Weird Way to Get the K-1 VISA

[Sheyla 0]

Hello everyone. I want to share with you how my wife, 3 children, and I were able to finally be together here in the United States. When it comes to doing things the hard way, I am an expert. After trying the advice of different lawyers, spending almost $2000 needlessly, we decided to fill out the I-129f ourselves. My wife and three boys are from Mexico, by the way. I researched the internet exhaustively to make sure that when we submitted our application for the first time, that we would not be asked for more evidence. We still had to send in more evidence, but basically they wanted something more concrete that was in English. Fortunately, I had sent a number of Western Union money grams that contained both our names. We put our application in on December 5th, 2008, and were approved in May, 2009. We were told that a packet would be sent to us, with instructions to advance to the American Consulate in Juarez. Immediately, I figured that if the packet would be sent to my Phoenix address, as had all the other correspondence, that my sister could forward it to me in El Paso, and we would be ready.

Here's the thing. I keep reading where K-1 Visa applicants are waiting for their appointments, but it states clearly on the forms that K-1 applicants do not need to wait for an appointment. I will say this again: K-1 applicants do not need to wait for an appointment. We did not have an appointment. We simply showed our paperwork to the guard outside, and he escorted us to the door. We walked in, in front of everyone.

We waited for the forms to arrive, stayed in a Casa de Huespedes, and worked on our final details. We had questions, so I went to the Consulate, waited in the Information line for almost 4 hours, and once at the window, I asked my question. The man looked at me, and asked me if we had received our packet. I told him that we would wait for it in Juarez. He looked at me kind of funny "Why did you come so early, and without your packet?" So, I told him that while we would be waiting, we would just visit tourist areas, the Zoo and whatever. Have fun. He gave me an appointment card to come back the next day. After waiting in line, again, not knowing that with the appointment card that I could have just went to the front of the line, I waited for the same man to help me. He remembered me, and can you believe, he pulled our packet out of the packets that had beed there waitin to be sent. We filled out the information. Went to the bank and paid the Visa fees, went to the clinic, three days later, received the TB results, the computer disks and the physical results. Took all that to the Consulate. Interviewed that day, were approved, and received the Visas the very next day. We left one hour later, and on June 4th, we crossed the bridge into El Paso, Texas.

I do not know how everthing worked out like it did. Finally, I have a whole lot of information to share with anyone who needs it. So much more happened during this process, things that were frustrating, and otherwise. There were bitter moments, as well as sweet moments. We are marred now, and will file for their Resident Cards at the end of September. Thinks for reading.

CONGRATS!!!

I was wondering which documents you showed for the children? did your wife showed custody papers or any other documents related to children custody at the interview or before?

Your reply will be very welcome.

Thanks!!

Shey

Sheyla, and to everyone out there.

When our oldest son was born, because my wife did not want to declare who the father was, she simply gave him her two last names. However, with our second oldest, the father was still around, or at least promising to be there, but as soon as the baby was born, he took off, to return to his wife, if he ever left her at all. This here was our major problem. The father was absent, and to this day, I am the only father that our son knows. The paternal father, although during this entire process tried to get Abi back, was helpful, and we will appreciate his help forever. We hired a lawyer, and had documents drawn up giving my wife permission to travel, tend to his medical needs, tourism, and educational needs. There was no time limit placed on the document. But wait----when we fianlly went to get his passport in Hermosillo, we were told that the document was only good for 6 months. We returned, once again, and asked the paternal father for his help once again, and although it was difficult for him to leave work, he did so again. We signed new documents with the same lawyer. But wait----because we were treated poorly at the passport office in Hermosillo, we decided that when we got to Juarez, that we would take the risk of them telling us that we needed to obtain the passports in our hometown, and apply for the passports while we planned for our interview. We almost did not get the passport for our second son, because. lo and behold, the paternal father had renewed his identification, and the clerk who issued the new identification replace a Z with a S. We had to call again, the paternal father, have him go to Hermsosillo, fill out a OP-7, with his right name, and a second permission for our son to obtain his passport, and leave Mexico. We thought that we would never get it, but this was but one of our problems.

Abi, the kids and I had to travel by bus to Mexico City D. F. to obtain an origianl birth certificate. Not only did we arrive during a holiday, we were re-directed many times to different Registro Civiles (Civil Registry) each one a dead-end. We had left a copy of the origianal behind. This would have helped tremendously. We finally found the right Registro Civil, after 10 days of waiting, and were told that we would have to come back tomarrow. I gave the man $7 and Abi gave him 50 pesos, and he gave them to us right away. When we tried to get her pasport at the same time as the kids, we were told that Abi"s birth certificate was invalid because the man did not write in the year of her birth. They turned us away, after pleading with their supervisor. We went back home, and the "smart one" in the family just decided to write in the date, against my better judgement. He did it before I could stop him. The next day, Abi went back into the Passport office, and immediately they remembered us, and sent us away, knowing that the birth certificate had been doctored. However, since we decided to go to Juarez before receiving the welcoming packet, we did not have one problem, whatsoever.

Our third problem was that our youngest, who is also MY son, could not get his passport in Hermosillo, because I did not have a passport, and they informed me that I would be deported back to the United States, because, according to them, I was in Mexico, illegally. We had had problems obtaining a Consulate Birth Abroad certificate, and as of then, our youngest was still just considered to be Mexican. Once in Juarez, the passport office just sent me to El Paso to fill our a OP-7 giving her permission to obtain a passport for him, and afterwards, she had no problem.

We thought the nightmare would never end; we were stressed out to the max. We promised to pay our second oldest son's father the wages that he lost helping us, and also had help from Abi's brother driving the father to Hermosillo in our truck that we had left behind. (That's another story) One other note: because Abi did not have a high school diploma with her picture on it, she was only given a Passport for one year. Sssshhhhh

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

My girl from a previous marriage is from Peru but she has the FM3 migration documents in Mexico, because we both live in Mexico for some years now. Also last time i saw his father in a trip to Peru I make him gave me a Peruvian Notarized document allowing me to bring my girl back to Mexico and to the USA when ever we had to move. This was back in 2007. The Peruvian Notarized document does not say any expiration date.

In your experience, Do you think this document will help me as a custody document?

[delci06 0]

Hello everyone. I want to share with you how my wife, 3 children, and I were able to finally be together here in the United States. When it comes to doing things the hard way, I am an expert. After trying the advice of different lawyers, spending almost $2000 needlessly, we decided to fill out the I-129f ourselves. My wife and three boys are from Mexico, by the way. I researched the internet exhaustively to make sure that when we submitted our application for the first time, that we would not be asked for more evidence. We still had to send in more evidence, but basically they wanted something more concrete that was in English. Fortunately, I had sent a number of Western Union money grams that contained both our names. We put our application in on December 5th, 2008, and were approved in May, 2009. We were told that a packet would be sent to us, with instructions to advance to the American Consulate in Juarez. Immediately, I figured that if the packet would be sent to my Phoenix address, as had all the other correspondence, that my sister could forward it to me in El Paso, and we would be ready.

Here's the thing. I keep reading where K-1 Visa applicants are waiting for their appointments, but it states clearly on the forms that K-1 applicants do not need to wait for an appointment. I will say this again: K-1 applicants do not need to wait for an appointment. We did not have an appointment. We simply showed our paperwork to the guard outside, and he escorted us to the door. We walked in, in front of everyone.

We waited for the forms to arrive, stayed in a Casa de Huespedes, and worked on our final details. We had questions, so I went to the Consulate, waited in the Information line for almost 4 hours, and once at the window, I asked my question. The man looked at me, and asked me if we had received our packet. I told him that we would wait for it in Juarez. He looked at me kind of funny "Why did you come so early, and without your packet?" So, I told him that while we would be waiting, we would just visit tourist areas, the Zoo and whatever. Have fun. He gave me an appointment card to come back the next day. After waiting in line, again, not knowing that with the appointment card that I could have just went to the front of the line, I waited for the same man to help me. He remembered me, and can you believe, he pulled our packet out of the packets that had beed there waitin to be sent. We filled out the information. Went to the bank and paid the Visa fees, went to the clinic, three days later, received the TB results, the computer disks and the physical results. Took all that to the Consulate. Interviewed that day, were approved, and received the Visas the very next day. We left one hour later, and on June 4th, we crossed the bridge into El Paso, Texas.

I do not know how everthing worked out like it did. Finally, I have a whole lot of information to share with anyone who needs it. So much more happened during this process, things that were frustrating, and otherwise. There were bitter moments, as well as sweet moments. We are marred now, and will file for their Resident Cards at the end of September. Thinks for reading.

Thank you for sharing your story

And congratulations!!!

As for the paperwork that you showed to the guard, what paperwork was it?

[Richard_y_Abi 0]

Okay, I have two questions to address. To the person that has a daughter from Peru, the answer comes with a question. No need to write back, but the answer will help you with my response. Does your daughter have a valid passport? If your daughter has a valid passport, and you put the guardianship papers into English, then I doubt that you will have difficulty at the Consulate when you go for your visa. Although we had our son's guardanship papers ready, and were ready to answer any questions that the interviewer had, the issue was never brought up. As far as the United States is concerned, the guardianship papers are valid until the child turns 18, unless a termination date HAS been written into the document. If the papers have a termination date, then you will need to return to Peru and re-obtain a new set of guardianship papers.

The second query is: What papers did we show the guard in front of the Embassy?

The guard wanted to see the acceptance letter sent by USCIS, I think it is the I-796, and the Consulate guide wanted to see if we had paid receipts for the 4 VISAs. Here is something strange also. Inside the Consulate there is a Cashier's window. I felt certain that we could have paid for the Visas inside before the interview. If we could have paid inside, we would have saved some money. Although the Visas cost $131 for each one, the bank required that we pay almost $2,000 pesos for each Visa. They explained to us that the United States only accepts pesos at the exchange rate of 15 pesos per American Dollar. We paid it after buying a password for 1-900 numbers, and called another Consulate in another state. Hindsite being 20/20, we wished that we had inquired about paying for the Visa inside the Consulate. But in all appearances, we could not have entered the Consulate without the receipts, or so it seemed.

One note to all: A woman was robbed outside while waiting. There are people dressed in matching clothing that appear like official uniforms. They convinced her that they were there to look over her papers. She lost EVERYTHING, including some money that she also was carrying inside her folder. Also, one other note: a few weeks later, there was a killing in front of the old Wendy's restaraunt, that is located just to the other side of the doctor's clinic. Be very careful and pay attention to your surroundings.

[Sheyla 0]

Thank you so much for answering and sharing, and congrats again!! By the way my girl has a valid peruvian passport and I think we will be fine with that document. I hope there wont be any more issues when we have to get her the GC on the AOS.

Regards

Shey

[Nik+Heather 121]

Hi, it's really great of you to spend all that time typing out your expereinces. I have a small favor to ask -- can you please write a review under the embassy reviews section, so that others can easily search for experiences with your consulate and learn from it? Eventually this thread will get buried, and won't help anyone.

You can do all that by clicking on this link here:

http://www.visajourney.com/consulates/dos_review.php

Congrats on your successful journey!

[KGH 0]

[Rich and Bey 1]

Great Story!!!!!!!!!!!1111

[thongd4me 69]

......

One note to all: A woman was robbed outside while waiting. There are people dressed in matching clothing that appear like official uniforms. They convinced her that they were there to look over her papers. She lost EVERYTHING, including some money that she also was carrying inside her folder. Also, one other note: a few weeks later, there was a killing in front of the old Wendy's restaraunt, that is located just to the other side of the doctor's clinic. Be very careful and pay attention to your surroundings.

I concur. Be very careful. I was in DF with my then Japanese wife many years ago. We did not feel that safe although nothing happened to us on that visit.

Particularly unnerving were stories of cab drivers working in concert with muggers. In most other parts of the country we felt much safer.

I personally felt safer in Addis Abeba Ethiopia, Beirut Lebanon and Kabul, Afghanistan.

If you ever get a chance, read "One Man Tango" by Anthony Quinn.

He overcame so much with hard work and had an incredible ability for introspection.

It's the most fascinating autobiography I've ever read and there are a lot of good things

about his Mexican heritage. He doesn't brag as much as you might suspect, but there is

a wealth of wisdom in there about the value of friendship and what he has learned from

women, his best teachers.

Reading your immigration odyssey reminded me a lot of that book.