Hanoi Seattle K1 Help

[mcrt 1]

I am new to this forum and am pretty baffled by all of the acronyms and phrases that I'm sure I will soon become familiar with.

I am wondering if anyone has experience with K1 paperwork assistance in Seattle and someone who can help my girlfriend out in Hanoi.

A quick overview: I was in Hanoi a couple of years ago. I met a lovely young lady who was the tour guide on a couple of day trips I took. We kept in touch via FB chatting occasionally. Over time it became more serious and I have been back over there a couple of times to see here in the last few months.

I wanted her to be able to visit Seattle on a tourist visa to see the city and meet some of my family before we took the next step of getting engaged. We filled out the tourist visa form honestly which totally killed her chances. With a boyfriend in the US her "Overstay Risk" was too high and she was denied. I was going to send her back, really.

We talked more and decided that yes, marriage was in our future.

My uncle is married to a Filipino lady and worked with someone in California who helped with paperwork and who had a coach to work with his lady in the Philippines. I have contacted his guy and his fee is $400 to get through the K1 process. To me this seems reasonable, but I would prefer someone in Seattle. Also he has a lady who works with him in Manila to help a fiancee with paperwork and understanding the questions that will come up in the interview, but does not have anyone in Vietnam.

I was wondering if anyone has worked with a paperwork person in Seattle and is there someone in Vietnam that you could recommend for working with my girlfriend there. Preferably in Hanoi, but HCMC is OK too.

[frontgear 194]

The K1 application is pretty straight forward and there is a simple guide on VJ that walks you through step by step. Do spend a little time reading some of the threads in this Vietnam forum for tips on what to submit as far as evidence of your relationship and what to prepare for the interview as Vietnam is one of the high-fraud countries and they do scrutinize your application for every possible way to deny it.

From reading your post, I don't see that you are yet engaged. It is a requirement prior to submitting a K1 application.

[WandY 430]

Agree with Frontgear's post. The process is a little daunting at first and very time-consuming, but you can do it without paying anyone. If you get stuck, message me through here and we can probably help you (free of charge). My fiancee is now in U.S., but has a friend in Hanoi that is going through K-1.

[mccorleone 12]

Hey... I'll help you out if you need some help! I completed the whole K1 process with no RFE's. My fee would be... a glass of cafe sua da at Thanh Thanh... I wouldn't pay anyone to help with the package; I think that's just a rip-off! This forum took me all the way through the process... nice and easy, with a lot of patience... but we're now in the final AOS stages, with EAD and AP already approved...

Edited February 22, 2016 by mccorleone

[heo luoi 206]

Make sure to check out VJ on a pc or non mobile browser. Its far easier / rewarding to work with. The timelines, glossary/faqs ...etc are all here for the acronyms and all that jazz. Just take yoru time to vet it all, skim the forms...highlight the questions areas you're concerned and focused on and look em up.

If you still want extra help you can visit ditrumy.com they have offices in CA and HCMC they can help you and your wife but if your case is straight forward you probably wouldn't need it.

[Lee&Ana 88]

Granted my wife is from the Philippines which is an easy embassy, but this forum is a gold mine of information. Anyone that can read can be successful with their k1 by following the guides and flow charts. There are several forum members who have a wealth of knowledge and will help you for free. Additionally, there are regional forums with people that know the ins and outs of particular embassies. Don't waste your money. Save it for the AOS.

[mcrt 1]

Thank you all for the replies. I am very excited and nervous about all of this crazy process.

@frontgear I know I have a lot of reading to do. I have not done the on a knee with a sparkly thing yet. Had our original plan of her visiting on a tourist visa worked out that would have happened. Now it will happen the next time I go over. At this point I have asked her about marrying me and she has said yes, so engaged, just not formally.

@WandY I will send you a private message. I think connecting your Fiancee's friend and my girl would be a positive thing. I know she is really nervous over there, especially after being turned down for the tourist visa.

@mccorleone A very fair fee. I am in Boise for work this week, but will be in Seattle next week. I can meet any evening or on the weekend. This is certainly a top priority. I'll send you a private message too.

@heo luoi The forms really didn't look too bad, but when I see things about people taking thousands of pages of stuff in to the interview it just seems daunting. Realistically this should be pretty straight forward. It would be a while before she would need help over there so hopefully by that point we won't care about contacting ditrumy, but it is good to have the option.

@Lee&Ana Thanks for the confidence booster. I still have a little time before I have to decide if I want to pay someone for assistance or not. I was looking at that since my uncle did and after failing our first visa attempt with the tourist visa.

[Lee&Ana 88]

Do not confuse the tourist visa with the k1. Your fiancé, as well as my wife, are from countries that are considered "high fraud" countries. Very rarely does anyone from the Philippines or Vietnam get a tourist visa. If you had researched the topic, you would have seen that pursuing a tourist visa was a waste of time and money. That being said, the k1 is a simple visa to obtain if you follow the guides and read about information specific to your embassy which should be available in the Vietnam regional forum. Don't let the failed tourist visa application Influence you with your k1 visa application.

[heo luoi 206]

Ive lived here all my life and never had I see anyone from VN via a tourist visa until very very recently and those people are rather elderly. Im not sure about this phillipines since it seems like they issue visas there like the guys on the streets of Vegas flick those girlie cards at you or kids hawking chic lets in mexico.

As for the help. I made it past K1. You'll meet a LOT of people here that are hard core pro DIY and anti help. You'll meet a lot of lazy mofos that wont search anything themselves and seem to haphazardly go through the whole thing slodding through every step of the the way. What you think is affordable and worthwhile is ultimately up to you. If your case is vanilla the precedent is established here that many have accomplished it unscathed. Many have run into hurdles.

Troll the forums and threads, overall its really not that bad, but when you're in the thick of it and stuff you'll have moments of impatience and stuff that will get you. If you have a vanilla case 3rd party services vs lawyer for sure. Laywers pay far too much for which is mostly administrative stuff...

Read the reviews/timelines, questions. Contribute on VJ. That will help you keep busy and informed.

Sounds like you may travel alot...having someone else help triage some stuff for you and guide your fiance natively there may be worth a few extra bux to you. Its really after the case gets to the NVC where any difficulty manifests, the initially paperwork is pretty much all on you anyway before that.

VN is difficult. The beauracrcy. The slow service. The suspect integrity of older and in some cases newer paperwork/records. Those are things I certainly wanted help with cause I couldnt assist my fiance with that stuff and just saving some of the 'hassle'. The volume of paperwork? Thats nothign to freak about. Printing off 100 pages to 150 to 1000 is hardly much more 'work'

Just keep things in perspective and focus on what you have to right now and prepared for the next steps.

Just start(keep) collecting/saving anything forensically having to do with your relationship in my opinion.