keelec

www.onesuite.com and www.bigzoo.com are consistantly are rated highly. They do have minimal maintenance fees, (Bigzoo is 75 cents / month, I assume that Onesuite is similar). You pay in advance by credit cards and they just add it to your account indefinately. Bigzoo - 2.3 cents a minute - local access 3.9 cents a minute - 1-800 access Onesuite - 2.4 cents a minute - local access 4.0 cents a minute - 1-800 access One of the services is supposed to allow a call to be initiated via internet/computers to allow someone living internationally to initiate the call.

Mari, For those of us that have waited a little longer, a month or two at the beginning just doesn't seem that long anymore. But, I remember when I first applied. The receipt said "70 - 100 days". Three months seemed like an eternity at the time. Then when the wait time was revised to be 150 to 180 days, I was extremely upset.... Well, that 100 days passed over a year ago now..... And, still we wait. But, I will never put down those that get their visas in 6 months.... That wait is VERY REAL to those couples. ----- Clifford -----

Dave, By filing in Texas, expect about 2 years for the I-130/CR1 to complete. Your I-129 / K3 should be finished somewhere around 9 - 11 months after you started (assuming all goes reasonably well). ---- Clifford -----

CR1 is what you will get when the I-130 is finished. K3 is what you will get when the I-129F is finished. Where did you send the I-130? Yes, the K3 automatically gives her a multiple entry visa. There may be some other minor differences between the K3 and K1 (other than being married). ----- Clifford ------

Oh, Dave, Reading your other posts..... You are already married. You only have a couple of options.... -- NO K1 (this is only for unmarried couples). -- K3 - this is the equivalent of a K1, but for married couples. It gives your wife a "nonimmigrant visa" which must be changed with the Adjustment of Status process. -- CR1 - This gives your wife an immigrant visa. It is very slow if processed through Nebraska, Texas, or California (approx 2 years). It is reasonably fast if processed through Vermont. -- Direct Consular Filing (of CR1?). This can be extremely fast (relatively speaking). However, GZ will only allow you to do it if you meet certain condititions including a work visa in China. -- I think there were other options available depending on how long you have been married. (2 years?). One final note (doesn't really apply in your case). You should have a K3 interview in the country where you have gotten married. Hong Kong is MUCH faster with their paperwork than GZ. But, you must be reasonably certain that your wife will be able to return to Hong Kong to do the interview. ----- Clifford ------

Dave, From observing timelines, I haven't seen a great difference between the K1 and K3 applications. Although a couple of notes include: One of the biggest differences you will encounter is the speed of the various Visa Service Centers: Vermont Service Center (K1, CR1) ---- Fastest Missouri Service Center (K3) --- Halfway between Vermont and the rest. California, Texas, Nebraska (K1) ---- Distant tie for 3rd.... Very slow with CR1. If you are from the Northeast, or somewhere that can send the application to Vermont, K1 is definately faster. However, those from the Northeast might also consider just doing a straight CR1 without the K3 (probably taking an extra few months). You should carefully analyse timelines if you want this option. Everyone else may find it slightly faster for a K3 as I believe the Missouri Service Center may be a bit faster than the other ones. However, applicants typically loose a month or so between submitting the I-130 and the I-129 so perhaps the difference is a wash. A couple of other things to consider would be the differences in fees (which have just gone up) and a few other details. K3 gives your wife a multiple entry visa. K1 is a single entry visa. Generally applicants must apply for Advanced Parole if they plan on returning for a visit to China. The ability to travel without AP could be as long as 2 years. I haven't tried to make a side-by-side fee comparison, but I believe that K3 may be somewhat cheaper than K1. And, for those from the Northeast, going straight CR1 might save a lot of money and aggrivation. Ummm, another economic issue.... If you go K3, you can deduct your wife on your taxes (2004). I am not sure about actually deducting her vs filing "married filing jointly". With a K1 fiancee application, that is not an option until you actually get married (likely in 2005, but could be as late as 2006). That minor detail would have saved me on the order of $3,000 this spring. ------------ Now, putting all of the time and economic details aside, you and your fiancee have to decide what is appropriate for you. I felt that it would be appropriate for Irina to come to the USA, meet my family, and for us to live together here for a while before marriage. Other couples feel it is best to start with a firm committment early. Other couples start working on "munchkins" early.... Good Luck, and I wish you a speedy process, Clifford

Welcome Back, Carl.... A couple more days of frantic house cleaning and you will have the mop pulled out of your hands I am glad your trip went well, and the visit to GZ was successful, if not quite as quick as you might have hoped. Best Wishes, Clifford

Welcome David & LiuXia's Husband (hmmm, what is YOUR name?) Anyway, hopefully we can provide the two of you with friendship and support throughout this lengthy process. I am not quite sure what would have happened to me had I not found the Candle.... I definately would have had a lot more time on my hands But it has been a wonderful support group. And, I am not sure if I would have made it through these last 8 months of waiting without the friends that I have met here. Many people have given me lots of suggestions to try to help out my case. When one is STUCK, a little glimmer of hope of someone to talk about the case with helps a LOT. Even some of the Jokes and political discussions have been good, as well as being a welcome distraction from the immigration issues. Yes, you will see a variety of time-lines. You will see the the majority seem to be finishing up somewhere between 6 months and 1 year. Then you will find a few (mine included) that seem to have gotten stuck somewhere along the way. Perhaps most people hit a little bump somewhere in the process. Some people's bump wastes an additional month or two of an already lengthy process. For some of us, the bump is just a bit bigger. So far, I don't think anybody here has had their application completely rejected.... Just wait long enough and it will eventually come through. ----- Clifford ------

Blue, I am glad things are seeming to be better for you. The transition period as you and your fiance begin to live together can be very difficult indeed and it requires a tremendous amount of understanding and compassion on the parts of both people. I wish the best for both of you, Clifford

Mari, The NOA2 notice will show up on the BCIS website the day it is completed. However, the written notice will be at least a week later. I doubt that your case would be clear from NVC at that time, but they should have received it, and would be processing it. The NVC has sped up significantly for most couples recently, generally taking a couple of weeks for processing. ----- Clifford -----

Dave, Do not play the "What If" game... It will tear you apart. As far as I can tell, these "namechecks" can be very random. Consider Patrick and Li.... They got a second name check done because multiple people showed up the same day with similar names. From what I can see, the effort that the USA is spending on "false alarms" is way out of proportion to the actual risk to the country. Obviously if the USA deports a person for some extreme reason, we don't want to turn around and give that person a visa again. But, these excessive delays are ridiculous. I wonder if the FBI keeps fingerprints in their files... All they would have to do is compare our fiancee's fingerprints with their files to get get a positive or negative ID match..... Oh, they have never bothered to ask for the fingerprints yet.... They haven't even asked for our fiancee's police records yet..... I am glad our government designs everything around playing with a half deck of cards. :P It has been nearly 3 weeks since I left the voicemail for the FBI, and over 2 weeks since the fax.... Nothing from the FBI. Have you had any luck? ----- Clifford -----

Mari, I hadn't found the "now processing" page at BCIS. I went by the 70 to 90 days on my reciept from NVC (wasn't BCIS then). At about day 100, I found the BCIS site, and was quite upset when the estimate had been modified to double the wait (150 to 180 days). True to their word, we got our RFE at under 180 days, and the "approval" after about 6.5 months. Now, over year later, I can look back and just about laugh about my earlier impatience...... The only thing I have left to look at is the Moscow interview schedule. I still look at it a couple of times a week just to see if our case number has magically appeared. And, every month or so, I download the schedule into Excel, and calcuate where I am on the list. Currently I am down into the bottom 2.5% of the K1/K3 cases scheduled for an interview, and that is not a distinction that I like.... But, I still must laugh at this foolish system periodically.

Of course, secretaries do that all the time for their bosses (without tons of paperwork authorizing it). They are supposed to initial it, but that doesn't always happen. I have a letter (almost) "hand signed" by Senator Kit Bond And, well, my boss decided that putting his John Henry onto stuff would take him away from his Solitare so he had two rubber stamps made with his signature, one at the front desk, one in his office. ----- Clifford -----

Mark, Sorry I didn't do the K3.... I assume you are talking about the I-129F..... I assume that many people do both the I-130 and the I-129F at the same time. If it asks for a reciept number, then that is the only thing you would have to wait for before filing the second form. Why can't you use a copy of her G-325A? The INS has the original anyway. The thing is.... If we ever had to do this again, we would all be experts with the system..... In a sense, we are alll "newbies" here Good Luck, Clifford

Of course, that is done very frequently in cases of the elderly, or perhaps also accident victims.... Yep, it may happen to many of us that marry wives 20 years younger than ourselves. I don't know what the process is for assuming "Power of Attorney" is though. It may involve official court documents and a doctor's statement. And, of course, there is the question whether a person can assume power of attorney over another without their consent (again a major issue with the sick and elderly). Thank God, most of our fiancees and wives are healthy and can sign their own stuff. ---- Clifford -----

Mark, As an "armchair" lawyer..... I would vote for just having one's wife or fiancee sign the forms. Yes, it can cause an extra delay for sending the forms back and forth, but I am sure it is worth it. The INS can be very picky about little things. You can print most PDF forms to PDF995 (and thus preserve any data that you entered).... Then e-mail it. If the form is protected and you can't get it to save and print back to PDF with "newer" versions of Acrobat, try version 4. I had worked on converting some of the forms to MS word, and got to about 95% complete before I got burried with other stuff. Anyway, you should be able to transfer "soft" copies of the forms to China, and just ask for originals to be sent back. I don't know about faxed or scanned copies. A good (blue) scanned image of a signature printed back out on a good color laser printer can be awfully difficult to distinguish from an original. But, then that would be a different discussion. ----- Clifford ------

Wait until everyone gets back from vacation next week and we will scour the boards to see if anybody has gotten a P3 or P4. Everything that I have read indicates that they are supposed to continue scheduling K1-K4 interviews. One or a combination of several things is likely to happen: 1) No tourist/business visas will be scheduled, and they will divert more resources to K1-K4, V1-V4, CR1, and etc visas. Thus you will see a benefit. 2) They will divert resources that normally would be used for K1-K4 and use them for returning to the old method of scheduling interviews, thus there may be a brief slowdown. 3) They will reopen the call center ASAP. Have a little patience. I know firsthand that it is difficult to do when you are nearing the end. Yet, I have thought that I was "nearing the end" for nearly a year now. ----- Clifford -----

I think the video was moved due to heavy downloads and limited bandwidth. Try this chain: http://candleforlove.com/forums/index....t=ST&f=1&t=5164 The video is now located here: http://www.k1k3.com/resources.php

Negotiated Compensation???? WOW!!!!! I guess Emilian's situation was a bit different than some in that she had bought her own plane tickets, but that is a lot to expect from him. I thought she had gotten married in the USA, perhaps it was later. Now, I am more confused than ever. It sounds like some Chinese women treat marriages and relationships like contracts. Yet, earlier, I distinctly remeber a discussion on pre-nuptial agreements where the biggest complaint was that it was like treating the relationship like a contract????? ----- Clifford -----

Welcome Jay, Best of luck for a speedy and successful interview. Yep, that sounds like what I have heard in the past. Actually, you will probably be somewhere on the low end of the scale (around 60 days). It takes about 1 week for the applications to get to China. However, they have some customs and other paperwork to go through before they can be picked up by the consulate. Then, the consulate infrequently picks up the applications. Thus, it seems to take between about 2 weeks and 40 days or so just to get everything to the GZ consulate. Once at the consulate, they won't admit having it until after they open the box of applications and enter them into the computer. The P3 packet normally comes shortly after that. Recently, the consulate has been getting a bit faster and more efficient at sending out the P3 packets (couple of weeks after the applications are delivered, I think). Here are a couple of notes that were posted a while ago. I don't know how accurate they are: Don's Notes on GZ Procedures: http://candleforlove.com/forums/index....t=ST&f=1&t=3935 Dan's Description, DHL Packages NVC to GZ http://candleforlove.com/forums/index....t=ST&f=1&t=4114 Good Luck, Clifford

Mick.... I am not ready to hear about more INS joys :angry: Do you mean that one has to pay an extra $120 just because the INS is slow with their paperwork.... what a racket Just like AP would be totally unnecessary if the INS could just get their act together And, of course, with refiling comes more paperwork to slow down a system that is already runnng at a snails pace

Just curious, There are some Chinese who actually get visas to come to the USA (or other countries) for school or tourism. How do they pay for things? For example, a couple of weeks vacation in the USA could run a few thousand dollars which would need to be converted to US Dollars before coming (or on credit). What about international trade? Purchaing US food or other products?

Yep, that was it....I couldn't paste Chinese characters into Yahoo, but could on MSN. So when is Altavista / Babblefish coming out with a messenger service? Hmmmm, I was trying to think of a good internet business..... I wonder if one could get people who would be willing to pay $5 / month or so for online translations including chat and e-mail capabilities. Of course, trying to build in a key that would be difficult for people to hack with minimal overhead at the host site. Hmmm, perhaps it would be best to have a mono-lingual free client which is able to communicate with a translating paid client. Actually, I thought that Prompt (perhaps Russian only), had an e-mail client with translations, but I don't think they had a chat client. ----- Clifford ------

Of course, the last option would be to setup one's own mini-bank services. Say, someone on the Candle wants to send $200 to China. Have them instead send it to an account in the USA and forward the money in RMB in China.

Blue, I have been reading your discussing for a couple of days and trying to decide how to reply. If you read some of the discussions elsewhere on the Candle, you will see discussions about homesickness and integrating into American Society. http://candleforlove.com/forums/index....=ST&f=13&t=4943 I am now 38, looking forward to my first marriage. Yet, I know that I will have some tremendous adjustments ahead changing from living alone to living with someone else. It sounds like both you and your fiance have to learn to live with another person. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound as if your fiance has been very supportive of you. Unless you are misinterpreting his actions. Yes, the topic of housecleaning comes up quite frequently on the Candle. And, I think generally the women win the arguments in that area. Before heading back to China, you need to decide what you really want. Do you think your previous feelings for your fiance were real? Do you think they would ever come back? There are counseling, or arbitration resources that you could look into if you want to try to preserve what you have. Perhaps having the help of a 3rd party would help the two of you out. Oh, as far as friends... I would assume that both of you would eventually make friends outside of your relationship. Your fiance's online friend may be innocent, and nothing to worry about. However, it would not be healthy if he is spending every evening chatting with her and ignoring you. But, if the communication is not enough to subtract from doing stuff with you, then I would ignore it. ----- Clifford -----