DS-160 “countries you resided in” problem

[Helena55 3]

Hello!

I’m filling out DS-160 for my K-1 visa and therebis a question about countries I resided in for more than 6 months.
My situation is: 2017-2020 I stayed in China on a business visa. I did not hold a residence permit and I would do a visa-run (leave and re-enter the country) every 2-3 months since despite my visa was a 1 year visa the maximum period of uninterrupted stay was 90 days. Should I list China among countries I lived in for longer than 6 months? Or it doesn’t count because it wasn’t an uninterrupted stay? 

 

[Chancy 6,243]

*** Moved from K1 Progress Reports to K1 Process & Procedures ***

 

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

4 hours ago, Helena55 said:

Hello!

I’m filling out DS-160 for my K-1 visa and therebis a question about countries I resided in for more than 6 months.
My situation is: 2017-2020 I stayed in China on a business visa. I did not hold a residence permit and I would do a visa-run (leave and re-enter the country) every 2-3 months since despite my visa was a 1 year visa the maximum period of uninterrupted stay was 90 days. Should I list China among countries I lived in for longer than 6 months? Or it doesn’t count because it wasn’t an uninterrupted stay? 

 

You lived there from 2017-2020, it’s not like it was a 6 month total period with one break that you can try argue was a temporary visit. You need to list it. Not having the technically correct permit doesn’t change the fact that you lived there. 
(as for “uninterrupted”…well if that was the criteria people who take a lot of brief holidays abroad would be in trouble. Nowhere in the instructions does it give that as a definition.)

[Redro 4,611]

4 hours ago, Helena55 said:

Hello!

I’m filling out DS-160 for my K-1 visa and therebis a question about countries I resided in for more than 6 months.
My situation is: 2017-2020 I stayed in China on a business visa. I did not hold a residence permit and I would do a visa-run (leave and re-enter the country) every 2-3 months since despite my visa was a 1 year visa the maximum period of uninterrupted stay was 90 days. Should I list China among countries I lived in for longer than 6 months? Or it doesn’t count because it wasn’t an uninterrupted stay? 

 

You'll have to list it. 

Then you need to figure out how to get the PCC from China or adequate documentation showing it is unavailable. 

Many people have this issue. 

 

 

 

https://www.visajourney.com/sitesearch/?cx=partner-pub-3407508467788263%3A9725800110&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=china+police+clearance+&sa=Search

Edited May 22, 2022 by ROK2USA

[Helena55 3]

2 hours ago, ROK2USA said:

You'll have to list it. 

Then you need to figure out how to get the PCC from China or adequate documentation showing it is unavailable. 

Many people have this issue. 

 

 

 

https://www.visajourney.com/sitesearch/?cx=partner-pub-3407508467788263%3A9725800110&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=china+police+clearance+&sa=Search

Thank you!

I’ve got my Chinese PCC already, because I guessed I’d need it. Can absolutely confirm that it was a pain to get it, haha. They don’t normally give it to business visa owners, I had to hire a lawyer who got a special permission for me to get it from the local authorities.

I’m just confused about DS-160 as technically my visits were not living and were “business trips”

[Redro 4,611]

16 minutes ago, Helena55 said:

Thank you!

I’ve got my Chinese PCC already, because I guessed I’d need it. Can absolutely confirm that it was a pain to get it, haha. They don’t normally give it to business visa owners, I had to hire a lawyer who got a special permission for me to get it from the local authorities.

I’m just confused about DS-160 as technically my visits were not living and were “business trips”

Great news! 

You'll be totally fine then. 

Listing your addresses in China is the right way to go as that was probably your primary residence at the time~ 

The business visa/was I really living there/PCC issue is a common question/problem on VJ. 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by ROK2USA

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

3 hours ago, Helena55 said:

L

I’m just confused about DS-160 as technically my visits were not living and were “business trips”

Illegal residence is still residence. They are looking for factual residence not visas. Put it another way, you’d be lying on the form if you falsely claimed to have actually been living anywhere else. 

[Helena55 3]

3 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

Illegal residence is still residence. They are looking for factual residence not visas. Put it another way, you’d be lying on the form if you falsely claimed to have actually been living anywhere else. 

It was not illegal residence. I was staying in the country legally, working on my business, never breached any visa conditions and never broke any laws.

I did put all of my addresses from China in I-126f, but was told to not put China in places where I resided in DS-160 because a person who told me that believes it’d be a lie since I didn’t live there for 6 months or more and every few months I’d leave for 2-4 weeks. So it’s a bit confusing.

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

1 hour ago, Helena55 said:

It was not illegal residence. I was staying in the country legally, working on my business, never breached any visa conditions and never broke any laws.

I did put all of my addresses from China in I-126f, but was told to not put China in places where I resided in DS-160 because a person who told me that believes it’d be a lie since I didn’t live there for 6 months or more and every few months I’d leave for 2-4 weeks. So it’s a bit confusing.

So according to you if  live in the same house for 15 years but go on holiday abroad for a week every month, you think I’m lying to say I live here? Makes no sense, yet that’s what you’re trying to argue because you’re sidetracked by what visa you were using.  You need to stop thinking about what visa you were on and think about where you were FACTUALLY residing. Visa, legality etc doesn’t matter. Where you actually WERE matters.

i don’t know how many other ways to say this.

good luck if you want to go to a US embassy and have them ask you why you lied to hide living in China for 3 years and pretending to have a residential address elsewhere where you OBVIOUSLY were NOT living.  Done banging my head against the wall here.

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by SusieQQQ

[Helena55 3]

11 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

So according to you if  live in the same house for 15 years but go on holiday abroad for a week every month, you think I’m lying to say I live here? Makes no sense, yet that’s what you’re trying to argue because you’re sidetracked by what visa you were using.  You need to stop thinking about what visa you were on and think about where you were FACTUALLY residing. Visa, legality etc doesn’t matter. Where you actually WERE matters.

i don’t know how many other ways to say this.

good luck if you want to go to a US embassy and have them ask you why you lied to hide living in China for 3 years and pretending to have a residential address elsewhere where you OBVIOUSLY were NOT living.  Done banging my head against the wall here.

 

Again, I did not lie about my residencial addresses and not hiding it. All of my addresses are detaily listed in my I-129f. The question is only about a one single question in DS-160, asking me to list countries where I resided for more than 6 months since I turned 16. It doesn’t even ask me to list years or addresses. The reason why it confuses me is because I don’t fully understand if I should put only uninterrupted stay, or cumulative stay. 
Like, for example, if every year since I turned 16 I visit let’s say Thailand for 3 months then using that logic should I put Thailand in “places I resided in for longer than 6 months” because cumulatively it’s gonna be much more than 6 months of me staying there over the past decade?

Edited May 22, 2022 by Helena55

[Family 4,140]

20 minutes ago, Helena55 said:

Again, I did not lie about my residencial addresses and not hiding it. All of my addresses are detaily listed in my I-129f. The question is only about a one single question in DS-160, asking me to list countries where I resided for more than 6 months since I turned 16. It doesn’t even ask me to list years or addresses. The reason why it confuses me is because I don’t fully understand if I should put only uninterrupted stay, or cumulative stay. 
Like, for example, if every year since I turned 16 I visit let’s say Thailand for 3 months then using that logic should I put Thailand in “places I resided in for longer than 6 months” because cumulatively it’s gonna be much more than 6 months of me staying there over the past decade

Complete your DS-160 to  match I-129 F for all disclosed addresses. Person advising not to list China stay of 3 years ( due to 90 day business visa run exits) is lost in semantics and quite frankly mistaken. 
The occasional ( sporadic, interrupted pleasure visits to other countries over the span of years are NOT meant to be counted as “ living in “, nor does a cumulative count of physical presence of those days constitute “ living in”). 
 

Kudos for being through, it does get confusing. Good Luck!