tucsonjim

Carl, I think you have a good idea about seeing a judge to get full custody granted. I'll discuss this with my SO and see if she can pursue that since we have lots of time. I will be going back to China in late Jan and will stay 2-3 months, so if she has problems, I'll go with her to help get that done. This will be plan B for now. If it turns out to be relatively easy, it will become plan A, since there would be no doubt about custody with any VO reviewing the case if we had that document. Thanks much.

Frank, she sent me a document that appears to me to be what I think of as a notarial affidavit of single status... basically it is a notarized statement that she was married to her ex on 10/19/90, they divorced on 6/1/94 and that she never remarried since then and that she assumes legal responsibility for the statement. The notary basically added a page certifying that she came to his office, made this statement and signed it in his presence. Nothing about the child mentioned. Is this similar in form to the notarial divorce certificate that you are referring to? This is a separate document from the actual divorce decree, which basically just says they were officially divorced on 6/1/94. If so, it seems it would be worth redoing the form and adding some words about "fostering" in it as you suggest. I assume there was no issue about your wife having full custody with just that statement in there. If so, that sounds very reasonable and a simple approach. Since her daughter now has her family name, if her ex was still involved in the child's life, he would have had a problem with the official name change, so the new name and a fostering statement in the notarial divorce certificate might work well together. Let me know if what I described is not the document you are referring to . Thanks much! 146999[/snapback] I think we're dealing with two notarial documents. The one you describe is almost identical to Jingwen's notarial single status certificate. Essentially, hers identifies her, states that she registered a marriage, was mediated a divorce and has not registered a marriage since. Like yours, her single status certificate makes no reference to the children. In addition, Jingwen had a second notarial divorce certificate, stating essentially the same thing about the marriage and subsequent divorce, but instead of stating that she had not registered another marriage, it stated that her children were fostered by her. 147002[/snapback] Thanks much Frank. If that was sufficient proof of custody in your situation where there were two children and nothing else was requested, that sounds like a great approach to pursue. Might not work with all VO's, but sounds like it is worth a try and I'll be thinking about plan B if that doesn't work.

Bob, it would be nice if we knew where he is and could try that approach, but without knowing his whereabouts from previous employer and other contacts my SO has tried, we don't know how to locate him to see if he would sign and notarize such a statement. No worry about child abduction in this case, since he has never made any attempt to see his daughter since she was 2 yrs old. After 11 years of abandoment, I don't feel he has any parental rights, so I'm reluctant to pursue that approach much further unless we are forced to by GZ. Even then, I'm not sure how we would go about finding him in a country with over a billion people. Do you know if there are public records that can be searched to find someone across China? Thanks!

Frank, she sent me a document that appears to me to be what I think of as a notarial affidavit of single status... basically it is a notarized statement that she was married to her ex on 10/19/90, they divorced on 6/1/94 and that she never remarried since then and that she assumes legal responsibility for the statement. The notary basically added a page certifying that she came to his office, made this statement and signed it in his presence. Nothing about the child mentioned. Is this similar in form to the notarial divorce certificate that you are referring to? This is a separate document from the actual divorce decree, which basically just says they were officially divorced on 6/1/94. If so, it seems it would be worth redoing the form and adding some words about "fostering" in it as you suggest. I assume there was no issue about your wife having full custody with just that statement in there. If so, that sounds very reasonable and a simple approach. Since her daughter now has her family name, if her ex was still involved in the child's life, he would have had a problem with the official name change, so the new name and a fostering statement in the notarial divorce certificate might work well together. Let me know if what I described is not the document you are referring to . Thanks much!

While reading through FAQ's about questions to Beneficiary in the interveiw, it brought up a concern in my mind. My SO was divorced 11 years ago when the daughter was 2. The ex husband abandoned them both and has never made contact or provided any support since the divorce. However, when I look at the divorce certificate, nothing is stated about custody of the child, which I find strange. The other problem is the ex husband has moved far away and noone knows his whereabouts, in order to reach him. Who knows if he would cooperate or not if we did know where he is, since he's not exactly the most responsible person on the planet. Because of the long term abandonment by the father, my SO changed her daughters family name to her family name and had a new official birth certificate issued, plus another official document indicating the daughter had used a different name previously, the ex husband's family name. Problem is, I don't see anything that officially states that my SO has full custody of the daughter in any of the official documents she has sent me. The daughter has a passport also with the new family name. Don't know if there is a statute of limitation in China that could be used to award custody by default or not, given it has been 11 years since last contact. If anyone has had similar experience with this type of situation or has knowledge or advice that could give me some options to pursue, I would greatly appreciate it. I sure don't want to get to the late stages of the process or interview and find out this is a problem. We have lots of time now, since we are very early in the process, so I would like to understand what to do now, so my SO can work on getting this fixed.

Thanks much David and Gene! I thought this info would need to be sent for review around P3 or at least with P4. Seems strange they would wait to check that out at the interview!! I'm very surprised to learn that! For sure I will have a tax return filed by then!! OK, now I can just set back and relax.... or fret over how long all this stuff takes is more like it! Thanks again for your help! Jim

Thanks for all for your nice greetings and fast replies... very fast indeed!! I'm glad to know there is no special scrutiny of retirees as long as the numbers are ok. I hope that will be the least of my concerns. The ball appears to be in my SO's court from here on, except for the financial support part that I need to provide, so I was starting to read up and figure out what I will need to do and when. What is the recommended point in the process to actually prepare this info and solicit letters from employer, banks, etc? In the case of my employer, they hired a 3rd party financial company to administer their retirement funds and payments to retirees, so I assume I will need to request a letter from them, since that is where the funds come from now. I was mainly concerned that I don't have an income tax statement for previous years that is representative of my income now and hoped that wouldn't be a problem as long as I can produce documents of current income and assets that exceed the minimum requirements, so your responses helped reassure me of that. Thanks again for all your fast responses!!! This is great having so much info and experience to help guide us through the maze. I've got my Cheetos all stocked up and my feet are up Frank!! Looks like a long wait ahead!!

I'm a rookie here and we're very early in the process. I mailed the I-129F package last week and found this forum and related links extremely helpful!! I was able to find answers to all quesitons I had by doing searches, so I appreciate all your help through the posts you have done that are searchable!!! Thanks much for taking the mystery out of this entire process. I was considering hiring a lawyer until I found this site and spent some time going through the info here, plus links to Visa Journey. I decided a lawyer would have minimal value add and probably would not be as knowledgeable as people here with recent experience, so thanks again!! Question I have is if anyone has experience going through the financial support part of the K-1 process... i.e. I-134, requested letters, etc, as a retiree? I retired at the beginning of the year and have a fixed pension and sufficient assets to be well above the minimum level they are looking for, but I'm wondering if the embassy views a retiree situation as unusual, specifically if there are any special things I will need to watch out for or extra info I will need to produce to get them comfortable. Pension income for 2005, verses last 3 income tax returns is quite a different picture... Any ideas on how I should approach this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks much and keep up the great info and dialogue here!! Jim