Dan de mingzi

Yep, that's what I was talking about. The bastards are targeting Iraqis for mass murder. That's really scary; keep your head up and stay safe. Best of luck.

Wait, I thought "short bus" had a totally different connotation?

Is having good English a help or a hindrance? More likely to go back if doesn't have good English versus inability to fend for herself in a strange country due to same? Interesting point about going somewhere else first and showing she returned -- does anyone have any experience with this? Interesting question about speaking English being a possible hindrance; I've never thought of it that way. There's probably no official rule at the consulate about being easier to get a visa if the person's English is good, but there might rightly or wrongly be a subconscious effect (i.e. a belief that good English = higher Education = wouldn't be likely to skip the visa to go work illegally in a Chinese restaurant in the US). Not agreeing with this thinking, but just a guess. As for the going somewhere else first, I am very confident that at least in our case my wife's time in Switzerland was helpful. She said the interviewer took one look at her Swiss visas and said "Oh, you were in Switzerland for three years?", and the interview was a piece of cake after that. I think it's just a matter of giving them evidence to show the person is not a flight risk.

Congratulations!!!!!

My wife also got a US tourist visa before we were married. And she didn't even have a job at the time. But she had spent three years going to university in Switzerland, which seemed to help a lot, and her English is very good. One longer-term option is to bring your gf to visit another developed country that has easier visa requirements. After she shows that she went there and did not violate any visa restrictions, and returned to China afterwards, that should make getting the US tourist visa easier.

I'm curious about these white books. Are they supposed to be the same size as the marriage certificates? My wife found a message on a chinese web site about someone who had to go back and have the translation redone because they weren't. I think Kyle gave some great info about where to get the books. I know different provinces in China operate differently (surprise, surprise); in our case, Jiangsu province, my wife's hometown was Yixing but the official office for foreigners to marry Chinese was in the nearby major city of Nanjing. The white books we received were A4 sized, with several pages in Chinese and several pages in English, including the notary stating that their translation was accurate. We ALSO received the Chinese marriage certificates; the small red books. Bring all these things to the consulate with you when you file.

Great; thanks!

Has anyone out there had to postpone their initial interview, and if so did they feel there was any negative consequences? We filed DCF in late October, sent P3 in November, so I'm guessing we'll get a January interview. However I'm back in the US now working, and since Jiao (my wife) has a tourist visa we are planning on her coming to the US for Christmas and staying for up to a month. So if we get an early January interview we are planning on asking for a postponement, which seems that it would put us into Feb or March interviews. A Feb or March interview is fine for us; she needs to go back to China anyway in order to get things ready for our April "wedding" (we are already married legally, but the family party/ceremony is in April). So for us we see no problem with postponing, but I see so many people here warning against it that I'm wondering if there have been any experiences that make it bad? Not just people worrying that it might look bad, I mean actual times when someone knows their visa chances were reduced because of a postponement? Thanks for any thoughts.

Quick question: my wife believes she read somewhere that she will need two copies of both of her police certificates (she has one from China and one from Switzerland). She thought she had to give one set to the doctor when getting her medical exam and another set to the consulate. I didn't think one was needed for the medical exam. Can anyone verify if police certificates are needed for the medical exam? Thanks!

Thanks Dan!

Ok, it's a longshot I admit, but just to make sure... My wife went to university in Switzerland for three years before returning to China. So she wasn't a "resident" per se, just there on a student visa. Form 169 says they need a police cert from any country they "resided" in for at least one year. So I suspect being there on a student visa still counts as "residing", but just to make sure: does anyone know if living in a foreign country on a student visa means you do NOT have to get a police cert from that country?

We sent in our P3 a few days ago, so I suppose there is a chance we might get a December interview, though with Christmas coming I'm guessing we may have to wait till early January. Which is unfortunate because I was hoping to get her to the US before Xmas, but them's the breaks.

We did the same thing; we'll be sending in the P3 tomorrow.

4/16/2014 - The information in this thread is about FILING an I-130 with the USCIS office in Guangzhou. The information is still current, except that the consulate has relocated to its new location in Zhujiang New Town, Tianhe District - RW I filed my I-130 at the Guangzhou consulate (DCF filing) last Friday, and wanted to describe the process/share what I learned for anyone who might be doing it there in the future. - Where/When: To file the I-130 in GZ you must file at the GZ consulate (5th floor, 136-142, Linhe Zhong Rd) during the public walk in hours; these are only on Fridays from 9am to 11am. Highly advised to arrive early; I got there at about 8:40am, and didn't complete the process until 10am. When I left there were still a good 12 people in line, and at the rate they were going there was no way they were going to finish them all by 11am. - Finding the office: It was shockingly difficult to find the actual USCIS office inside the GZ consulate. I had to ask three different people and was directed to three different locations before a security guard finally asked around and directed me and another person to the right place. To find it: at the top of the escalator to the 5th floor turn right towards the immigration area (not left towards the US citizen services area). You will go through security, after security turn left and enter the large room with several lines. In the far back corner on the right side there is a glass door; that is the USCIS office and the line formed on the seats outside the door. There is a little paper sign on the door that you can't read until you get close to it. - Residency: To prove Chinese residency, they required my Chinese residence permit (the visa sticker inside my passport). They did not require any other documents to prove this. - Address used: Since I was moving back to the US as soon as I filed, I listed my address as my wife's address, which happens to be in Wuxi, which is NOT in the Guangzhou consulate's area (would fall under Beijing). This caused a little confusion, but I explained I did live in Guangzhou but was leaving that address and thus wanted anything mailed to go to my wife's home. They accepted that explanation. - Original passports: I brought both my and my wife's original passports, and both of our marriage certificates (the little red books). They looked at both of them and verified the copies were legit before giving them back to me. So I believe in GZ it is required (or at least preferred) to bring originals of these docs. - Notarial marriage certificates/wife's birth certificate: When we got married at the "foreign marriage office" in Nanjing, they told us they dealt with the US consulate all the time and knew what papers they needed, and offered to prepare them for us for an extra 80RMB, which we gladly accepted. These were white books (A4 size), with the original document, translated copy, and a notary statement ensuring these were legit translations. These seemed to satisfy the GZ office, so I would recommend anyone order these if it is an option when you are married. - G235a: I downloaded what I think are the new (one page) version of this form, but they still required 4 copies of mine and my wife's. This wasn't a problem though since she made the copies for me at the consulate. - Required 2 pictures: probably goes without saying, but these are passport sized pics. Make sure they are the US sized passport pics; all countries don't use the same specs. - Pics to prove relationship: she said they didn't need these but I was welcome to turn them in if I liked. I did so; better safe than sorry. - Payment: after she verified all the documentation she sent me out to the payment window to pay my $355 fee. They payment window accepts US dollars, RMB, or US credit cards (will charge you in USD; a nice option!) That's it for now; hopefully this info helps out someone in the future going through the process. Feel free to send me any questions if desired.

I just filed the I-130 in Guangzhou (DCF) today. My understanding is that they definitely want to see a residence permit (they definitely looked at mine). Since most of the documentation says that, and the lady at the GZ consulate told you that, I expect it is likely what they want to see. However, if it is convenient for you to try, you could always try to file and see if they accept it. There's no penalty for trying, and you have to assemble the same paperwork anyway if you end up filing in the US. Not to be discouraging, but I think the odds of the local PSB "helping" you with anything are about slim to none. Getting the resident permit is a huge pain, and takes a long time, and can be rather expensive, and they do take it pretty seriously; I have never heard of them giving a quickie. In fact I would caution you about even going and asking them; technically it is not legal to work in China on an L visa, and going to them and admitting you have been doing so is inviting trouble.

Hi All, Just to finalize this topic (in case anyone is interested); I filed the I-130 in Guangzhou this morning. I will write up a separate post to describe the process since it might help others, but they did look at my wife's passport, so I'm glad I brought it. Perhaps they would have accepted the filing even without it, but I think it's better not to give them any reason to question you. Address: yes I put her address (and mine) as Wuxi. They asked about that, but I explained that I am leaving China next week and don't want them to mail anything to my Guangzhou address, so I didn't put one. She accepted that explanation. Also I used EMS to send her passport back to her; very easy to use. I have used them many times domestically with no problems; I was just nervous about sending a passport in the mail, esp cause this passport already has her US tourist visa in it and I don't want to have to go through the process of getting that again! Thanks

Don't want to worry you or anything, but FYI on the not filing taxes: I'm pretty sure receiving gift money is still considered income by the US gov, so they would still expect you to file your taxes. I don't know if USCIS and the IRS share information or anything, but just something to think about.

Thanks for all the replies; I will definitely bring her passport as it seems safer to have it rather than give them any reason to delay us. I'll just deal with mailing it back to her afterwards (makes me nervous it might get "lost"). BTW- yes, I definitely have tried to ask the GZ consulate this and other questions, but they haven't responded to my numerous emails and their phone number goes immediately to voice mail, which the recording then tells me is full so I can't leave a message, but they will transfer me to an attendent, then another message says the attendent feature is not implimented, and hangs up on me. Regarding filing location: her home is near Shanghai, but my resident permit is from Guangzhou, so I do need to file in the Guangzhou office. Thanks again.

Thanks for the replies. Yes, just filing the I-130 at this time. However my wife is now staying far away in Wuxi (near Shanghai), so if I need to show her passport I would need to bring it with me to Guangzhou and then mail it back to her after, since I will be returning to the US after filing the I-130. So it's MUCH easier for me if they don't need to see the original passport and will just accept copies for now (of course she will bring the original when she comes to GZ for the interview). It sounds like sometimes they need it and sometimes they don't...

Sorry if this is a repeat question, but I'm seeing conflicting information so I want to be sure. For anyone who filed DCF directly in Guangzhou, did you need to present the original of your wife's (Chinese citizen's) passport, or just a copy? Some sites, such as www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou/uscis/I130.html list a required document as "Beneficiary's Chinese passport" (in fact they list it twice!), while other sites mention bringing just a copy of the biographic page of the passport (but then in another line say something about bringing originals and copies together). So overall I'm totally confused; anyone done it before? Thanks.

I'm at a totally different stage (just turning in my DCF), but I also have been unable to get any response from the Guangzhou consulate via email or phone calls. At this point I have given up on talking to them.

At the bottom of the G-325A where it asks for Applicant's name/Alien registration number, what did you put on your (the US Citizen's) G-325A? Did you put your wife's name in that space or your own name? On my own G-325 I'm not clear who it is referring to by saying "Applicant"

Thanks everyone for the good information. I've spent a lot of time figuring out the DCF process and hate to change gears now to do US filing, so I think I'll stick with the DCF. I'll see if I can delay my flight back to the US somewhat, though I think my new job is starting to wonder why it is taking me so long to get started! I have had to delay several times already..... Squirty, just out of curiousity it seems you were able to EMS your materials to BJ for the DCF? Guangzhou requires me to physically come file in person; I guess it's just a policy difference between the two offices? Also, if I could trouble you (or any other DCFers) with a few more questions (this process seems to introduce an endless number of questions): 1- Passports: I have seen some websites saying bring both person's originals, or some saying just copies of the biographical pages, or some saying copies of all pages in the passport. What did you use to file? 2- Marriage certificate: Nanjing gave us some nice paper Notarial copies of the marriage certificate (for an extra 88 RMB) when we got married. But some consulate websites also ask for the "Registered" marriage certificate. Is this the little red cardboard marriage book? If so, did you need to turn in both of these red books (one for husband and one for wife) and also certified translations? Thanks!

Hi All, I am probably being paranoid, but just want to make sure I'm doing this right: I will be doing the DCF process and filing the I-130 on Friday the 23rd in Guangzhou, since I have a Guangzhou based resident permit. Almost immediately after filing, I will be moving back to the US to start a new job back there, and thus won't have a Chinese address anymore. My wife has a US tourist visa, so during the immigration process she will spend part of the time in China and part of it staying with me in the US. So my question is: The required I-130 and g-325a forms both ask for my current address; can I use a US address for this so that any forms sent to me will be sent to the US? If so will that cause problems because I am supposed to be resident in China to file DCF? Also, I will list my wife's current address as her family's address in China, and for any forms sent to her, her family can forward on to us in the US. Is that a workable plan, or am I inviting trouble? Thanks a lot for any thoughts.

Haha, I'd love to hear the story behind that warning! :-) {edit} Fixed broken quote tags.