Getting Ready for Interview

[homerjay1011]

Hi everyone!

 

My wife and I just got our letter scheduling our AOS interview! We're very excited, and probably a little nervous.

 

Looking at what the letter says to bring. It says that we need to bring her birth certificate. We've submitted two different gong zheng shus so far (one for K-1 Interview, and 1 for AOS application). We're all out of gong zheng shus now! Do they really expect us to give them a birth certificate translation for the 3rd time? If so, we have her original here, are there places in the US that will do a certified translation?

 

Also it says to bring "All documentation establishing your eligibility for Lawful Permanent Resident status." What exactly does that mean? They ask for a bunch of specific documents and then they ask for that, so I'm confused.

 

Do we need to bring a copy of our I-485?

 

Any other things we should bring that aren't listed on the letter? What about tips for the upcoming interview?

 

Thanks for the help as always everyone!

[Randy W]

Hi everyone!

 

My wife and I just got our letter scheduling our AOS interview! We're very excited, and probably a little nervous.

 

Looking at what the letter says to bring. It says that we need to bring her birth certificate. We've submitted two different gong zheng shus so far (one for K-1 Interview, and 1 for AOS application). We're all out of gong zheng shus now! Do they really expect us to give them a birth certificate translation for the 3rd time? If so, we have her original here, are there places in the US that will do a certified translation?

 

Also it says to bring "All documentation establishing your eligibility for Lawful Permanent Resident status." What exactly does that mean? They ask for a bunch of specific documents and then they ask for that, so I'm confused.

 

Do we need to bring a copy of our I-485?

 

Any other things we should bring that aren't listed on the letter? What about tips for the upcoming interview?

 

Thanks for the help as always everyone!

 

 

If you have an original birth certificate issued AFTER 1996, I expect that a copy of that (have the original on hand) will be good enough - it includes an English translation. If not, you will need to submit a copy of your gong zheng shu. Your family members can get a new copy for her for possible future use.

 

Any evidence you have showing you live together. Copies of documents submitted previously can be helpful, including the I-485.

[fluffyballs]

Why did you submit the original with the I485? You can submit photocopies with the application and bring the originals to the interview.

 

Our AOS interview was a total breeze and lasted 10 minutes tops, mostly they just reviewed the forms to verify everything was still correct and up to date.

 

If you're not sure whether you should bring something, bring it! Also reviewing the applications could be helpful, especially if you submitted them a long time ago.

[homerjay1011]

Well we thought we were done with submitting birth certificates and needed to submit the original gong zheng shu like we had to for the K-1 Interview, so we're out of the 2 that we had gotten last year.

 

We do have her birth certificate here, but it is from 1995. It's labeled 出生医学证明书. Do we really need to get another gong zheng shu? I mean this is ridiculous. Shouldn't they have the original copy with them at the interview?

 

 

 

Thanks for the help with this situation and thanks for the advice on what to bring! I certainly will bring all of that then!

[homerjay1011]

Now that I think about it. I don't even know if we can get a gong zheng shu since we have the birth certificate we used for it in the first place with us here in the US

[homerjay1011]

We also didn't make copies of the gong zheng shu, because it felt so fragile and we didn't want to destroy it...........

[Randy W]

Well we thought we were done with submitting birth certificates and needed to submit the original gong zheng shu like we had to for the K-1 Interview, so we're out of the 2 that we had gotten last year.

 

We do have her birth certificate here, but it is from 1995. It's labeled 出生医学证明书. Do we really need to get another gong zheng shu? I mean this is ridiculous. Shouldn't they have the original copy with them at the interview?

 

 

 

Thanks for the help with this situation and thanks for the advice on what to bring! I certainly will bring all of that then!

 

 

The Medical Certificate of Birth - 出生医学证明 (chu sheng yixue zheng ming) was actually issued beginning (I believe) in 1993, but was adopted for all hospitals in 1996. That MAY be all you need - the consulate still requires a gong zheng shu or white book even for these, but the USCIS may not, especially since, like you say, you have ALREADY SUBMITTED ONE.

 

See my comments on that at http://candleforlove.com/forums/topic/48295-chinese-essential-documents-white-books/?p=628742

[homerjay1011]

Thanks Randy!

 

The 出生医学证明 that she has looks nothing like the one in your post. It’s just 2 small pieces of paper that has all the same information except no English.

 

We’ll still bring it, but at this point we’re hoping that they have the original 公证书 that we submitted with our application.

[Randy W]

Thanks Randy!

 

The 出生医学证明 that she has looks nothing like the one in your post. It’s just 2 small pieces of paper that has all the same information except no English.

 

We’ll still bring it, but at this point we’re hoping that they have the original 公证书 that we submitted with our application.

 

 

The WORST case would be if they DEMAND a new one. You should be able to get her relatives to have one made from her hukou book, however.

 

Good luck.

[homerjay1011]

Fingers crossed they don’t demand it!

 

We actually called the 公正处 for her city the other day and they said they couldn’t do it without her 出生医学证明 or one child paper. So, from what they’ve told us, we would have to mail those back to China and then have her parents send the 公证书 to us. But here’s hoping we don’t have to go through any of that!

[Randy W]

Interesting

 

独生子女证 is the one child certficate

 

出生医学证明 means medical birth certificate

 

It's unclear which you actually have, but you seem to be on top of things there - just keep your fingers crossed.

 

One guy on VJ claimed that they were issued a notarial certificate of birth based on the one child certificate

 

What can we provide (split)

[homerjay1011]

We’ve got both the one child certificate and the medical birth certificate in US unfortunately. Without either of those the gong zheng chu is refusing to make gong zheng shu.

 

Our thinking now is to have a friend do a certified translation for us for the interview and hope that that’s enough or that they still have our original gong zheng shu that we submitted with our I-485.

 

Thanks again for all your help Randy!

[homerjay1011]

We had our interview today and we think it went really well! Our interviewer said that there wasn't anything that she was concerned about and that we should expect a decision in the mail in 1-2 weeks or we can check online sooner. Do we check for the status on the same website where we checked our case status before or is there a special interview page?

 

The birth certificate thing was not an issue. We had a friend do a certified translation and brought the original certificate to the interview and the interviewer accepted it with no problem.

 

Thank you everyone who has helped us through this process! Hopefully, we'll get the decision soon, and won't have to worry about immigration for another year and a half!

[fluffyballs]

We had our interview today and we think it went really well! Our interviewer said that there wasn't anything that she was concerned about and that we should expect a decision in the mail in 1-2 weeks or we can check online sooner. Do we check for the status on the same website where we checked our case status before or is there a special interview page?

 

The birth certificate thing was not an issue. We had a friend do a certified translation and brought the original certificate to the interview and the interviewer accepted it with no problem.

 

Thank you everyone who has helped us through this process! Hopefully, we'll get the decision soon, and won't have to worry about immigration for another year and a half!

 

Congratulations! Check both of the USCIS sites (the DHS one and the egov one). It should say "Case was Approved" or "Card in Production" depending on how fast things move along. We were told at the interview that we'd be approved and an hour later the online statuses were updated.

[homerjay1011]

Thank you!!

 

Apparently the DHS one now directs people to the egov one. We were told to expect a decision later today or tomorrow. Status still says "Interview was Scheduled", but here's hoping it changes soon =]