Mild_Bill

Because of different personal and financial reasons, we still have not filed for AOS for my wife, but now the problem is that her K-3 visa has expired. I've tried searching the internet for how to deal with this, but without luck. Now that my wife is "out of status" are we still able to file for AOS? She is afraid that she will have to possibly go back to China and restart the whole visa process over again. Is there anyone who has knowledge or experience with something like this?

I hope I can share a little bit here that others can find helpful. My wife just had her interview last week. First of all, the 8am appt is not only for your SO, but also for maybe 100 or so other visa hopefuls. These applicants are divided into 2 groups: immigrant visas and non-immigrant visas. The non-immigrant visas must wait until their names are called to enter the building. But the immigrant visas (K1,K3,CR1 etc.) do not need to wait until their names are called. They do however need to wait in the Chinese style line of hurry up and push everyone away to get there first. When they show their appointment letter and passport to the inspecting officer, he will give them a small card which will allow them to pass through the actual consulate entrance on the 4th floor. American petitioners can enter the consulate beginning at 9am, but the citizen and non-citizen sections are separated by a glass door. It is possible to enter the non-citizen section, but after being warned 3 times by a guard, I decided I should wait elsewhere. On the 4th floor there is a coffee shop with several tables and chairs to sit and wait. There was alot of other construction going on at the time, so hopefully there will be more places to wait because the coffee shop was full. I am not sure about waiting in the 1st floor lobby, but there were no places to sit at the time, although it did seem like there were several people standing and waiting in many different places in the building. I hope my experience can help out anyone with questions. If I can answer anything else, please ask. Having just completed this process, I would like to pass on the help that was shown to me by this website by helping those to follow me. Good luck to everyone with upcoming interviews.

I just wanted to let you all know that my wife had her interview yesterday and passed very easily. I think maybe it was because her interviewer just wanted to hurry up and get the interviews overwith. There were easily 100 people being interviewed yesterday morning along with her. He was a white male who seemed suprised and relieved that she spoke english. He just asked her who submitted the application for her, how she knew me, and what I did for a living. Her replies were: my husband, we met on the internet, and that I was a student. She also added in that she was currently my sugar mama, which made him laugh. She reached to show him the evidence she brought, but he didnt look at any of it. He didnt even look at the I-134, which was a little strange after hearing that I was just a student. He said she passed, handed her the approval notice, and that was it. She said the whole thing took less than a minute. So we are very happy now. We will leave tomorrow to spend a week or so with her parents then head back to the states at the end of the month. Thanks to all those who helped us through the process. The Candle definitely made things so much easier.

My wife and I just did this last week. We are in Shenzhen as well. We just took the train up to GZ on Tuesday. The process went pretty smoothly, about an hour if I remember correctly. They told us to come back 2 days later (Thursday) at 4pm to pick up the results. They also gave us an instruction form telling us exactly what to bring to place in the sealed envelope when we came to pick up the results. We came back to Shenzhen so as not to have to pay for a hotel, and then returned Thursday to pick up the results. They placed all the documents in a sealed envelope, and that was it. Now we only have 1 more thing to worry about, the interview is Tomorrow!!!

Only 9 days until the interview and I am here in Shenzhen going over everything with my wife. It is both very exciting and very stressful at the same time. After going over the documents, I realized there is a place on the DS-156 that says barcode. Is this something we have to attatch, and if so, where do we get this barcode from? Or is this something that is taken care of at the consulate? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Wish us luck at the interview

Thanks to RichardLovesPing and alaskagypsy, I decided to give DOS a call myself, and I received the wonderful news. My wife's interview is scheduled for August 17th. The lady told me that the p-4 had just been sent out yesterday. I cant wait to call my wife, but its only 5am. I wonder if I should wake her up with the news. I knew I would be happy when I finally found out, but this is really an incredible feeling.

Wonderful news!! wonderful because you are almost finished. And wonderful because my timeline is right there with yours. They received my p-3 on March 15. I am pretty excited now. I am going to go call them right now.

I have seen several times that having joint accounts with both you and your so's name are good to show at the interview. I recently looked into this at my bank and I was told that because of the Patriot act, in order to put my wife's name on my bank accounts, she would have to personally come to the bank in person and show identification. Being that she has no way of coming to the bank in person until after she has the visa in hand, is there a way around this? Or is there some other type of joint account we can have besides a bank account?

Me and my wife are getting really excited now. We havent gotten the P-4 yet, but we expect it should be within the next month or 2. We were just discussing after she gets the visa that maybe we would like to make a stop in Hawaii for a few days. This would be a wonderful time to go there, being that it is halfway across the Pacific and "on the way" so to speak. Also it would turn 1 extremely long trip into 2 much more bearable trips with a little Hawaiian vacation inbetween. Now to the subject of my post, does anyone have any experience or knowledge of the Honolulu POE? If so, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Billy

I know I still have a few more months to wait, but I am getting extremely anxious these days. Now I am just getting the I-134 together and I need to find out do I need to show proof of any of the info I fill in here? I know I need the employers statement to show salary, but do I need to show proof of my savings, personal property, stocks, life insurance, and real estate? Thanks for any help, Billy

Thanks donahso, I am thinking that option might be alot quicker, being that I do live in the Atlanta district. I just checked again and they are still more than 2 years behind on aos.

Well my wife and I figure now that we will be getting the K3 interview before the CR1. The p-3 was returned to GUZ about 3 weeks ago. I guess I should start finding out about the adjustment of status process soon. My question is, should we still continue with the CR-1 because I read somewhere that the AOS cant happen until the I-130 is approved. I am not sure if that is referring to the approval from the CSC that we got back December, or does that mean that we should continue with the CR-1 process and wait for that to finish before we can do the AOS. I am sorry if this is a dumb question

Thank you, there is alot of good information there. B)

My wife got her p-3 for the K-3 visa yesterday, and we are extremely happy about that. She ran into a problem though. I am pretty sure this has been discussed before, but I cant find it. Her hukou is located in Huaihua, in Hunan province, but she currently lives in Shenzhen. She told me the people in Shenzhen refused to give her a police report because of this. Should she get a police report from her home town to cover the entire time past age 16 even though she didnt live there? How will the interviewer look at this if she does? please help.

Thats a really interesting article. Thank you for sharing

I was just wondering about this. I completely didnt notice that the Superbowl is going to be during my planned trip to China. I admit that even though I am an avid football fan, it was very far from my mind at the time I was planning to go see my wife. My question is does anyone, those of you who lived/live there, know if they will be showing the game on Chinese TV? If they dont, its not a biggie, but Im just curious. Thanks

While living in Shenzhen, I found it extremely easy just to go to Hong Kong to get a new visa. If you go early enough, you can be back by early afternoon on the same day (this does mean paying the 1 day expedition fee as well).

Very interesting. I thought it was because when they first started making the "green cards", they actually were green, but I never knew.

What I get from this load of crap is that whoever wrote it lumps everyone who marries a foreign national into the dreaded "mail-order bride" category, which is not even close to being correct. This person, in my humble opinion, is against all such marriages and is probably a racist. It sickens me to think that this jackass is talking about me when he says that "The true character of the men is well expressed in Glodava and Onizuka (1994:26), who note, 'those who have used the mail-order bride route to find a mate have control in mind rather than a loving and enduring relationship'." I find it unnervering that someone with a PhD would resort to quoting a blatant stereotype. And I would really like to speak to whoever thought this deserved to be on the USCIS website. Notice though, that they did put a little caveat at the top: "The analyses and conclusions presented do not necessarily represent the official position or policy of the Immigration and Naturalization Service."

Most of the time when I was there, I didnt miss western food at all. I love Chinese food, and the more la jiaos, the better. But every once in a while I really crave a big fat juicy meduim rare burger with all the fixings. Sure, there is a McDonalds around every corner in alot of cities, but those burgers don't even come close. Oh, another thing I crave is REAL beer. Chinese beer is ok, Budweiser and Heinekin are easy enough to find, but light beer isnt really my thing. The Chinese need to learn how to brew some reds and some stouts and some porters as well as the hundreds of light beers they have.

I just have a question for those of you who have received the "official" DS230 already. I am not quite to that point just yet, but Im curious, is there any noticable difference between the one they send and one that you can download from the internet? I mean when you download and print one, are there big red bold print letters that say "this is a downloaded copy" or something similar? Or do they send you a copy with big green bold print letters that say "this is not a downloaded copy"???? Of course, I am being sarcastic. But seriously, could they tell a difference?

go check out www.firstphonecard.com i have been purchasing cards from them for a couple of years now and i am very satisfied. They have alot of different ones to choose from as well.

Im flying on Feb 3rd to JFK and from there straight to HongKong and then crossing to Shenzhen. Im very happy they have direct flights from JFK now. I hear there should be several more starting up in the next couple of years from other cities. Congratulations Mufasa and MarkandLeigh, and good luck. Hell Yeah!!! (Just for you ghostrider) And if you are looking for tickets, Orbitz is good, also try www.flychina.com. And TigerThompson, a special good luck to you. I remember how excited I was when I was flying to meet my baby for the first time. Have a wonderful time.

Im just curious if anyone will be traveling to China for the Chinese New Year. My wife tells me this is the biggest and most important holiday for the Chinese. I plan on going because I have spent every Chinese New Year with her, this will be our third. But mainly because our first anniversary is soon after on the 12th. So hopefully I will be able to spend a few wonderful moments alone with my baby inbetween all the celebrations with the sister and parents and friends. im very excited about it though. Only 33 days until I leave.

Well crap, my chinese characters turned into jibberish. Is there a way to write in chinese on here? Anyway, if anyone needs help with this, I will be glad to help.