Lee VD

Well at SFO there is a different line for immigrants over by the USC side so its a little tricky if you don't know. She should be able to be first in line since I have her in 2nd row of coach in Economy Plus and since she knows precisely to go to Lane 3 she should be good. OH, the packet was damaged in shipping and is slightly torn open ("like a mouse nibbled at it") but not enough for papers to be removed/replaced so I guess is ok. I just told her to explain it was torn in shipping. She did say she was able to see enough that the GNI-2 was at the top and the 2nd page was folded to the front which was the page she circled YES to the ineligibilities!! She was wondering if they are cueing the CBP officer to ask about them? I just told her to explain it was because at the time of the interview she had not completed the J1 HRR and because she was CCP, both issues have been cleared of course. Most important, just tell the TRUTH to any questions, but I explained this is not an interview, it shouldn't be 20 questions again. She also needed to be told about the pulling of the bags and rechecking the bags. I also told her to expect a full search of her stuff since she is immigrating. I always get waved by but I see those Chinese with all the big bags being examined carefully! She has a 2.5 hr layover so if the plane comes in on time and doesn't coincide with too many other flights she should make her connection. Unfortunately UA - Beijing and ANA - Tokyo and others come in at about the same time.

Really? It was offered to him and what did he do? Not look at it, or look at it and see some problem with it? Sounds like you need to prepare a formal response, explaining the sponsor, including the I-134s again, detailing more the EOR, and certainly documenting how the trips were paid for. If they were paid for from the Chinese side then yeah that's gonna be trouble.

We chose to do the vaccinations in the U.S. so she can do it under my med insurance after she is married. Starting next year I don't even have to pay a co-pay (new healthcare law did this)! So will wait until Jan. 1. (cheapskates, I know... )

Heh... I am going to teach her how to make an authentic turkey dinner! But last time my boys hardly touched the turkey and she said she only likes dark meat... me too... so she asked why we had to cook the WHOLE turkey? Lets just buy some legs and stuff... but I like the giblets too and with all the whole turkey sales might as well cook the whole thing I guess! Besides, theres nothing like the smell of the turkey cooking all morning while watching the parade!! Had fun today booking our honeymoon in Hawaii in late march! In half an hour I have to call her to give her her final briefing on POE! She's been through SFO immigration a few times so no problemo but its her first connection by herself there. I won't be able to meet her down there this time.

Another point to stress is to really educate the interviewee ahead of time about what she has with her and what might be asked for and to absolutely make sure she walks away from that window understanding the issues and what is needed and being sure she doesn't have what they need right there. I know that is a tall order but that should be the goal. I see so many interviews here where the VO assumes the interviewee has nothing prepared and doesn't ask for something but just gives a blue with the assumption they don't have it. This happened to us with CCP when the VO immediately said "well, unfortunately you will have to..." and my gal immediately whipped out the CCP response letter she had prepared and that chopped one month off the process in those 2 seconds. That was direct advice from mamabear here over 2 years ago that was extremely useful. So it was good you had the Ex covered in the EOR but it sounds like your gal wasn't really aware that she had that information so it could be immediately provided. You said he didn't look at it, but did she offer it and he explicitly refused? I can understand if she didn't really understand all that was going on, they try and make the interview very quick.

The ordeal is over. She has her visa and all checks out! She will leave for the U.S. in 48 hours. Talking about calling it close...! Free drinks at the hotel bar tonight I hear! I'm on my way! Oh... strange thing! Visa issue is 11/16/10 but expiration is 12/17/10!! That is one day after the med exam expiration that was put on the call-in letter but that is only 6 months from med exam! Lucky for us it won't be a problem but that does not bode well for hugazebra's plans I am afraid??

Update: She called and was told it should be at her local post office in a couple hours... the moment of truth beckons...

EMS has us confounded. Its been 26 hrs since the package left GUZ for Shanghai with no tracking updates. No confirmation of arrival in Shanghai. I am guessing maybe it went ground and is still on a truck somewhere in a traffic jam, hence would explain no scans. The call-in letter came in by air. I'm wondering if the package went "parcel post" rather than "first class mail"? Either that or the plane went down somewhere but I don't see anything in the news EMS seems to know nothing more than the tracking indicates and she can't call directly into these distribution centers... not that they would know anyway... will see if it shows up in Shanghai somewhere in the next few hours...? Of course we have seen stories here of no tracking updates and people found it at the P.O. waiting for them, so she plans to pay another visit there this morning and see if they can find it....

I'm setting up for this and I called a few civil surgeons. One no longer was doing it, another didn't seem to have it all straight... she insisted on a full medical and gave me a slightly different list of needed vaccines then I think are needed. She asked for things like syphillis vaccine etc... ?! NEXT! I plan on getting the vaccinations done by my doctor, bringing the documented list of what is needed, and then having it covered through insurance. Then I saw in the recommendations here of a good one about 40 mins away that is probably worth the drive. Will just do the paperwork for a small fee.

The assumption in this case is guilty until proven innocent, so the burden of proof falls on her to show, beyond a reasonable doubt, she will return. ... and as they imply, they don't think there is much proof you can draw upon to show that other than "I promise...". I wish they were treated innocent until proven guilty, consistent with the American values that went into the Constitution, but heck, that was a long time ago, in a different time, when we wanted immigrants ... pfft.

Thats what we did, we left me out of the discussion entirely, including at POE. She was visiting for tourism during her breaks at the university. She got letters from the university supporting this but they were never asked for. We were smart and renewed her B visa right before I filed the I-129F but even after filing she had no problems at POE. Of course the major factor was her previous J1 that gave her a prior good record. I imagine what would happen if she were denied now and we tried to renew her B visa. She would probably be shut down for good! As a backup I considered getting her a visa to Canada, getting her an apartment, and periodically visiting her there. She did apply for a transit visa through Canada and got it but had to go through the same forms and application procedure as for a visitor visa including getting a letter from the university. I wonder with the succesful transit visa in her record if that would ease a visitor visa there. On a side note, the immigration process to Canada is very different with a point scoring system based on education, skills, and cultural assimilation that qualify you for immigration! So they are happy to bring people in who will enhance their society Note that knowing English is a major requirement (and you take a test) but knowing French too is a big point gainer as well.

Called DoS. They were a little obtuse but sounds good. They said AP was completed and that it was probably issued. So I mentioned the package shipped and if that was the visa and they said "it could be...". So sounds like it is but she couldn't be the one to say. Now we just hope overnight the package finds itself out of the Shanghai mail mess. We figure its at the distribution center and will make its way to her local P.O. overnight.

Sigh... it left GZ on the way to Shanghai at 3am but then went into a black hole. No tracking after that, all day. She tried calling her local Shanghai post office and they would not answer the phone so she went out there to find a huge mess and chaos at the post office, they were letting the phones ring. They said if she doesn't see it in the tracking they don't have it. So where is it? "Don't know..." so its somewhere between the plane and that office, probably trying to make it through the distribution system. She will have to try in the morning or it may make it into the morning delivery for the university which is its ultimate destination if she doesn't intercept it. I will try calling DOS again this morning and hope they have good news but will try not to panic if they still say AP! Tracking: 2010-11-16 18:20:00 广州市邮政局骏源支局 收寄 2010-11-17 03:42:00 广州市 离开处理中心,发往上海市 One thing she noticed is that the package went to a different GUZ post office than her call in letter went. Also I have been noticing that it appears the letters go out at about 10am and the visa packages about 6pm when I look at others tracking results they have posted here. Its also taking a slower route than the call in letter did, hopefully that's because it is heavier

I called DoS and they say the visa has NOT been issued yet. I am staying calm though because this did happen to one of the other people in our situation. They called and DoS still said AP but the package was in the mail and they got the visa. It may be that the system in the states gets refreshed from a nightly batch from the system in China and not real-time. Govt systems typically work on batch mode, especially from overseas. Posted by freedream (same situation 2 years ago): Posted 21 November 2008 - 02:23 AM I called DOS this morning (US time) and they said, "still administrative review" ? (i've heard processing but -- whatever...maybe it's the same thing?) Maybe their systems are not in sync with real-time in GUZ? Because even if it had been a denial and I called after the package left GUZ last night US time, and assuming the systems were in sync with each other...that DOS would reflect "visa denial"...or something....but it didn't...oh gosh...driving myself crazy here! Then tonight (US time) got a wierd feeling to check the EMS tracking #. Sure enough...it is on the move "your item was collected (city of Guangzhou) yesterday 6p.m. china time). ------ Posted 21 November 2008 - 09:15 AM Called DOS this morning: VISA ISSUED!!!! Explains why EMS package is on the move! --------

Package has shipped! Let's hope its a visa! Good timing too since tomorrow AM she is shipping most of her worldly posessions off to her brother in Zhengzhou. We are hoping the package overnights to Shanghai and she can pick it up in the AM. The call back letter made it overnight. Then she has to cancel her utilities and pay her back rent!

... and note callbacks are only taken on Mon-Wed afternoons. The 2 day required in-person return they don't tell you about is done on Wed-Fri afternoons.

Yeah, we have the tracking number... we keep hammering on the EMS site I made sure to tell her to write it down off the label before she left, a useful CFL tip! The plan is to keep doing the EMS thing until Friday AM in the U.S.. If we see no activity I will call DOS again and then email GUZ again since they said to write in two weeks if we don't get it. That is very hopeful that they actually gave us a timeframe. That is very unusual. I hope it will be this week, all indications are it will but you can't count on anything with them in the end. By the end of the week she will be living in her empty apartment. She still needs to cut off internet and power. If they cut the visa on Friday, it gets very dicey since she will try and pick it up at the P.O. on Saturday AM on the way to the airport! Crazy stuff... She also needs to visa to get her housing insurance refund to the order of 15,000 RMB, otherwise she has to wait until she comes back after she gets her green card! She told me she owes about 6 months back rent and needs this money to pay that bill! I may have to wire her some money to cover these bills she can't pay until she gets the visa. Lots of complications that are starting to compound... I know, I know, don't count on anything until you have the visa, but heck with a 99% chance of getting the visa within 2 weeks you think you could count on that.

Thankfully, she lives in Shanghai and is having the passport sent to her so she didn't plan on staying in GUZ but we were COMPLETELY surprised that a call-in requires a 3 business day stay! Not even here did I read anything about this and of course the call-in letter does not tell you this. At least she didn't get stuck there like some other people here reported. Now, this all makes it very hard to plan our wedding. If we don't get the visa by next week we will have to cancel our wedding plans and start all over. With a K1 you are only given a 90 day window to marry despite being given a 6-36+ month window of uncertainty of when you get the visa. So of course it is impossible to plan a decent wedding, you have to get married when the government tells you you can.... when you have permission. Also, there are significant tax advantages to us getting married before the end of the year, so again, we have to follow government wisdom on when we get married.... nice... They jacked up our fees well after we filed and took their sweet time to give us the privilege of paying more for the interview and AOS, thanks again government. I have little to complain about compared with the poor souls here waiting years just to be with their spouse, but we have an open and shut case and its still a 14 month process. We are hoping if the last email is true we will get the visa this week, we can only hope. She has quit her tenured position at the university, packed up and given away most of her posessions and paid back almost all of her money to her government run institution. The least the U.S. could do is grant itself +1 PhD and China -1. It's well in the U.S. interest to let this one in.

Time to start a new thread on this as the subject as changed from interview details to agonizing wait... Pink was received 10/27 after call back from blue resolve. Two and a half weeks from the pink and no visa or indication from EMS it went out. At the beginning of the week we got an email response from my query to essentially give it up to 2 more weeks, so we have one more week before that window expires. I have done a lot of research here on cases like this and this is now one of the longest post-Pink delays in the past 2 years here. There was one "freedream" who had a 6 week delay exactly two years ago. I also looked into blue after pink situations. There were a couple but they were either clear blue situations but one was a "just need more time" blue... thats scary. There are rumors of white after pink but I couldn't find any specifics on that. All indications are the visa will be issued, even the email sought to calm us down on that. Only think I can think is another name check due to her visits to the U.S. since whenever the first one was done. Thats fine, I'm ok with that, but why does it have to take so long? In this computer age it should be able to be done in a matter of seconds! I called DOS earlier this week and after doing some research they came back and said "didn't you get an email?" "didn't that answer your question?" ... "(no, but whatever...)". So our email communication was logged in the case. Only one holiday so far in this period that added to the delay and hopefully this will get done by Thanksgiving. Her flight is this Saturday the 20th and we could stretch it into next week but it will be getting dicey and of course another holiday to slow things up. She would miss Thanksgiving. Any longer than that and we will have to postpone and reschedule our wedding. Gotta hate the moronic government. Looks like we drew the short straw on this one as others continue to get their visas in 2-3 days around us...

They generally assume all CCP members are Ok to admit but all must go through the Security Advisory Opinion which is a more involved name check in the U.S.. The assumption is that they need to be checked a little more carefully in case they have been up to some special activities. Its not the waiver. If they were then denied, they are able to file for a waiver (I-601). The idiocy is how long the check takes! In this computer age, it should take all of a second or two!

No worries... med exam is good for one year. The expiration on the call back letter is the date you need to get your visa by (6 months from med exam) and they want you in one month before that to make sure there is time to process the visa so they can put in the full 6 months. I suggest going ASAP and gettingt he visa which will get the full 6 months as of now, plenty of time to bridge CNY. Same with the background check. That is the date that you need to get the visa by. Unless, like in our likely situation, travel to the U.S. occurred since last background check and it needs to be redone.

... I bet they are doing another name check because she had U.S. visits since the last name check. That would explain it all, probably standard operating procedure to make sure no new arrests in the U.S. since last check.

Crazy stuff... might also explain some of the random extra delays after pinks recently. If any of these crooked VO's "touched" a case, they may need to require extra review! ... and of course GUZ would be tight lipped to the reason...

Another two days down, another two days in AP purgatory... no progress. Veteran's Day coming up so another day of no-ops guaranteed. When my fiancee submitted her resignation to her university (yes, we are going out on a limb but its ok, she doesn't really need to work if we suffer months of additional delay for some reason, we have backup plans), they thanked her for her work and gave her a bill for 24,000 RMB to break her contract!!!! At first it sounded like extortion but I had her make sure she reads her contract to see what they are getting at. Turns out she was given upfront money for research work and establishing housing which she has to pay back if she leaves before 3 and 5 yr dates. So, I guess it makes sense... of course I had to ask if she still HAD that money? haha... luckily she does, but not much more! She also is eligible to get some kind of refund on "housing insurance" to the tune of about 15,000 RMB, so not too bad. She is also looking into the SS/pension cash out which I saw mentioned here...

Good to know! I WISH they would make a notice and add to the call-in letters that people arriving to submit their passport and/or documents in response to the call-in letter will need to return 2 business days later in order to receive the results of the adjudication of their case. [... and then possibly be subjected to weeks of additional AP :S ! ]