Last fall I sponsored my wife's spousal visa application to the United States. In our case, the resolution was surprising efficient and she was given approval for U.S. residency in less than six months. However, there are a few things I wish I had known going into the process and that is the reason for this blog post.
I will not seek to offer a comprehensive outline of the application process- I'm afraid I would leave something out by accident. But here is a much shorter list: things you will want to know but will have probably have difficulty gleaming from the official instructions provided by the U.S. State Department.
1) Aside from the general spousal visa application instruction sheet on the State Department website, there is also a China-specific notice that can be obtained from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Be sure to get this bulletin.
2) We live in Shanghai and there is a consulate here but it does not accept immigration petitions or applications. I was required to send my I-130 application to the Beijing embassy and my wife had her interview take place at the consulate in Guangzhou- be aware of these logistics.
[Note also that some application procedures mentioned my blog post here may differ for American citizens who are petitioning on behalf of their spouses from the United States, rather than from a Chinese address.]
3) The instructions (or lack therof) from the State Department on where to pay relevant fees are not clear at all. Here is what we ended up doing: I paid the I-130 fee with a U.S. bank card in Shanghai and my wife paid the interview and security screening fee with cash RMB in Guangzhou.
The latter was particularly confusing- the Shanghai consulate would not accept payment for the interview fee and when my wife went to her interview she discovered that the Guangzhou consulate would not accept a Chinese bank card- and she had to frantically go running out to withdraw a few thousand RMB in cash. The amount applicants have to pay for the interview fee is also sent out as some kind of inscrutable code- since the various amounts are similar (roughly the $330-$400 range if I recall correctly) and payment is made on-site, my recommendation is simply be prepared to pay whatever amount you are asked to pay at the time.
If paying the I-130 fee at another consulate, be sure to save the receipt and send a copy of it in with the petition.
4) [This item is very important:] Chinese legal documents submitted with the I-130 petition- marriage licenses, birth certificates, etc.- must be signed and translated notary copies from the Chinese government. I did not see this essential piece of information anywhere in the official instructions but my wife was an avid forum reader and knew of this requirement. The State Department website had only said that the documents should be translated by a qualified translator, not a particular government office.
Like many Chinese, my wife lives and works outside her hukou (legal registration district, typically a birthplace)- which meant she could not get documents notarized in Shanghai, where we live, but instead she had to send her documents a thousand miles away and have her parents take them to a local government office for translation/certification, paying a number of fees along the way.
5) Be prepared with the financials. I was unsure if my Chinese salary would qualify for the legal sponsorship threshold so we had a relative of mine (kindly step in and) provide a backup "joint sponsorship."
As part of my I-864, I prepared a variety of supporting documents( advised in the instructions)... but at the interview stage the only ones the consulate would even look at were I-864 forms, tax forms and tax pay stubs from the U.S. Still, I would advise bringing these supporting documents along just in case (proof of domicile, bank account records, Chinese tax records, etc).
6) Do not attempt to lie or deceive at any stage during the application process. While we were in Guangzhou, other applicants being interviewed on the same were denied or had been denied in the past. I don't know the reasons for the denial in those cases... but at least some of them seemed like straightforward applications (i.e., not the "we met three months ago online" cases that often get denied on the first try). Be careful not to give the visa authorities any reason to reject your application.
7) Affidavits from friends and "proof of relationship" documents or photos are useful to have on hand at the interview stage- even if they are not looked at. My feeling is having too much paperwork ready is far better than having too little. Also be sure to make backup photocopies of documents, have a ready stock of appropriately sized visa photos, etc.
8) Fair or not, spouses with previous marriages seem to be particularly carefully vetted (if rejection stories I've read online are any indication). If you or your spouse has been divorced in the past, be ready for additional questions. I don't know firsthand what kinds of questions they ask in these situations but I'm sure ample examples can be found online.
9) For my I-130 petition, my wife (the more organized half of our pair) put together all the application materials into a carefully categorized binder. This makes things easier for application reviewers and should in turn make things easier for you.
10) After the I-130 was approved, we were told it would take at least two months for the interview packet to arrive. In actuality, it arrived much sooner. Sometimes, there's good news!
11) The instructions in the packet on when the interview would take place were written in backhanded code, too ( I'd like to haul some of these government document authors into one of my English writing classes). I wish I had the letter in front of me right now so I could quote from it.
For applicants going to Guangzhou, the important thing to keep in mind is there are actually two appointments referred to in the letter: a 12:30 pm document processing time (the initial date) and a 7:30 am interview time the following morning.
12) Be ready for the weather: The line of visa applicants waiting outside the Guangzhou office for document processing and interview appointments is long- and Guangzhou can be ridiculously hot most months of the year. Come prepared with water, a sun umbrella and perhaps a light snack.
The visa office recommends interviewees arrive early- which, in turn, means everyone arrives that much earlier and then has to sit outside and wait and wait and wait... The office does not begin admitting people into the building until the scheduled appointment time, and then only one-by-one, leaving everyone to wait outside in the meantime.
At the front of the line, applicants should be prepared with passports and appointment letter in hand as they need to show them to the security staff for admission.
13) American spouses are not permitted inside the visa office for the interviews.
There are only a few options for waiting spouses looking to bide the time (generally, an hour or two). I would suggest sticking pretty close to the visa office (so your wife/husband/relative can find you easily). The most common choice is the dire-looking-and-seriously-overpriced coffeeshop next to the visa center security check (on the plus side, they do offer free refills). This coffeeshop doesn't open for business until later on in the morning- even though every morning its natural customer base begins arriving at 7:30 am. Customers are free to sit at the tables and wait until they open.
There is also another, slightly better coffeeshop with a few cooked meal offerings downstairs on the first floor.
There is also a Starbucks and an Ikea down the block- when my wife and I needed a moment to relax (our taxi dropped us off on-site too early) we wandered through the Ikea. Be aware that Ikeas in China can be crowded... and it can be quite an adventure to try to find your way to the exit door of any Ikea (we ended up hopping over a barrier and heading out the entrance door, it was like we were in a Bond movie for a moment there).
14) Hotels in Guangzhou are absolutely awful.
Seeking to be responsible (and- we were hoping- relaxed), we had made a reservation well in advance. When we got to the hotel the night before our appointment (late due to a late-arriving plane flight), we were told there was a problem with "the pipes" in our room and it was no longer available.
Conveniently enough, a reservation had been made on our behalf at the Guangzhou Fortune Hotel, a "four-star hotel," with only a slightly higher rate per night (discounted from their usual rates!). Guangzhou Fortune Hotel is scam central and I would avoid that starless ripoff like the plague (I'm talking about the hotel at 603 Tianhe Road, in case there are others with a similar name in the city).
When we got to the Guangzhou Fortune Hotel- about a 30 minute walk from our original hotel- the place seemed nice enough from the lobby. Certainly not four stars, but alright. There was a 24-hour coffeeshop with wi-fi access next to the check-in desk and a stack of brochures that pictured nice-looking rooms of recent construction on the counter.
It was after we checked in that trouble developed. After putting down a serious cash deposit- several times larger than I've ever had to put down for a hotel room in China- we were led out the back door, through a construction site and across a parking lot to a very old decrepit looking building with stained carpets and a hideous smell.Ewww...
I've had much better rooms in China for 100 RMB. Tired as we were by this point, my wife and I weren't going to be able to live with that terrible smell for a few days so we called the agent back, arranged to get the deposit back and placed a new reservation at another place nearby (we would have been happy to dispense with the agent by this point but Guangzhou isn't a good place to go wandering down the street looking for a hotel at midnight unless you want to pay five-star prices for two-star accommodations).
Our third hotel of the evening (not quite the charm) cost was a run-down shanty that cost 220RMB/night- but at least it didn't smell bad.
If we were doing this gambit over, I would not make reservations through an agent but instead rely on user reviews from Wikitravel and other websites to more carefully scrutizine a potential place of residence.
15) In closing, a bit of pleasant news. The visa office is near a train station.
For us, this meant after our successful (yeah!) interview we could make a fast trip down to Hong Kong and enjoy a pleasant three-day weekend getaway with nice pubs, art museums and theatrical performances and the beach. See you Guangzhou!
As a Chinese citizen, my wife was required to get a special Hong Kong passport for the trip ("Hong Kong is part of China"- yeah, with its own immigration bureau, currency, international sports teams, etc.).
My wife needed to apply for the Hong Kong passport in her hukou city, too, but fortunately we had taken care of this bit of paperwork earlier in the year (the cost, time of application, and paperwork required for a mainland Chinese resident seeking a Hong Kong permit is similarly to what one might expect if one were applying to visit a foreign country). As an American, all I needed was a passport.
When my wife's Hong Kong passport came in the mail a few weeks prior to our trip, she was disappointed to discover it had been stamped "tour group only." Luckily, it turned out that this was only a form of quirky taxation (like the old "Tibet permits for foreigners" used to be years ago before they became the carefully regimented full-time-guide-only tours of today).
At the train station in Guangzhou, my wife paid a fee to a local travel agent and exchange received a stamped paper stating entitling her to travel into Hong Kong... and then we were able to hop on a train right away.
Well, almost. I was a bit out of sorts at that moment and lost my ticket- I had to buy another and rush on the train and find my wife. But we digress...
I do hope to post more about Hong Kong in a future entry.
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A last item readers might be curious about are what questions to expect in the interview. This varies from interview to interview but there are many samples which can be found online.
Some of the questions my wife was asked about included: 1) How she learned her English, 2) My ability in Chinese, 3) Our decision for a joint sponsor, 4) Where we are planning to live in America. I think the interviewer also noted something about a funny picture we had submitted. My wife said her interviewer was friendly and looked like Anne Hathaway.
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If there is any relevant information I have left out- or any errors in this post- please feel free to add it in the comments.
Good luck to all the couples out there!
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