SeanC

Thank you, especially Randy and Barfus, for your many replies to my questions and uncertainties throughout this process. I started on candle for love 23 months ago asking about the basics of getting the I-130 done to get my pregnant wife to the US, and now my family is finally here, arrived last week, my wife and 15 month old daughter. They are jet-lagged but happy. Still a lot to be done too... find a place to live, get social security numbers, get them enrolled for insurance. But that brutal parts are done. Thanks, candleforlove!

I arleady thought of this. I would be willing to pay 150 extra per bag, but the problem is that because of COVID, its looking like I cannot go to help my wife travel. She will be traveling alone with the baby, and she will not be able to handle extra luggage by herself. I understand on the stateside we can plan ahead for porters to help move luggage through US customers, but that Chinese airports do not offer this service.

Remarkably, I got an email today telling me the passport and visa packet have been mailed. It only took 3 days from the interview to complete processing. My wife will receive it on Monday. So now I have a decision to make... wait until the first week of July to travel, or bring her here around the end of this month and face paper work and additional fees two years from now. @Randy, what is a white book? We were married in Hong Kong, so thats the marriage cert we have. I don't know anything about a white book. Also, while I'm on here, I'd like to ask y'all how you ship all your belongings home. I have asked around a lot and friends of mine couldn't find a way that didn't cost thousands of dollars, so they only brought what they could fit in a few suit cases. Is there a reasonable way to ship 15-20 medium sized boxes, or just forget about it and buy new stuff?

GZ consulate has been pretty good through all this. The CRBA interview was scheduled quickly, the passport came back in less than 3 weeks (I waited longer than that for my own in the US recently), and the visa interview was scheduled at the earliest end of the time frame. So I think her visa will come soon.

The interview as a breeze, in fact. They asked her whether she had ever visited the US, what my job is, and why our daughter doesn't need a visa. She was approved, and now we just have to wait for her to receive her visa in the mail. So this is new to me... the length of marriage depends on how long we were married before she reaches port of entry, NOT on when she is awarded the visa? Are you saying I can avoid the $680 fee two years down the road for removal of conditions if I wait until our second anniversary? Because that will be in early July. I was expecting her to be able to come here by mid-June, but it might be worth saving that much money to wait a few weeks longer.

I'm so glad this hell is almost over. But really its not, its a CR-1 visa so there is still more to do until two years after she arrives. I mean, come on! But at least she and my kid will be here.

The consulate instructions tell me to "schedule my interview" at ustraveldocs.com. This is confusing, because my interview is already scheduled. I followed the prompts requesting my wife's passport info and mailing information to receive the passport after the interview. It gave me a confirmation page to print and take to the interview. But that's it. The dashboard doesn't show that anything has actually happened. Is this all I need to do at this affiliate's website?

How'd you know she will interview in Guangzhou? They scheduled my daughter's CRBA really fast. I heard back in a few days after my request, they scheduled it for the following week, and the passport and cert came two weeks later. Covid doesn't seem to have slowed it down much, but maybe that has changed since last summer. We shall see.

Update: Turns out there was nothing wrong with my DS-260 form, they said over the phone that it was just a strangely worded note that did not require any changes to the form. The only problem was that I was ineligible for the 864EZ form. I have no idea why, because I meet all the stated criteria, but I've filled out the long form and submitted it, so I hope I am on my way to scheduling an interview for my wife.

Thanks. I'm moving forward on the 864 long form, but it won't let me change anything on the DS-260, so I'm trying to contact them to get it changed. I'm probably not the only one that wishes they would state their questions more clearly.

Situation: My wife is a Chinese national living in China with our infant daughter, who last year received her CRBA cert and a US passport. My wife's I-130 was approved in September. I submitted all the visa application files yesterday. I received these notes from the NVC today (fast, right?): ------------------ Question 1: DS-260: The petition you have filed does not allow derivative status for family members. This means that any spouse, unmarried child under age 21, or parent will require his or her own petition to immigrate. This seems to imply that I should submit an I-130 for our daughter. But this doesn't make sense to me because she is a US citizen. The only thing I can guess triggered this response is that on the DS-260 application, where it asks whether our daughter will immigrate with her mother, I chose "Yes." I have tried to change it to "No," but it won't let me change the response now. I contacted the NVC to clarify the problem, but as of now, I am not certain, and don't know how to remedy it. ------------------ Question 2: I-864: Sean does not qualify to use Form I-864EZ. Please visit https://www.uscis.gov/i-864 to complete a Form I-864 to replace this. FINANCIAL SPONSORSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES: Financial sponsors, joint sponsors, and applicants should be aware of responsibilities when signing an I-864 and the consequences for a sponsored immigrant's acceptance of federal means-tested public benefits. For more information visit https://nvc.state.gov/aos. The review note says I am not eligible for the I-864EZ. However, from answering these three questions, the EZ form should be sufficient. The possible reasons for this rejection that I can guess may be the DS-260 answers detailed above, or possibly the way I answer the household question: I list a dependent with a household size of three, despite our daughter not technically being an immigrant. Maybe that is triggering the ineligibility? ------------------ I hope someone has some knowledge they can offer. Thank you very much.

I forgot to reply and say thank you for all the great advice. Some of these things I had already figured out, but y'all filled in some gaps in my understanding of this (kind of) complex issue. The only remaining issue for me is whether I can get stimulus checks for the two of them. Thank you again very much.

Apologies if this is too far off topic, but I thought it might be relevant to other users here. This is the first tax year I have had a child. My wife has not yet received her visa. My infant daughter has a US passport. Neither have a social security number or ITIN yet. Is it beneficial or even possible to file jointly? If I file individually, should I or am I able to claim my wife as a dependent? Am I able to claim my daughter as a dependent without a social security number? Thank you for any input from anyone who has experience with this.

How do you find all this stuff? I looked all over, including the State Department website and couldn't find this info. Drives me nuts. The DS-5507 form I already knew, but I searched for over an hour for what the Federal government standardizes for notarization and no clear info anywhere.

I won't be able to attend the CRBA interview. The instructions tell me to fill out a DS-5507 affidavit of physical presence, residence, parentage or support form. The snag i'm running into is that I can't find anything that tells me how and where to get it acceptably notarized. I'm not sure what the Guangzhou embassy wants. Please help!

Thanks a lot!

Thanks. I guess I don't totally understand the procedure though. I submitted the I-130 five months ago. Do I fill out just the section for children on a blank form and upload it to the USCIS site, or do I add the info to the file I already submitted and upload that? I've looked all over the USCIS and there is nothing that explains how to make an amendment or change information.

Quick questions I can't find clear answers to elsewhere: My baby was born in China earlier this month. I am in the US and cannot go to China. Question 1: To apply for the CRBA, are scanned/printed copies of physical presence acceptable, or do I need to mail university transcripts and other documents to my wife? Question 2: Do I need to amend or submit further documents to my wife's I-130 application regarding our child, or because the baby will have a US passport is further documentation unnecessary? Thank you for any clarification the forum may provide.

Thanks a lot Randy. God, I hope I can find a way to get her over here. Some application prep questions.... 1)We just got married, and obviously are living far apart now. The i-130 asks for evidence of a bona-fide marriage, such as joint bank account, common address of residency, etc. We don't have anything like the examples listed by the USCIS. All we have is the marriage certificate. We have years of dated photos of ourselves, and of me with her family. I have a copy of the sonogram, although it is all in Chinese (do I need to get a translation, or does highlighting the name on the report suffice?) Do these count for anything? Are there any other ways to support a bona fide marriage? I feel like our application is pretty weak, and I am really concerned about getting rejected and having to start all over again. 2) I just mailed my current passport away to get a new one. So I wonder, is a copy of my passport that is in the process of being replaced sufficient for the application, or will it get flagged as invalid when the application is being processed? It will be 5-7 weeks longer before my new one arrives. 3) Should I include a letter explaining my situation, or call a USCIS office and talk to an officer about it? I've read all over the USCIS website, but no direct answer to this question. Sorry for the lengthy post. Life has gotten really complicated very suddenly.

https://www.uscis.gov/family/family-us-citizens/k-3k-4-nonimmigrant-visas Maybe a k-3, k-4 visa is a possibility.

K1 visas are no longer a thing? @fluffyballs The principle advantage of giving birth in the US is that we will be together. Her family is not prepared or able to take a care of a baby. My family is very well prepared. I don't want my baby getting diluted or ineffectual vaccines. I want to be with my wife and my kid. US immigration policy and enforcement is absolutely maddening.

The ban is 5 years. I will not be able to return to China until May 2024. Please tell me what you know about this idea: If I brought my wife to the US on a tourist visa and kept her here long enough to have the baby, would she be deported for immigration fraud or overstaying, or would they grant a waiver of legal forgiveness and let her on the path to a green card thereafter? I absolutely do not want her to be separated from the baby under any circumstances. But the advantages of the baby being born in the US are legion. So I'm wondering what are the risks and dangers of doing it the not-entirely-legal way? I've looked all over immigration websites, and there is nothing related to this issue. We have been together nearly 6 years already. We have years-old photos and wechat threads, common friends, we have our photos published in an expat magazine in China several times over a 4 year period. Piles of concrete evidence of a long term relationship. So this isn't a sham marriage or an attempt at an anchor baby. We were married before the date of conception. We just want to be together and safe. Having the baby in China means she will be alone through the pregnancy and I won't even meet the kid until he/she is walking. And doing all the Chinese paperwork and red tape to get the baby out will be excessively expensive and time consuming. Even if I could go back to China now, I can't work there. Is bringing her to the US under false but moral pretenses an option?

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I was recently deported from China for a visa violation. Oops. So I returned to Hong Kong and married my girlfriend. Our plan was to apply to for the green card and wait out the 1-2 years and all the nonsense. But I just found out she's 6 weeks pregnant. We were in Ko Samui six weeks ago. Doin' it. So it seems my options are to 1) let her raise the kid for a year or more by herself while we wait for a green card or 2) meet and live in a country neither of us are familiar with, and live and work there while waiting for a green card. I really don't want to wait until my kid is over a year old to meet him/her. I don't want him/her getting diluted vaccines. Without a mainland marriage document, the baby cannot have health insurance. And living in a country neither of us is familiar with has all the obvious problems and pitfalls. And I would like my baby to be a natural born citizen of the United States. We want to be together and be safe. Does anyone know if there are any other options? Thanks.