Interview Success - Our DCF Journey

[Onbelay007]

Hi everybody,

 

Yesterday was a great day as my wife passed her interview and the visa should be here in a week or so! It feels so good to have this weight lifted off our shoulders.

 

Since I learned most of the process and documentation needed from this website, I thought it appropriate to share our success story with a few tips/lessons learned. Sorry, this will be a long one...

 

Background:

 

I married my Chinese wife in 2009 while we were both expats working in Netherlands. A year later our daughter was born. We had initially decided that we wanted to move to the US so we started the immigration process in Amsterdam. After the I-130 stage but before the interview, we changed our minds. Our company had announced a new focus on China so many job opportunities arose in Shanghai (we both work in the same company). Now, about 3 years after moving to China (my wife had been living in Europe for 8 years), we have decided this time we are indeed ready to move to the US and settle down.

 

Immigration process:

 

We filed the I-130 in Beijing on March 21st and were quite surprised that the notification of approval came within 10 business days. For the I-130, I had brought 50 photos, our international marriage certificate from NL (original is in English among a few other languages), my daughter's birth certificate as well as consolar report of birth abroad.

 

Document collecting:

 

We thought this would be pretty straightforward but it proved to be a bit of a pain in the ass. First was my taxes. While living abroad I knew I had to file taxes and I knew that all my income would be excluded under the foreign income exclusion. So when I tried to efile, I was frustrated that turbotax would not let me file as married because my wife didn't have a SSN. Also, there was no point for me in the ITIN as her income would also be completely excluded so not tax benefit. I filed as single for my tax purposes just to get it filed and I did this for three years. Oops. When I joined this forum I realized this could create a problem so two months ago I filed the 1040X. The only correction was the check box from single to married-filing separately. The IRS still hasn't processed the correction and I'm not sure they even will bother since it doesn't affect money owed to them or money owed to me. But I wanted to have that for the GUZ to clearly show I'm married.

 

Next were the police certificates. My wife was having a heck of a time with the police in Shantou (her Hukou) as they wanted to state that she had no police record in their district, rather than all of China. Luckily, she has a good friend who happens to work in the police dept there and she was able to pull a few strings to get that handled. I need to buy this lady some flowers! Additionally, my wife had previously lived in Belgium, France, and Netherlands. Luckily, we had police reports in 2010 from our previous immigration efforts for Belgium in France (both countries she hadn't lived in since 2005). However, we found out that even though the police certificates were issued years AFTER she left those countries, they couldn't be used since they were issued in 2010. Apparently even these expire after one year. So we had to again request police certificates. So Belgium and France were basically stating that, yep, we didn't make a mistake on the previous report. She really didn't have a police record! Irritating but we were pleasantly surprised that they arrived in China about two weeks after requesting them. We also learned that we could not request one from NL. The embassy in Guangzhou must to so on behalf of us.

 

The translations also proved to be a bit complicated as every agency was accustomed to translating Chinese to English but not French to English. My wife spent quite some time asking around who could translate and also certify/notorize the Belgium/France police certificates.

 

For the I-864 I had enough assets to qualify as meeting the threshold (I don't have a job lined up in the US yet). However, I learned from this website it is always a good idea to have a joint sponsor so I asked my sister to be my wife's sponsor (my sister makes a very comfortable salary). And this paid off as they did indeed ask my wife for a joint sponsor so I'm very happy we were proactive on this.

 

Now, my biggest worry, domicle. I was very nervous about this so I tried as much as possible to provide overkill. I have a daughter and another kid due in less than two months so I really, really did not want to be forced to move back to the US and first find a job. I provided many documents with my parents address: my US bank account, child's college fund, 2 US credit cards, mutual fund account, IRA account, etc. I also had my parents write a letter stating we would live with them temporarily while looking for new jobs when returning to the US. I also had a few emails with my companies recruiters in the US stating our intention to relocate to the US.

 

OK, on to the interview....

 

I waited with my wife in the long lines outside at 7am. We finally get to the front where the CGI-Stanley girls were putting barcoded stickers on the passport. My wife wasn't paying attention but I immediately noticed the girl put a different person's sticker on my wife's passport. I immediately told the girl (in Chinese) that she made a mistake but she ignored me. I again kept telling her it was wrong and explained again that it was not my wife's name. I even pointed to her master sheet's with all the names and showed her the correct one. "This is my wife" I showed her. She was a bit flustered and I think a bit embarrassed that a foreigner was correcting her mistake.

 

Anyway, my wife went to her document intake and interview. She had provided a few originals such as our international marriage certificate and consular report of birth abroad for our kid. I stressed to her that we needed these back. They took them and said she would get them back before her interview. Later they called her back to collect these originals. She was smart and before just stuffing them in her bag she double-checked the documents. Sure enough, they weren't ours. They mistakenly had given her documents for someone else. A second mistake!

 

Be sure to double check everything!

 

Other than that, the interview was a breeze and they didn't ask her for half of the things we had ready at hand (including her resume). My wife was in at 7 and done by 10, though they did give her priority since she was pregnant. So we'll have the visa within a week or so!

 

However, we can't move back right away as my wife is too far along in her pregnancy so we'll have to have our baby in Shanghai and do another Consular Report of Birth Abroad and make sure we enter the US by December 21, as that is the day the visa will expire. I told my wife, as long as I'm back before Xmas I'll be happy so now it's a must.

 

It's been quite a journey with loads of documents and I'm so happy it's now done.

 

One additional tip: do not get all worked up about possible ways to be denied a visa. It's important to know the key items that can cause this but I was really concerned with domicile and spent far too much time on various internet forums regarding failing due to domicile, which was completely unnecessary since it was out of my hands and most of the crap I was reading were about other countries domicile issues and not China. In the end it was a breeze.

 

That's all I can think of right now. A big thanks to the community!!

 

Steve

 

[Onbelay007]

Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. We had sent an email to GUZ explaining that we were not allowed to request the NL police certificate and they must do so on our behalf. They responded that they would do so. I made sure to print this email and have my wife take it to her interview.

 

Sure enough, during the interview the officer said, "we have a problem. You didn't give us the NL police certificate." My wife explained that they already have it and a bit of back and forth argument. Finally, my wife showed them the email they sent us explaining that they would collect the police certificate. So the officer dug around some more, talked to colleagues, and came back. "Yes ma'am, you are correct. We do indeed already have the police certificate."

 

Be prepared

[dan1984]

Congrats Steve!! Best of luck to you and your family!

[tsap seui]

Good job man. I love hearing others success stories.

 

tsap seui

[Randy W]

Excellent work - you came through every time you needed to!