USCONGUZ

Dear CFL Members, The answer to your question is, "yes, but not often." For more info please visit the following web-site: http://foia.state.gov/masterdocs/09FAM/09G0500.PDF sincerely, IV Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Dear CFL Members, As stated in a previous post, if the applicant is over the age of 18, then there should be no problem with custody issues. IV Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Dear CFL Member, If this petition is still at one the USCIS service centers, you should contact them to find out if this is important. You can call them at 1-800-375-5283. Once the petition reaches us, if there is a small typo on the G-325A, it's not a big deal. However, a typo on the I-130 or I-129F might mean that we need to re-do security namechecks on an applicant. Sincerely, IV Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Dear CFL Members, Please refer to the following web-sites for updates on this subject. http://www.state.gov http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou/ Sincerely, IV Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Dear CFL Member, Either method of setting up a follow to join case for the K2 is OK. They can interview at the same time and then delay the issuance of the K2 or you can request that the K2 interview at a later date. However, you are correct that the K2 must enter the U.S. within one year of the issuance date of the K1 visa. IV Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Dear CFL Member, This will have no impact on your employment in the U.S. This category on the immigrant data summary is really only important for those going to the US on employment based visas. IV Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

K1's and K3's are treated as immigrant visas.

Because it's the law... Please refer again to the link in our previous post.

Dear CFL Members, Here is a link that you should be able to access, which takes you directly to the section of the FAM, which deals with this issue. It is: http://foia.state.gov/masterdocs/09fam/0940034N.pdf * If an applicant is a current or former member of the Chinese Communist Party, we request that they fill out a questionnaire, which we provide. This questionnaire has detailed questions about the nature of the applicant抯 membership in the Communist Party. Based on the answers to these questions, we then consult with D.C. in making a decision on whether or not an applicant抯 membership in the party makes them ineligible for a visa. If an applicant quit the party over five years ago, it can relive him or her of the ineligibility. Sincerely, Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Dear CFL Members, If one birth parent or legal guardian of a child is planning on taking a child (any minor under the age of 18) to the United States, and the other parent or legal guardian of the child is going to remain behind in China, they must be prepared to show that there is no legal impediment to the child leaving the country. This can be demonstrated by showing who has custody of the child. Divorce agreements in China usually list who has legal custody of children. The birth parent staying in China can also provide a notarized statement saying that they are aware that the child plans to immigrate to the U.S. and that they agree with their immigration. These are the most common methods of demonstrating that there is no legal impediment to the child immigrating to the U.S. Sometimes, for whatever reason, neither of these documents can be obtained. These situations are dealt with on a case by case basis. Sincerely, Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Dear CFL Member, Although we for obvious reasons cannot disclose what fraud indicators we look for, we can tell you that accidentally saying wife or husband when describing your fiancé is not one of them. We ourselves occasionally make this mistake, because we might interview 10 applicants in a row, who are married and then might accidentally call someone’s fiancé wife or husband. We are also aware that it is common in China for couples to take posed wedding photos before their wedding. Try to not to worry too much about little mistakes or slip ups in the interview, we realize that everyone is human. Sincerely, Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Reading over some topics recently posted, I see a few issues that merit comment. 1. The idea that certain consular officers pursue vendettas or that we, in general, seek revenge against folks who hurt our feelings is misplaced. This is an idea that is kicked around fairly often and is one that kind of puzzles me. For starters, no one's personal information is posted so there is no way (even if one of my guys gets really angry with a particular poster) to figure out which case/fiancee/spouse is associated with that poster. Then there is the issue of time. Since I don't know the name of the person I want to punish, I need to start going through files to find a case that seems to fit the circumstances of the person who made me mad, so I need to start going through files. How long is it going to take me to go through the 16,000 case files in my 221(g) file room and the 26,000 cases sitting in my pre-inspection file room in order to find that one case? Face it, I don't have time for such foolishness. 2. Customs delays. This is another topic that gets a lot of attention and my sense is that many feel we use this as an excuse to hide our inefficiency and sloth. Some have commented that the claim of cases held up by Chinese customs was phoney because the cases are shipped under diplomatic seal and therefore not subject to customs inspection. This is a simple one - IV cases are not shipped via diplomatic pouch. The State Department does not use DHL to ship diplomatic pouch mail. 3. Pre-screening/pre-judging/pre-whatever of cases. Officers do not pre-judge cases. Case files scheduled for inteview are retrieved from the file room the afternoon before the interview date. When applicants come in the next morning they go through doc check. when the applicant comes to the window an employee pulls the file from the stack set out the prior afternoon and takes in the docs. once done, the applicant goes to the cashier cage, then goes for fingerprinting. Once all of this is done the case file is distributed to an officer. This is the first time the officer will see a file. He/she will scan the file to get a sense of what it is about, punch in the numbers to get the applicant up to the window and the interview commences. That is the drill.

I don't remember reading that in the instructions. I remember adding a continuation sheet to cover my wife's address in both English and Chinese. That was pointed out in the instructions. 165626[/snapback] Why is it necessary to put this information on the back of the form considering the I-129F already requests this information on item 16, page 2 of the form? "...16. If your fianc¨¦(e)'s native alphabet uses other than Roman letters, write his or her name and address abroad in the native alphabet..." 165759[/snapback] Clarification, The back of the I-129F and page 2 are the same thing if it is printed on both front and back of the paper. You are correct that you should write the address in Chinese characters in question 17 where it request his/ her name and address if their native language uses something other than Roman letters.

Dear CFL Members, It is apparent from your posts that most of you already know just how big a problem fraud is for the Consulate. Valuable time and resources must be taken away from the process of adjudicating visas and re-allocated to combating fraud. It is illegal to engage in a sham marriage for the purpose of avoiding U.S. immigration laws and it is our job to keep this from happening. However, due to the extremely large sums of money involved many people have no qualms about breaking the law. This causes delays in the processing of your spouses’ and fiancées visas both here and in the U.S. and is no small part of why the wait for a visa is so long. The Consulate would like to enlist your help in combating fraud. We have found that petitioners and their legitimate beneficiaries are great sources of information about fraud patterns and trends. If you are interested in helping, please post any information you might have. This is especially useful if you or your spouse is approached with shady offers. Of course, you can do this anonymously if you like by sending us letters or faxes, but we feel the information will be useful to your colleagues as well. We are not asking for what you have termed “third party correspondence” or asking you to rat out anyone. We are just hoping you can help us make this process more efficient. If you have read this far, a lot of you are thinking now, “why should I help these people who are the source of all our misery?” Well, here are a few reasons: 1. You can give us suggestions as to what kind of things you and your spouses hear about so that we can combat these problems and re-devote resources to visa adjudication in order to speed up the visa process. 2. You can help your colleagues avoid falling into the trap of getting involved with scam artists. For example, one problem we have noticed is that otherwise legitimate visa applicants are sometimes convinced by unscrupulous people that they need to “purchase” more evidence in order to strengthen their case. We usually catch the purchased evidence and this can make the entire case looks suspicious, where as it would have otherwise been fine. 3. You can make us aware of any problems your spouses might be having acquiring the required documents. One recent post mentioned that their spouse was being blackmailed into paying a bribe in order to obtain a birth certificate. We would really like to know the specifics on this, so that we can either take this up with the local officials to stop the practice or find some kind of alternate method for your spouse to obtain these documents, so that they can avoid being scammed. Due to the extremely large sums of money involved and the high demand for immigration to the U.S., we do not see an end to fraud in the near future. We also do not have the resources to follow up on every single lead we receive. However, with your help, we can make some inroads and make it easier to distinguish between fraudulent and legitimate cases. Sincerely, Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

Since the DS-230 Part I is in the packet three, how does this work? 165384[/snapback] Correction: If you would like for us to send information to the beneficiary instead of the petitioner, please follow the directions below: For K cases, the beneficiary’s address should be written in Chinese characters on the back of the I-129F when originally submitted. For all other cases, please write the beneficiary’s address in Chinese characters on the back of the form I-130 when submitting it. You can also write the beneficiary's address on the DS-230 part 1 when submitting it. If you forgot to do this when you originally submitted these forms, and we already have your case here in Guangzhou, please send us a fax that has the beneficiary’s name, case number (if you have it), date of birth, and address in Chinese characters. If we do not have the beneficiary's address in Chinese characters, we will send all correspondence to the petitioner in the U.S.

If a visa petition is reaffirmed by DHS and returned to Guangzhou, the applicant will have to have another interview. The visa is not automatically approved, but it cannot again be recommended for revocation unless new derogatory evidence appears. A reaffirmed case cannot be recommended for revocation based on the same reasons that it was sent back for the first time.

Every applicant and petitioner’s situations are different so Consular Officers ask each applicant questions tailored to their particular situation.

Dear CFL Members, After reading your comments, we did some research into what inquiry systems are available at other immigrant visa units. Both Hong Kong and Moscow seem to currently employ a system similiar to Guangzhou. We have posted links to their websites below. The Consulate is always interested in learning how other large immigrant visa processing posts handle correspondence and constructive suggestions are always welcome. Regards, Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China http://hongkong.usconsulate.gov/consular/inquiries.htm http://moscow.usembassy.gov/consular/consu...cord_id=concont

Dear CFL Members, We sincerely appreciate any constructive feedback members can provide. Specifically, any positive or negative experiences with the call center are very helpful. Your comments have been noted and will be taken into account during our continuous effort to improve the U.S. Visa Information Center. Regards, Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China

What is the procedure for setting up a follow to join case? Should the applicant e-mail or telephone the consulate? What information should the applicant provide at the time of making contact? Should the applicant request specific information/forms such as a packet 3? Can the US citizen/petitioner make the contact with the consulate? 161429[/snapback] Great question, See our answers below: 1. What is the procedure for setting up a follow to join case? The principal applicant or the petitioner can tell us during the time of the interview, they can write it on the DS-230 part 1, or mail us a written statement. 2. Should the applicant e-mail or telephone the consulate? See above 3. What information should the applicant provide at the time of making contact? Principal Applicant's name, case number, and date of birth. 4. Should the applicant request specific information/forms such as a packet 3? No 5. Can the US citizen/petitioner make the contact with the consulate? Yes

Dear Candle for Love Members, About the time we started to participate in this forum, many members were commenting on our switch to a call center for responding to some queries. Please find below a comment that we are adding to our own FAQ’s regarding this topic as well our reasons for taking this step. The U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou Immigrant Visa Unit will process over 30,000 immigrant visa petitions and will receive over 100,000 inquiries about these cases this year. Approximately 70% of these inquiries will concern timing/scheduling of interviews and case arrival at the Consulate. While we understand petitioner and applicant desire to get more information about their cases, especially case specific timing information, the current inquiry workload was extremely large, had over a week backlog to answer questions, and was an impediment to processing cases more quickly. To enable petitioners and applicants to get accurate answers more quickly and to enable Immigrant Visa staff to process more cases, the Immigrant Visa Unit has begun providing the U.S. Visa Information Center information about what cases have arrived at the Consulate, where cases are in the interview queue, and what cases have been scheduled. The U.S. Visa Information Center has been handling all Non-Immigrant Visa questions and scheduling for over one year and the Customer Service Representatives who answer your calls can give you an immediate answer about case status and can answer any other question concerning the immigrant visa process. Outside of status information, the U.S. Visa Information Center has no case-specific information and thus cannot answer post-interview questions. The decision to make this change was driven by the need to make more efficient use of scant available resources. Over the course of the past year USCIS has doubled the number of cases shipped to Guangzhou. We absorbed that influx of cases with no commensurate increase in resources, making it necessary for the IV unit to make some decisions as to how best to handle our burgeoning workload. One decision we made was to transfer responsibility of answering these types of questions to the U.S. Visa Information Center. This change in procedures allows us to redirect the energies of our staff to perform other required tasks that Consulate personnel must perform, allowing the IV unit to process and interview more cases than before. While a small fee is charged to help defray the cost of this Information Center, the benefit of immediate answers and faster case processing will hopefully outweigh this minor inconvenience.

K2 visas can be issued up to one year after the K1 visa was issued for follow to join cases. The visa must be issued within that time, not just applied for. If you are planning on setting up a follow to join case for a K2, please keep this time limitation in mind. The K2 applicant will normally have to wait the normal amount of time for an interview. However, if scheduling the K2 applicant through normal methods would mean that the visa could not be issued within one year of issuance of a K1, a request for expedited handling can be sent to us. K4’s are a little different. There is no specific time limitation on when K4 visas can be issued, however they cannot be issued after the K3 applicant has adjusted status in the U.S.

Dear Candle for Love Members, The U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China is interested in participating in your online discussion forum. We appreciate the effort and time members of this web site spend supporting each other and attempting to understand this necessarily long and demanding process. Immigration to the United States is a very sought after and desirable commodity throughout the world. Due to the necessity of safeguarding America from harm, the massive volume of applications, and the requirement to make sure every applicant is indeed qualified, the process is rather complicated. The Consulate understands that due to the complicated nature of the process, misunderstandings and untrue rumors are easily spread. Through participation in your online forum, we hope to assist you by clearing up these misunderstandings, answering questions about the process, and providing updates about the process as required. However, due to the large number of petitioners and applicants active on this group, we will not be able to answer questions about individual cases. We will try to at least check this forum once a week to scan for questions and offer help. However, the answers to most questions can be found in our website’s FAQ section. There are three websites; one for immigrant visas, one for K visas, and one for our contact information. The URL’s for these sites can be found below. We hope we can assist you in this process and perhaps make it a little more pleasant. Sincerely, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou/iv/gzfaqs.html http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou/iv/kvfaq.html http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou/iv/contact.html