Which visa is right for my family? US citizen married to Chinese in both America and China, with two kids.

[carl.hops]

Hi everyone. I'm not sure anyone would remember me, life throws some real curve balls. I broke up with my ex (15 years ago or so). That was a good thing, because I met my wife a few years after in Tianjin, where we got married in 2011. We have two children now, and I've lived in China since. She's gone to the states on a travel visa twice, and my boys have their citizenship of course. To the point, we are considering moving to the states now. On one of those trips to the states, we had a second wedding and got a marriage certificate in Oregon. So, we have both a Chinese and American marriage certificate. Which visa should we apply for, if we are looking to get to the United States, together, as fast as possible? 

Thanks for your time,

Carl

[Randy W]

Welcome back.

If you are collecting marriage certificates, you can also have your American certificate certified for use in China, and your Chinese certificate certified for use in the US (the white book is accepted for this purpose). I don't know of anyone else who has four, but YouTuber laowhy86 is someone else who got married in both countries. I doubt you'll run into any issues because of it.

You would, of course, submit an I-130 probably stateside, but can possibly apply DCF at the Guangzhou consulate, if you meet their criterion for "exceptional circumstances".

See https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/petition-alien-relative-form-1302/.

They apparently aren't very busy, and are willing to bend the rules a little bit - see https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/786871-guangzhou-china-dcf-cr1/ on VJ.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Martin B]

 

6 hours ago, carl.hops said:

Hi everyone. I'm not sure anyone would remember me, life throws some real curve balls. I broke up with my ex (15 years ago or so). That was a good thing, because I met my wife a few years after in Tianjin, where we got married in 2011. We have two children now, and I've lived in China since. She's gone to the states on a travel visa twice, and my boys have their citizenship of course. To the point, we are considering moving to the states now. On one of those trips to the states, we had a second wedding and got a marriage certificate in Oregon. So, we have both a Chinese and American marriage certificate. Which visa should we apply for, if we are looking to get to the United States, together, as fast as possible? 

Thanks for your time,

Carl

Fastest way would be to simply visit the US as a family and your wife adjusts status from her B1/B2 visa, if it's still valid. Though I'm not sure that's technically 'legal' unless you decide to adjust after entering the US. In other words, if you show up to the airport with 20 suitcases and tell the officer you're moving to the US permanently, you may run into issues....

Edited September 2, 2022 by Barfus (see edit history)

[Randy W]

7 hours ago, Barfus said:

 

Fastest way would be to simply visit the US as a family and your wife adjusts status from her B1/B2 visa, if it's still valid. Though I'm not sure that's technically 'legal' unless you decide to adjust after entering the US. In other words, if you show up to the airport with 20 suitcases and tell the officer you're moving to the US permanently, you may run into issues....

Yes - if you are in THAT much of a hurry, you can do that. The USCIS can be very forgiving in situations like yours. But you are looking at a potential 10 year ban for misuse of a tourist visa. One approach would be to talk to a local immigrations lawyer on your next visit to the US to find out what the best approach is. The Immigrations Courts can also be very forgiving, so you MAY not run into any real issues.

In saying "situations like yours", I'm referring to the fact that you have a long term marriage with children. In my opinion, you should be able to easily bring them back to the states with you, but once in a while, you run into a less than sympathetic Immigrations Officer.

Your two wedding certificates show two different dates, which may in itself be problematic. You may want to just ditch the American certificate, and go with the Chinese white books for immigration purposes. The American certificate is not legally valid, since you were already married, but I think that in actual use, it is only the two different dates that might cause issues.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)