king

On the subject of IMBRA in general, I recommend to all who have filed for marriage or fiancee visas on or after 3/6/06 read the law. It is quite specific about who/what an international marriage broker is. Your situation may not be covered that law, thus you would not need to file the information that law requires. Based on Stephen's information, I would say, if he was introduced by a mutual friend for no fee, IMBRA does not apply. I will try to check with GUZ to see what impact GUZ might predict on the RFE request. 224013[/snapback] Mr King, I think there are still several readings on what a marriage broker really is. Some say that a website like AsiaEuro is "not" a marriage broker. What is your opinion? 224023[/snapback] Just "King" is alright. Sorry I have not evaluated any of the sites that are available to get US men and foreign women together. In an excess of caution if I were advising a client I would tell him to give the information requested on the new I-129F, unless he says he does not want to. Then I would thoroughly check out the website he used to determine in my opinion if it was an international marriage broker.

On the subject of IMBRA in general, I recommend to all who have filed for marriage or fiancee visas on or after 3/6/06 read the law. It is quite specific about who/what an international marriage broker is. Your situation may not be covered that law, thus you would not need to file the information that law requires. Based on Stephen's information, I would say, if he was introduced by a mutual friend for no fee, IMBRA does not apply. I will try to check with GUZ to see what impact GUZ might predict on the RFE request.

From my experience TPC can be horrid situation. Not to be taken lightly, if you know of people who really gunning for the alien SO. One thought comes to mind, if it is true that GUZ monitors this site, the beans have been spilled. The suggest I have would be not to raise the issue with GUZ as has been advised already here, except if you know for a fact that someone has provided TPC to GUZ. Then I would go after that with inquiries to GUZ, but only then.

There is a law provision for spouses of petitioners, who have died, to try obtain an immigrant visa. INA Sec.201((2)(A)(i). There are some conditions for doing this. The most important one for this woman is that she had been married to the petitioner more than 2 years at the time of his death. The other two conditions do not apply to this woman at this time. If she is covered by the law, she can self-petition at the CIS in Guangzhou.

This ia an idea I am throwing out for the CFL to consider. It will probably only help the newer members or future members, but it might be something CFL can put its muscle into and get results. Recently I got word directly from the horse's mouth that GUZ has seen a grow in petitions sent it of 80% over last year with NO INCREASE IN STAFF. The thought is to have CFL spearhead a push with Congress and at DOS to increase funding at GUZ and getting more staff in hopes of meeting the demand of more petitions and improving the processing time.

Check the statute, INA Sec. 212(a)(3)(D) for the law regarding membership in the CPC. Generally a person who was a member must have resigned for 5 years before they will be considered ADMISSIBLE for immigration. An IMMIGRANT who was/is a party member is NOT INADMISSIBLE "...if membership was involuntary, ... by operation of law, or for the purpose of obtaining employment, food rations, or other essentials of living." There is a waiver available for close family members. I think you have a chance.

Thank you all for the votes of confidence. I had planned to continue with comments on Candle regardless of Mr. Dennis' comments. It is good to know, however, I have been helpful to many other members.

I am very angry about Jim Dennis’ comments about me posted here. He is a stranger to me that came to my office on his own accord after asking me for my business card. I spent 10-20 minutes with him answering his questions and then I asked him to talk with my assistant for more information about the process and fees. Then he left. He came back a day or so later with two other American guys with their SOs as they had questions about their situations and Mr. Dennis joined in that discussion. At no time has Mr. Dennis been a customer of the company I work for or of myself. Mr. Dennis paid no money for any time he spent with us, or for any information or suggestions he may have received nor was he asked for or expected to pay anything for the time he spent talking with us. Mr. Dennis is not my client. And has never been. Since I don’t take kindly to people insulting me and trying to impugn my reputation and lying about me, I will use this thread to defend myself and show Mr. Dennis off for what he is, mean individual. What Mr. Dennis has failed to tell you is that I have been a member in good standing of the Washington State Bar Association since 1967, never had any ethical or legal complaints filed against me with the Bar Association and as far as I know/remember, only one complaint about a fee issue. I have been a member of the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association since the 1990s with a break of several years when I first came to China in 1997. For many of the newer members and guests on this site who may know nothing about me I will tell a little of my story. I have been coming to Candle for almost 3 years. I found it about the time of the big “Black Hole” in 2003. I found a lot of information useful to my immigration law practice here in China from the people who were going through the travails of that time. There were many frustrated people using Candle, some because they did not know the system of immigration law and/or they did not know their way around the Consulate or the local DHS office and what was like to deal with dysfunctional bureaucratic agencies and of course, because of the Black Hole problems. At that time there were several outspoken members who did not like lawyers at all. In this situation I decided I could give back to this site and be a bit helpful with my knowledge of the consular visa processes. However, I saw two problems in trying to provide some help on Candle. One was not to irritate those members who disliked lawyers and/or get into verbal battles with them and the other problem was not to appear I was soliciting business from people on the site. I accomplished this to my satisfaction by letting the site operators know I was a lawyer and gain their acquiescence to provide comments on the site and choosing to use a pseudonym as a handle instead of my real name. (Actually, I don’t know what the big deal is with Mr. Dennis on using a handle instead of my real name as many, if not most, of the writers here use handles. I chose to use one so as NOT to publicize myself.) That I have remainder relatively anonymous has worked well as those who were really interested in talking with me could reach me privately through Candle’s PM, that is, until Mr. Dennis chose to blab my information all over the Net and Candle. The way Mr. Dennis has chosen to identify me and to comment about me is quite suspect, as if he had another agenda he is working on. Why does he take me to task for doing a legitimate business in a legitimate way? (He paid no fee for discussing his case and concerns with me, and then my assistant, for about an hour.) Neither he nor his wife was threatened, lied to or manipulated into signing any contract. If he didn’t like what he was told by me or my assistant, why did he chat with me on the street a day or two after he had been into my office twice and ask me more questions about his case? Why then in a two-faced manner has he falsely complained about my business practices in writing in public? What I think is that he has libeled me and is intentionally interfering with my business opportunities by posting his comments on this site. I ask why he was not big enough to come to me instead to discuss any problems he had with me, my assistant or with the business I work for? Mr. Dennis is wrong about our fee structure and motivations. We do not automatically charge a 20% non-refundable fee. We do charge a non-refundable fee upfront that is based on what we think about the difficulty of the case, which non-refundable portion of the fee works out to be usually to be less than 20%. We do not walk away from visa cases as Mr. Dennis has suggested when they are difficult. The services and conditions of our undertaking are all explained upfront to the potential customers before they sign a contract. Mr. Dennis said in his message, “Also if there is anything wrong with the documents he walks with the down.” Actually that is a lie. We do tell potential customers that we will not use fake documents on their behalf and they will have a chance to replace fake documents with true ones before we submit them, but if they do not want to take corrective action we will withdraw from the case. There could be other things wrong with a document besides being false. In those cases, we work with the customer to correct mistakes and errors and don’t just “take the money and run.” If Mr. Dennis did not like that message, why is he complaining about an honest and necessary position on my part? (I assure you it is necessary for me to maintain my ability to effectively representation customers at GUZ to maintain a good working relationship with the Consulate visa section.) Mr. Dennis paid nothing; we did not agree to do anything for him or his wife. What is his problem I ask myself? I didn’t know this guy from Adam, but I think he is trying to take his problems out on me at the least. No way you horse’s ass! If you have something to say about me come to say it to my face. An explanation of all the trivial points Mr. Dennis makes to imply what I and the company do is somehow devious, unethical, cheating or worse, follows: 1. I do not find it useful to be listed with the Consulate as a lawyer. I am registered as a U.S. citizen with the Consulate. Most of the customers we have are Chinese mainlanders who probably would not be able to get that information from the Consulate anyway. The company I work for is a Chinese corporation licensed by the Gong An Bu, the National Police Bureau in Beijing, and is licensed also by the Provincial government Industrial and Commercial Bureau. It had to deposit 1,000,000.00RMB with a government agency in the licensing process to be maintained as a kind of trust fund for any company consumers who claim and establish they have been improperly treated under laws and regulations for consulting companies. 2. I practiced law in the King County, WA area for 30 some years. Only in my early years in practice was I involved in appealing cases to the Washington Supreme Court. BTW we won the case Mr. Dennis mentions. Over the years I made court appearances and tried cases, but most of my practice was an office type practice that would leave little public trail. 3. The policy of the company is to have the contract with the beneficiary/applicant as they are here in China, are virtually all Chinese citizens (99%,) don’t read English and it is short by preference, just to say the essentials. 4. We do not give up on a case because some documents are defective or there are mistakes on the application. We will quit a case if we think the customer is misrepresenting information to the Consulate or us and won’t come clean with us. So Mr. Dennis’ statement “… and will see it thru to the end as long as none of the documents are defective or we have made no mistakes on the application” is a fabrication. 5. “He walks with the down.” This galls me. The Mr. Dennis misrepresents the company’s policy and actions. Only if a customers misleads us with false documents or false statements (they would have been warned of the consequences) would we turn a case back to a customer and keep part or all of the down payment depending on how much work we had performed and how egregious their misrepresentations were. 6. No lawyer can perform miracles, but we do help people because they cannot help themselves adequately. And yes in most instances I believe I could get the Consulate to respond better to me than Mr. Dennis could. 7. “Two of them had spent a great deal of money on lawyers….” Those two guys, whoever they may have been, were not our customers. 8. In the matter of trust, it is a two way street. I don’t take marriage or fiancé cases if I don’t trust there is a bona fide relationship. I won’t represent a case when I know there are fake documents or misrepresentations. I trust facts, not a customer’s tears or emotions. I do sympathize with potential customers wanting to go to America; they all have their needs or desires to go, but I won’t violate my obligations to follow the US immigration laws. 9. The quote is from Mr. Dennis: “At worst it is ‘King’ or some one like him setting up people to make mistakes so they can ‘help’ fix them.” This is a complete fabrication and is unfounded on Mr. Dennis’ part. And it is detrimental and injurious to my business and law practice. There is enough false and idiotic bashing here by Mr. Dennis to make me wonder why he is trying to harm me. All that I will say at this point is that it will not continue without consequences. No waiver of any tort is made or implied.

Make that: Dear Judge XXXX:

You might want to do it this way: Honorable XXX X. XXXX, Judge XXXXX Court Dear Judge:

Just this week the IV unit changed the rules about making inquiries via email for case information. Basically, for inquiries about a case before the interview has been done, you need to call the US Visa Information Center in Shanghai. Check the Web page for the Consulate for particulars, such as the telephone number, hours, etc., and it costs to make the call. Inquiries made after the interview are to be done by the email system.

Look in the Chinese passport, it should have an expiration date printed in it. I just did and the validity period was for 5 years.

The first question is where do you live? If you are a resident of China, I think you can file in China. Go to a local Chinese lawyer to see about that. If you have domicile/residence in one of the States of the US, you should be able to file in that state or if your wife she is a resident of California she can file there.

This is a heads up for all of you that might have to deal with the possibility of have your SO's visa application refused and having to provide additional evidence, known as the "overcome" process. As of September 15, 2005, a new "overcome" procedure will be in effect. To submit "overcome" documents the applicant will need to make a telephone appointment, at a cost, to get a time and date to submit the additional evidence. At this time, there has been no more info from the IV unit on this that I am aware of. I do not know yet how far forward the appointments will be set. I will update this thread as the situation develops. Today, I understand 9 American guys were here for their SOs' interviews. All passed.

I suggest you be very cautious about the CCP membership. It should not be taken lightly. I have had customers who tried to explain that they joined the CCP for better living standards (jobs), but still were refused. Then they are left with the prospect of applying for a waiver from DOJ or waiting years. I can't give any specifc advice to you, but research the legal issue and prepare appropriate information to meet the challenge if required. I would suggest not volunteering anything, wait until asked. Be truthful on the documents submitted.