owenkrout

Hong, I know how frustrated you are, believe me, but you are much nearer the goal than you were. I'll pray with you that the printer doesn't break down again by 2 PM tomorrow. I'll think positive and give you a pre-mature hearty congratulations!

Here is a thought that I had based on what James found out about how the system works. If indeed these names are just cabled back to GZ and if indeed there is no priority assigned to those who interviewed earlier, I am guessing that the DOS in typical government fashion cabled the names arraigned in alphabetical order. Does anyone have any idea by what family name (in Pinyin) the ladies that received pick-up letters where filed under? Or even first letter of their family name? If they are just going down an alphabetical list, we have a long wait. My wife is filed under Wang. What about it? Those of you who have received pick-up letters, when was it posted and what is the first letter of the family name the beneficiary was listed under (first letter of their Chinese family name in Pinyin)

Tom, your fiancee's experience seems to be exactly what we should expect from GZ. It matches with when my wife was there. We arrived quite early and would have been at the front of the line except we stood at what seemed to be the main gate on the south side only to find out only a few minutes before they opened up that everybody was to line up at the unmarked smaller north gate. No signs, no instructions in her letter. Once at the right line, they would not allow me to wait with her. The woman from inside the consulate insisted that I leave. Once in the same routine of being yelled at to line up and rude behavior from staff checking papers. She did say that once she finally reached the interview that person was nice and coopertive. Also, warn your gal to not show her papers to anyone while in the line outside without proof they are consulate staff. Before the staff ran me off I had to stop my wife just as she was about to hand her passport to someone. I physically grabbed it and demanded to see their identification. They, in broken English, sayed they worked for the "embassy". When I started trying to get the attention of the guards, he took off in a hurry. The Judicial Watch people are focused on corruption issues. This is not corruption, just incompetence. You have a point about some real money at issue though. Problem is finding the lawyer willing to try it. Few around I would guess.

Put my name on the list for the letter too. I guess I need to fire up the letters to congressmen again.

Right after I posted this I did. More non-answers. Must be part of the test they take for the job, how to talk without saying anything.

Sounds like they are as screwed up as usual. Some get a visa, some get a white paper, some told to come back tomorrow. What, do they have an Magic Eight Ball that they use to make up the answers? Yes, No, Maybe, Try Again. Sound familiar?

My wife reads the 001 Chinese side since she is English challenged. Heck, I'm not even that good with Chinese! She understood that one of the ladies there, that lives close enough to actually stand at the gate and check with those coming out, was reporting that those who did their K interview today for the first time walked out with visas. Somebody might check on that and see if she had it correct. All these K-1, K-3, CR-1, IR-1, P-3, P4, yes you are approved, no you can't have a visa now, things have her throughly confused at this point, so she might have misunderstood. As though any of us understood what the heck is going on! I notice that no new letters seem to have arrived today (evening now here in China). That is a bad sign. By the number of members on this, I would have expected a lot more people to have received notices by now if even the 500 processed number was legitimate.

August for my wife also. And that is not counting the K-1 application that GZ fouled up back in January 2002 so badly that we just gave up and registered a marriage here.

I don't believe that they will successfully manage to hand out 500 visas a day without a breakdown of the system.

It seems that everyone outside of the immediate Guangzhou area are getting just the two dates that they can use to pick up their visas. Now I doubt that any of the ladies are going to wait until the second date. After this long of a wait they will be grabbing their visa at the first chance they get. I don't blame them. Assuming that there are at least several hundred of them processed that will recieve their notices within the week, that means that GZ will be swamped by everyone arriving on 12/23. Even as far north as we are, my wife will find a way to get there by Monday morning if she gets her notice by Saturday. I would not be able to stop her. Who really thinks that they have made any real plans on how to handle the rush? Given that the Chinese culture lacks the Western concept of lining up and waiting your turn, I hope that GZ has thought to give the GZ police a heads up that there will be an unusually large crowd at the gate that morning. I've seen a crowd literally push people in front of a bus and cause them to be hit, fortunately nobody too seriously hurt, just over being the first on the bus. I would rather know that there were enough of the local jingcha on hand to keep things in order.

David, your experience matches with mine. I just didn't mention the issues of being given the wrong papers the first time since I thought things didn't match with my research when I checked what they had given me out in the lobby. I turned around and went right back to the window. They at first wouldn't even look, but eventually produced the "new" forms. Question: Why do they even have the out-dated forms in the Consulate? Very basic management issue that all out-dated forms should be destroyed. I guess I am just pushy enough from having been in management in industry. Otherwise I would have gone through another round of wasting my time.

Glad we are not the only ones that GZ keeps losing paperwork for. Starting to think they just didn't like me. I filed here in Shenyang following the process you outline and my wife got processed for a IR-1 which I took to mean Immediate Relative priority 1 We also would have finished this a year ago or more if there had been any efficiency to the process.

Does anyone know for sure yet if they are making the gals pay the supplimental fee? The visa issuance fee increased to RMB830 as of December 1st. The GZ notice they are requiring it to be paid before they will actually approve the visa. My past experience says they will require it of the gals before the actually issue the visa.

David, Granted it is not technically an immigration visa, but effectively it is. I know first hand of the family of a Chinese professor now teaching in the US that recieved their visas the same day they applied this month. As long as he has a job, they can renew and stay in the US. No "name check" problems. Fact, not a rumor. I helped his wife with her paperwork myself. The fact is that is is easy for a terrorist to get into the US. They don't need to immigrate if they want to cause mischief. They can get any one of the visas that are currently being issued same day, or they can just sneak across the Mexican or Canadian border. It is the families of citizens that are denied entry within reasonable time.

We are at the Aeronautical Engineering Institute. That is just across the street from the West Gate for the BeiLing Garden in the north end of town. I also teach for the Liaoning Economic Management Cadre Institute.

Guess again Don. You are looking at this from the real world. GZ did require a new one from me last year in March. Didn't matter that I pointed out that it was not due yet. They said that if I hadn't filed, then I would need to wait until I did so.

How many people have loved ones in Shenyang or Liaoning? I was just thinking that my wife and I could serve as the core of a support group for those waiting up in the great frozen north-east. For one thing, I am actually living here, so a bit closer to what is going on here and we are probably the older couple waiting. 52/46 My wife retired from her higher ed position, so she has the time to talk to gals who need to vent.

Yep, one year and the documents expire. Pretty quick it will happen to us again. This applies to your proof of support also. They will want a new tax return soon, which may screw ours since I worked in China last year, so show a really low income on that.

The general Chinese people, here in Shenyang at least, do know about the delays. Not just our delays, but the general exclusionary policies towards Chinese immigrants. Word of mouth is working well in spreading awarness of it. It is one major thing that leads to really bad feelings towards the US. They see that their people are being treated like potential terrorists and they see it as a national loss of face. And they are very nationalistic. In general, most people like Americans, but it seems that our government is and has been intent for many different administrations, on generating ill will. Contributing to that problem is that most Chinese think they know a lot about America and in reality what they know is not correct. Their understanding of America is just as skewed as the average American's understanding of China. This lack of understanding is the real cause of most of the conflicts that arise between the two countries, I believe. The leaders are a bit better informed, but are less out-spoken than the average person on the street. They have more to lose by saying the wrong thing. (I teach some of the cadre, so I get the chance to actually hear what they think occassionally)

Brian stated elsewhere, in part, “You think YOU'RE depressed. Just talk to those whose interviews were in August. Apparently GZ, under old leadership, incorrectly sent their security checks and had to redo them months later....which is why people interviewed after them are receiving their visas before them.” Now this, really ticks me off! That means that we are delayed again because of a bureaucratic snafu. We are among the August interviews. Again we did everything right, but we are the ones that have to pay the penalty. Over two years now because they can’t get their act together. This is really nonsense! Having to go through the "name check" a second time just because somebody processed them at the wrong time. It is about time that somebody in our government started to exert some leadership. Everybody seems to just say, "Its not my fault!" Well, if the people under you have screwed things up this badly and nothing effective is being done to remedy the situation and assure it doesn't happen again, then it is your fault!" Seems that I remember getting that lecture myself many years ago when I was learning how to be a manager. Difference is that I did something about it or I wouldn’t have kept my job. Maybe it is time for me to write another letter to my congressmen. It is GZ's fault for not handling things properly in the first place and for not having a plan for how to handle the backlog when it arrived. It is DOS's fault for not showing some leadership and taking charge to clear up the problem now that it exists. It is DOJ's fault for not doing the "name checks" in a reasonably efficient manner. It is our congressmen's fault, mine in particular actually, for not demanding that all these others do their job. Sorry for the rant. But it is the fact that people side-step responsibility that really ticks me.

I have e-mailed all the details of our case to my Representitives and Senators and have not even had a reply from any of them, even though in some cases their websites promised a reply within two weeks for any correspondence. One of my Senators is Sam Brownback who with the change in control of the Senate, I belive will be the chair of the Senate Immigration sub-committee.

Thanks for all the words of support. I am very thankful that I am living with my loved ones. After almost a year apart we made the decision that it was more important than the money I was making in the US. As far as a lawyer helping, little hope for that. It wasn't until the next day that it occurred to me that since the consulate took back the receipt and handed back the paperwork, I had no proof that they ever even accepted the application, must less that they actually ever gave me the advice in the first place. As for the November interview people going first, I am not upset that they got their visas. Good for them! I am upset that so many people are put in this position in the first place.

I am a newbie to the site, but congratulations for a job well done. My wife wife's Priority Date is 18-APR-2002 and actual interview at Guangzhou was 12-AUG-2002 The latest information we have is an e-mail reply from Guangzhou dated Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:24:24 +0800 (they did reply in only one day) "Dear Mr. Krout Thank you for your email, we have not received the stateside notice that your wife's namecheck is completed, once we can issue her a visa, we will contact her by express mail. sincerely yours immigrant visa unit " After over a year waiting on a K-1 filed OCT-2000, we then had Guangzhou mess that one up and scheduled my fiancee's daughter for the fiancee interview. Guangzhou's "solution" was that we would have to start over and file again. (I double checked the paperwork copies I had and they were filled out correctly) By that point I had decided that it was easier for me to move to China and work anyway, so I was already living in Dalian. I checked with Shenyang Consulate and they informed us that it was no problem to get married and that my new step-daughter would be included in my wife's application since the daughter was not yet 21. Therefore, we were married March 3, 2002. After much difficulty getting the satisfactory paperwork from the Chinese authorities (they knew she was marrying an American, so we were targets for plenty of extra "fees"), I filed the papers and paid the application fees. I was asked to wait while they reviewed the papers. After a long wait I was called back to the counter and the application and the fees for my new daughters visa where returned to me. Very sorry, but they had made a mistake, she was not eligible because she was over 18. Now the visa for my step-daughter was down the tubes thanks to misinformation and bumbling. I would also like to know the real reason for the Chinese Exclusion that is taking place. It seems that terrorists have little trouble obtaining visas, but a retired music teacher (my wife) is a real security threat. My brother's theory is that its because of the different tonal system. Might corrupt all those American music students.