DCF Guangzhou Process

[Mr. Data 26]

2 hours ago, perks said:

Okay. So please i would love to know your timeline especially the documents you submitted with your first filling of te i130. Thanks

Sure, we submitted our I-130 to the consulate on June 8 and were approved on June 13. Here is the copy pasted list of documents from our cover letter:

1.   Form G-1145, e-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance

2.   Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative

3.   Form I-130A, Supplemental Information for Spouse Beneficiary

4.   Photos for petitioner and beneficiary 

5.   Copy of petitioner’s passport biodata page

6.   Copy of beneficiary’s passport biodata page

7.   Copy of Certificates of Marriage with official translations

8.   Secondary evidence of bona fide marriage (photo package)

 

In addition, I had to provide evidence that I (as the U.S. Citizen petitioner) was currently residing in China and qualified for DCF. I used photocopies of my current and previous residence permit. 

[Mr Genuis 91]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Data said:

Sure, we submitted our I-130 to the consulate on June 8 and were approved on June 13. Here is the copy pasted list of documents from our cover letter:

1.   Form G-1145, e-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance

2.   Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative

3.   Form I-130A, Supplemental Information for Spouse Beneficiary

4.   Photos for petitioner and beneficiary 

5.   Copy of petitioner’s passport biodata page

6.   Copy of beneficiary’s passport biodata page

7.   Copy of Certificates of Marriage with official translations

8.   Secondary evidence of bona fide marriage (photo package)

 

In addition, I had to provide evidence that I (as the U.S. Citizen petitioner) was currently residing in China and qualified for DCF. I used photocopies of my current and previous residence permit. 

Perfect.thank you.

[givionte 138]

11 minutes ago, Mr. Data said:

8.   Secondary evidence of bona fide marriage (photo package)

 

In addition, I had to provide evidence that I (as the U.S. Citizen petitioner) was currently residing in China and qualified for DCF. I used photocopies of my current and previous residence permit. 

Hey, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions.  I'll be doing DCF later this year with my wife in Guangzhou.  Finding secondary evidence with our names on the same page is quite difficult, as our landlord refuses to put my name on the lease and only hers (so he can avoid paying the foreigner tax), and we don't have joint accounts of any kind.  What evidence did you submit that they accepted?

 

Also, what was the total timeline, from day of acceptance to interview, to visa in hand?

 

Lastly, did you run into any surprises or issues during the process I should be aware of?

[OliverBa 61]

3 minutes ago, givionte said:

Finding secondary evidence with our names on the same page is quite difficult, as our landlord refuses to put my name on the lease and only hers (so he can avoid paying the foreigner tax), and we don't have joint accounts of any kind.  What evidence did you submit that they accepted?

What I did was bought property in the states and had the county clerk put both of our names on it, which shows joint ownership of property. The embassy didn’t have a problem with that part of our application, only the marriage license itself was in question.

[OliverBa 61]

On 12/16/2018 at 9:45 AM, givionte said:

  I just want to note, be sure to withdraw your petition, do not allow them to deny your petition first if there is still time remaining.  That will help down the road should you refile why it was withdrawn, and can prove you were defrauded.  Keep any and all evidence of the marriage fraud, so that should the issue be noted by a future officer that you are able to explain you were misled, hence withdrawing your application as soon as you realized you and your spouse's error.

Thanks for the reminder, I’ll be sending them the withdrawal letter tomorrow. My partner (since I can’t call him ‘husband’ anymore haha) are taking all this with a bit of humor. It’s terrible but we’ll push through. I told him if I have to marry him over and over again for the rest of my life, I will. So now We’ve decided to make this a tradition. Every time we go for our annual vacation somewhere, we’ll get married again. By the time our grandchildren are of age, we would’ve had around 50 weddings all around the world. I kind of like the idea of that haha. 

[Mr. Data 26]

35 minutes ago, givionte said:

Hey, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions.  I'll be doing DCF later this year with my wife in Guangzhou.  Finding secondary evidence with our names on the same page is quite difficult, as our landlord refuses to put my name on the lease and only hers (so he can avoid paying the foreigner tax), and we don't have joint accounts of any kind.  What evidence did you submit that they accepted?

 

Also, what was the total timeline, from day of acceptance to interview, to visa in hand?

 

Lastly, did you run into any surprises or issues during the process I should be aware of?

Hey, my pleasure. I had the same issue you did, we didn’t have any official bank statements or joint leases or most of the other suggested documents listed as potential supporting evidence. I think many people, especially younger couples, are probably in the same boat. We found it helps to be “creative” and just provide any evidence that you can that speaks to the authenticity of the relationship. For us that focused on a visual record of our dating and marriage with images of us together spanning our entire ~3 year time together, including our travel together to the U.S., which I feel helped our case a lot. In addition, we also submitted some sample WeChat chat records from various points in time, photocopies of our passport stamps that indicated our travel together to Malaysia and Singapore, a physical copy of our wedding invitation, and photo copies of our marriage announcement that ran in my local newspaper back in the States. As long as your marriage and relationship are actually legit, you shouldn’t have any problem coming up with something or another to provide as evidence.

 

For the timeline, it was way faster than we ever expected. If we had done each of the three major steps back-to-back, we might have been able to get the whole process done in like a month. But we aren’t planning on moving until March or April of next year, so we waited for a few months after our I-130 was approved before proceeding with the process and submitting our DS-260. We were worried that if we went to fast, we would get our visa too early and it would expire before we were ready to move. We did the I-130 in June and it took five days from our submission at the consulate until notice of approval. We waited until November to do the DS-260 and it took 7 days from submission of the online from and supplemental materials at CITIC Bank until notice of approval. Then after taking a couple weeks to get all our materials together, we scheduled the interview for early December, did the Medical, passed the interview, and picked up the visa from the CITIC Bank about a week after that.

 

As to your last question, the I-130 and DS-260 stages are pretty straightforward. The main things to look out for in my opinion are all with the supplemental documents for the interview stage. You want to make sure you get proper notarized birth, marriage, and criminal background certificates from the local notary office of your spouse’s official place of residence. This can be hard to figure out at first. You also want to be sure all t’s are crossed and i’s dotted on your Affidavit of Support. If you are living in China now, a big part of that will be proving that you have maintained your domicile in the U.S. or else that you “genuinely intend” to re-establish your domicile in the U.S. before or with the intending immigrant. For me that was slightly tricky since I’ve been living in GZ for more than 5 years, but in the end the statement and evidence I prepared were enough, apparently.