From DCF to GZ Blue: Our story

[lhp]

My wife had her interview in GZ yesterday, and came away with an expected blue slip for Administrative Processing due to CCP membership. Given how much I enjoyed reading other people’s posts with their own timelines and interview experiences, I thought I would do a writeup of our own. Since the process seems to have changed a bit lately with CGI Stanley taking over part of the process, I hope this can be helpful for others who are starting out.

 

As a bit of background about ourselves, my wife and I met in graduate school (in China), have been living together since 2010, and got married in 2011. We are planning to move to the States in the fall after our second anniversary.

 

DCF

We DCF’d in Beijing on March 27. DHS were very quick in their response to my initial email, and we were able to get an appointment two weeks from when first I wrote to them. Their email to me included a pdf of documents to bring. We took the required documents and an inch-high stack of photos, which the CO flipped through, taking out dozen of them and returning the rest. The CO accepted a photocopy of the notary copy of our marriage license after comparing the two.

 

Nine working days after our DCF, I received an email from the Embassy with a pdf’d scan of our Notice of Approval of Relative Immigrant Visa Petition. The approval date was April 5, and the letter was dated April 8; quick turnaround!

 

Packet 3[?]

Ten days later we received an EMS envelope with two sheets of paper in it. One was a covering letter telling us to read and follow the directions on the next page and listing our Case Number; the other was the Notice For Immigrant Visa Applicants, which instructed us to fill out and submit DS-230 along with a copy of the info page of my wife’s passport, two photographs, and with the Notice For Immigrant Visa Applicants. Be sure to write your case number on the Notice before mailing it back; a friend forgot to do this and had his wife’s application delayed.

 

Packet 4[?]

We sent the DS-230 and related materials to GZ via EMS and three days later my wife received an email from CGI Stanley instructing her to log in to the website and make an appointment. The website showed wide availability; we could have made an appointment for the next day, if we’d been ready for it…of course, you have to have your medical completed at least two weeks before the interview date, so we couldn't have scheduled it for the next day. My wife had hers done in Beijing on the last day that the old clinic was in operation. Results were not made available that day, she had to go to the new location to pick them up after either three or five working days (I can’t remember which). Also, she wasn't able to get all the shots she needed on one day and had to return in a few days for those.

 

Guangzhou

 

We both liked Guangzhou more than we do Beijing. Clear air, what a miracle.

 

We went to GZ on Saturday for a Monday interview, figuring it would be much less stressful to get in early. We stayed at the Westin, which is less than two minutes from the Consulate. We had a great stay, and I can’t imagine having stayed anywhere else. (I’ve had enough of hard Chinese beds for several lifetimes.) We relaxed, explored Guangzhou, and ate some great dim sum – I'd highly recommend the Guangzhou Restaurant (ݾƼ, located on the east side of the sports complex south of the Consulate.

 

Interview Day

 

We arrived at the Consulate around 6:50 to find long lines. We stood in the 7:00 appointment line until we realized that immigrant visa applicants were supposed to stand in another line. We went to the back of that line and inched our way to the front, where a CGI Stanley employee checked my wife's passport and appointment paper and put a barcoded sticker on the back cover of her passport.

 

We went in up to the third floor to security, where I left my wife to continue on her own. She went up to the fourth floor where everyone went through a proper metal detector (no shoes) and had their things x-rayed. No bags/purses, cell phones, or bottles allowed.

 

In my wife’s pack today were:

• Appointment receipt, instruction letter (sent via email and printed), and sheet for paying her fee.
• DS-230 (listed in the P4 materials, but they didn’t want it)
• Her passport and my passport and photocopies of both (they didn’t look at my passport)
• Two visa photos of herself (they didn’t want them)
• Certified copy of her birth certificate
• Certified copy of our marriage certificate
• Police certificate
  • Note that even though she has lived in the Beijing for the last 4.5 years we didn’t get this done in Beijing. Instead, it was done in her hometown (where her hukou is). They accepted this without complaint…so you may not need (or be able) to get one from each city your spouse has lived in for 6+ months.
    This (and the birth certificate) look nothing like its counterpart in the States, so don't be freaked out when/if your spouse comes home with nothing but a letter.
• Medical exam results
  • Five things: X-rays (didn’t look at them), the big brown envelope that we can’t open, two books for shot records (they didn’t keep them), and another paper about vaccinations. They only kept the brown envelope.
• Evidence of Support
  • I turned in an I-864 with my last two tax returns (didn’t file three years ago b/c I was a student and didn’t make enough money to file – I wrote an explanatory statement). I am employed in China by a Chinese company, so even though I earn more than 125% of the poverty line I took the advice of folks on the forum and (a) included evidence of savings and (b) got a co-sponsor since my employment is in China. Even though I turned in bank records showing $50k+ in savings, they still wanted the cosponsor’s I-864…go figure.
• Evidence of Relationship
  • The CO had the photos from the DCF in Beijing and didn’t want any of the others my wife had brought. (Just as well; the ones she took with her today were picked from the stack the CO in Beijing didn’t want.)
• Resume (Chinese & English version on separate papers)
• CPC statements from her and from me.
  • We really appreciated the information on the site about CCP issues. I printed the Word document and my wife read through it before writing her own letter.
• Evidence of domicile: my expired and current drivers licenses (I renewed while in China), latest AmEx bill with US address on it.
• Her China Merchant’s Bank credit card (Dual currency card, she used it to pay the filing fee in USD.)

 

Document Intake

My wife mentioned that it’s not necessary to have your documents separated into different packets. Instead, it might speed up document intake to have all the forms and other documents listed on the instruction sheet already put together. The document intake folks had her take everything on the list out of the individual folders she had put them in, and they (doc intake) put them together into a stack. They then took all other documents she brought (co-sponsor, domicile, etc) and put them on the bottom of the pile of documents.

 

Like other people, my wife reported that document intake was the slowest part of the process. She was one of the last people through it, but got called for her interview relatively quickly. (She was through security around 7:30 and back at the hotel at 10:50.)

 

The Interview

My wife was quite happy with the interview. She said it was relatively short (5-10 minutes), including time for the CO to record her answers in the computer after each question. The CO asked what I do, how we met, how many times my wife has been to the US, when we are planning to go to the States, who our co-sponsor is, and finally asked my wife if she is a Party member. She answered yes, and he asked when and if she has stopped paying the membership fee. She told him she stopped paying several years ago, and then said that everything looked good and that the Administrative Processing would take about a month(!). He gave her a blue sheet of paper, and she was out the door.

 

Final thoughts

 

The whole process was much, much faster than I expected. We started in March assuming that it would take about a year to get through everything, and now here we are three months later with visa close to being in hand. If we had wanted to rush things we could have interviewed several weeks earlier; pretty impressive, I'd say.

 

Throughout the process we have had nothing but positive experiences with Consular, State Department, and DHS staff. I’m planning to write to the embassy and let them know how pleased we were with it all.

 

I’d like to offer my thanks (and a small donation that’s on the way just after I post this) to CFL and everyone on these forums who have answered my questions, given advice, and posted their stories for posterity. All the information on CFL has kept me calm and helped us both to know what to expect during this process. Thank you all.

That’s it for us…until we get to the States, that is. We are planning to enter after our second anniversary, so my wife should get permanent, rather than conditional, residence.

 

Thanks for reading, and I’ll update this thread once AP is through so folks can keep tabs on what CCP wait times are like in mid-2013.

[dnoblett]

Good write up thanks for sharing.

[Mick]

Your write up was both interesting and informative. Best of luck with the remainder of the process and your move to the States.

[Fu Lai]

Kudos for the detailed report. Thanks for the considerate and helpful time you spent preparing it.

[Randy W]

A couple of minor corrections

 

 

Police certificate

• Note that even though she has lived in the Beijing for the last 4.5 years we didn’t get this done in Beijing. Instead, it was done in her hometown (where her hukou is). They accepted this without complaint…so you may not need (or be able) to get one from each city your spouse has lived in for 6+ months.
  This (and the birth certificate) look nothing like its counterpart in the States, so don't be freaked out when/if your spouse comes home with nothing but a letter.

 

The one police report from her hukou covers ALL of China, and is the only one necessary for a Chinese citizen.

 

The birth certificate should be in a bound white booklet from the notary office, including a certified English language translation

[lhp]

Thanks for clarifying that. Both the CRC and the birth certificate were bound in the white notorial booklets. The disquiet came from the Chinese use of notorial certificates for both, which just look like letters rather than US-style certificates. Had I read the Documents section of the State Department's Country Reciprocity Schedule for China, I wouldn't have been so surprised by them.

 

Our question about needing a second CBC came from my wife's holding a temporary residence permit for Beijing in addition to her hukou in Jiangsu province. Like you say, the nationwide CBC from her hometown was all we needed – her Beijing ID card has the same ID number as her ID card from her hometown, so it's all standardized.

[sweetpie]

hey have you hear back from the AP? How long does it take now? im the same situation and still waiting...thanks...

[warpedbored]

Average wait time for a CCP blue slip is 3-4 months.

[lhp]

hey have you hear back from the AP? How long does it take now? im the same situation and still waiting...thanks...

 

Not yet. We are starting on our fifth month of waiting (and I think asano, whose thread you also posted in, is in his sixth month). How long have you been waiting?

 

Average wait time for a CCP blue slip is 3-4 months.

It seems like the wait times have shifted this year. My wife has started reading Chinese-language forums about immigration, and starting in February or March of this year the members have reported that wait times have suddenly become much longer. Where the members of that site were previously reporting ~90 days processing time (the same as what's been reported here on CFL), there are a number of people on that site who interviewed early this year and are still waiting.

 

If the process were transparent, it wouldn't be as big a deal. The way it is, with no meaningful communication from GZ/USCIS and no way to get a status update on your AP, it's awful.

[sweetpie]

Almost four months...while interview they said around 2 months. Didn't expect them to slow down this much.

[tsap seui]

Good luck to all you folks in AP. I know the wait is frustrating and at times downright disheartening...but things will work out positively for you.

 

It is a sin for those State Department jerks to continue to tell people 2 months so they will be happy when they leave the consulate, when they know full well it's gonna be 3 or 4 months (as Carl said) or more. In my book you would be hard pressed to find a more insidious organization than the US State Department officers in Guangzhou, China. Having been directly told by a numbnut DOS officer that our AP (not for CCP....who knows for what) would just be a matter of 2 months....it turned out to be a 12 month wait with a denial....I well know what you folks are going through, and yes, it does suck.

 

Just hang in there amigos, keeping this thought as your guiding light...your loved one will get their visa. Happy days are just ahead. No matter how long the wait, life WILL get better.

 

Good luck, may I suggest reading some Kurt Vonnegutt, Jr. novels to help pass the time with humor? His insanity helped me to keep my sanity.

 

tsap seui

[lhp]

Still no reply, but now an issue is coming up about the physical and police certificate.

 

My wife's physical exam results will be more than six months old soon, meaning we get to go to Shanghai and spend another 2,000 RMB for a new exam. From what I've read on the boards, it sounds like her Police Certificate may also be set to expire, since it will soon be six months old, too.

 

I've read in other threads that once our AP is complete and the petition is approved, the sop from GZ is to ask that you get a new health check & police certificate and send them in along with the passport.

Does anyone know how big a timeframe you have to do this? Since we both quit our jobs in July expecting AP to take ~3 months and be complete by September, we're looking at jobs here in China. Of course, employers want us to sign 12 month contracts, which is a problem since she'll have six months to get to the US once the visa is approved. I'm wondering if, once approval comes through, we could wait a few months before submitting the updated physical and police check, thus buying more time, or if they give you a deadline by which everything must be turned in.

[Randy W]

Still no reply, but now an issue is coming up about the physical and police certificate.

 

My wife's physical exam results will be more than six months old soon, meaning we get to go to Shanghai and spend another 2,000 RMB for a new exam. From what I've read on the boards, it sounds like her Police Certificate may also be set to expire, since it will soon be six months old, too.

 

I've read in other threads that once our AP is complete and the petition is approved, the sop from GZ is to ask that you get a new health check & police certificate and send them in along with the passport.

Does anyone know how big a timeframe you have to do this? Since we both quit our jobs in July expecting AP to take ~3 months and be complete by September, we're looking at jobs here in China. Of course, employers want us to sign 12 month contracts, which is a problem since she'll have six months to get to the US once the visa is approved. I'm wondering if, once approval comes through, we could wait a few months before submitting the updated physical and police check, thus buying more time, or if they give you a deadline by which everything must be turned in.

 

Normally, for P3 and P4, your file would be discarded after no activity for a year. Of course, we have no way of knowing if that applies to AP or not. You might ask through their online email form, and see if you can get a response.

 

Otherwise, I would plan on getting the visa in a relatively short time frame (months - NOT a full year). If you want to sign a twelve month contract, you might consider getting and using the visa - and then immediately returning to China to finish out the contract. I would think you'd have enough flexibility to easily plan a quick trip to the U.S. around your work schedule.

[lhp]

Thanks. I'll try emailing them to ask, but given all the other answer-free replies I've gotten from them through it, I expect another non-answer answer.

[sweetpie]

I thought the police report is 1 year-validation? Yup, my health check is expiring too:(