happened to see the American CO through through the glass window. He nodded his head and smiled at me as a way to say hello. I smiled back at him.
I was interviewed again by a Vietnamese officer. He asked me the same questions as the American CO did...just that I felt the Vietnamese office was not as friendly, not as warm spoken and his smiles were sarcastic while the American CO's smiles were genuine. The Vietnamese officer asked me very frankly: "Please explain to me, help me to understand, it's hard to understand why you love your fiance, what you love in him, despite...this and that...these and those...blah..." I tried my best to calmly gave him a clear and detailed explanation.
At the end of that day, I was given another blue slip saying the Consulate didn't require any further evidence. I was asked to come home and wait for their mail to come when they have any notice on my case.
2 days later, on a Friday, my fiance and I sent an online enquiry on the consulate's website to ask about my case status and whether they would accept more conversation log if we wished to submit extra evidence.
On Monday, the consulate replied our enquiry telling us that my visa was in final processing and I should submit my passport!!! I was extremely amazed and over the moon. I immediately flew to Saigon again from Hanoi to turn my passport in on Nov 12. They didn't ask me any more questions, just accepted my passport and told me my visa was approved!!! EMS service delivered my visa to me on Nov 20.
By the way, letters from the consulate such as packet 3 letter never came to my house. If we didn't make an online enquiry, we would have never known my visa was actually approved...
I'm flying to joint my husband-to-be next week.
Love will find a way, I always believe.
(updated on November 24, 2015) |
| Rating : |
Good |
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ver 5.0