I-130 Trivia (USA DCF Green Card)

Legal Legal - Marriage
1

Not sure exactly which forum this goes in, or if it could be a sticky.

If you are an American and you marry a Taiwanese, he/she can immigrate to the USA in several ways. One way is called Direct Consular Filing, and uses the I-130 form. Another way is to just go to the US when you’re for real, and apply for a change of status, though this means dealing with Homeland Security (formerly the INS) and may be more painful. There are other threads here that say, don’t do it at all until you need to because you then have to file taxes for your spouse. Whatever you do, don’t wait until the last minute.

We’re using DCF which has some advantages over K-3 visajourney.com/forums/index.php?pg=guides So about that I-130, AIT currently hands out old forms which ask for the photos to be 3/4. But this was changed in September 2004 and now its straight on passport style photos, 5cm (2 in.) square, whitish background.

Anyway first you get your I-130 and 2 biographies ready, There are some details on this that I seem to forget now, anyway, then you hand those in and get packet 3.

Take the above to AIT (3rd floor, window 8, 8-11 AM) and pay them $185 (can use credit card) (they send you down to 2nd floor cashier) They conducted a short interview through the window (How long have you known your wife, etc.). The good news is they simply handed me packet 3 on the spot. They won’t give it to you ahead of time, but I will.
It consists of:

  • 7 page instructions (in Chinese, since your Chinese spouse is the immigrant)
  • DS-230 Part I (only 2 pages though says its 4)
  • DS-2001 Notice of Applicant(s) Readiness (2 pages, English on one side, Chinese on the other)
  • I-864 Affadavit of Support Under Section 213A of the Act
  • 2005 Poverty Guidelines (how much income I need to show)
    (2005 family of 3 your 2004 tax return should show $20,113)
    (If you’re short you can cover the shortage by proving assets,
    at a 5x multiplier for the shortfall. Read the instruction pages.)

I found this online travel.state.gov/pdf/DS-0230.pdf
visajourney.com/examples/INS-Form-I-864.pdf

The above refer to several other supporting documents needed.
e.g. last 3 years of MY tax returns.

Also for my Taiwanese wife…
Every city wife has lived in since age 16 (not every address though)
Every visit to USA and every city visited and exact dates
Birth Certificate
Police Certificates (CCRA) (e.g. from Banqiao police office if your registry is in Taipei County)
Passport
Records from deportations, prison, military, previous marriages
(all above must be in English or be translated)
(in my case we didn’t need to get any translations so far,
I mean, Taiwan let us ask for them straight out in English)

Another thing I found, YMMV, is that when you get packet 3, first of all they simply handed it to me and did not mail it to me. Second of all, turningin packet 3 they didn’t want my affadavit of support and my last 3 years tax returns yet, all they wanted was my wife’s DS-230 and the DS-2001 form that says “I swear I have all the papers ready”.

Now they are supposed to mail us packet 4 which I guess is mostly the medical exam and list of approved doctors. And give us an appointment, one AIT person said its 8 weeks out, another (and all their materials) say its 4 weeks out.

I’m under time pressure, the main thing is to get packet 3 and get it in. That is the critical path (unless wife spent a year in e.g France: then you need police certifacates from there. AIT handles USA though.). Only then do you get your appointment, and along with that you get packet 4 and at least 4 weeks to get her medical.

You’ll want your wife’s old passports too. Fortunately Taiwan stamps all entries and exits (USA did not).

Also there is a great Thai restaurant across the street from the AIT.

There is some chance they’ll want to know every place you and/or your wife have visited, so dig up your old passports. Also if she stayed in France for a year they want a police report from France, otherwise they just want one from Taiwan (IN ENGLISH). The France thing can take 2 months.

Last point, they ask on some forms about “the people immigrating with you”, and “the people travelling with you”. While my daugher and I will travel with my wife to the USA, we’re not immigrating with her. (My daughter and I are both already US citizens).

Once you get this “green card stamp” in her passport (after they interview her, and her, alone) you have 6 months to use it or you have to start all over. If you haven’t been married long enough, after 21 months you have to file some more paperwork. If she logs 3 years in the US married to you, she can become a US citizen.

I should add that there are probably several other threads about this on Forumosa and on the internet at large that may be worth reading. These are just my experience and YMMV. I am not an expert. IANAL.

Check the AIT web site and make sure of their hours. Apparently its impossible to do anything useful with them over the phone, they’re strictly, don’t call us we’ll call you. Also they have odd holidays etc. Also sometimes you can wander up to the 3rd floor in the afternoon (they only accept the papers in the morning) and someone may help
answer any questions you have.

2

Excellent info. Thanks for taking the time to post that!!!

3

Great info for others. We (my wife and I) just did this (DCF) in March. Visa (CR1 - conditional Resident) was granted April 6th (that’s 3 weeks).

Also, when you get Packet 3, fill out the DS230 and give it back to them. Takes only about 30 min (has a lot of the same info as the biography). Saves you another trip.

DCF is the way to go, and you don’t have to live in Taiwan. Just be there. Got to skip the line outside and everything.

Thanks for writing it all down. I couldn’t get it all together like that so well.

4

Puppyface is right. Get the preliminary packet (maybe they call this packet 0 or 1 or something) and take it home and fill out the bios. When you go turn it in (and pay) they’ll give you packet 3. You can fill this out (just the DS-230 and the DS-2001) on the spot and turn it in and save a trip (actually you can mail packet 3 in if you want). But you better be ready for your interview in 3-4 weeks and to bring all the supporting material. For example if your wife spent a year in France I would not turn it in on the spot, I would wait until I had the police report from France. (That says she didn’t rob the Marmottan or any jewelry stores while she was there). The point of this whole post is to understand all the massive pile of information you’re going to need before you even start the process. (If in fact you are certain you want to, other threads discuss the advantages of putting it off). Probably the same massive pile of information is needed if you go to the USA and don’t do DCF.

5

We received the green card Packet 4, about 3 weeks after we told them we had all the paperwork ready. Packet 4 has the medical exam form. It requires 6 + 3 = 9 additional photos! So when you’re getting your initial set of passport photos for the previous steps, I would say get maybe 16 photos. The other curveball was the request for the household registry with the original birth record. Not sure if this has to be in English, that would be hard because old original birth records are often handwritten in Chinese. So the above should save you some extra trips. Also the medical costs NT$6000 and you should do it at least a week before your interview, I’d say do it as soon as you get packet 4. Sometimes the forms in this process seem like old xeroxes or shipments from the govt. printing office that are not 100% accurate for current practice.

Here is my question. I’ve read variously that they either 1. May give you your “green card stamp” on the spot 2. May give it to you “the next day” (via courier?) or 3. the following from the AIT says they courier it to you…

“Step 5: Issuing Visas: When an immigrant visa application has been approved, the visas, passports, and other documentation will be returned to visa applicants through our courier service… rate of $NT160 per envelope… Passports containing visas and the additional documents will be returned to applicants in sealed envelopes via our courier service within two to three working days once a Consular officer approves the immigrant visa application. Applicants should NOT open their envelopes and must hand-carry them on the airplane”

-News Flash- OK, they just courier it to you. We happened to get it the next day. If/when they approve you, they give you a form and you take it downstairs to the courier company office. You pay upon delivery.

In any event, we talked to the courier company (there is a link to them on the AIT web site). ait.express.com.tw/ at this writing. They say they deliver on Saturday and Sunday.

Packet 4 also contains Part II of the DS-230. We already gave them Part I but it is included again for some reason. And in fact they want you to fill it out again. Good thing we xeroxed everything religiously.

It also has a list of approved doctors and the forms to give them. If they detect HIV antibodies, kiss your $185 + $335 + $45 and the USA goodbye. Lots of checks for VD. Whatever happened to separation of church and state? Throughout these forms there is the stench of religion, in the guise of laws judging and enforcing morality, probing you for VD, HIV antibodies, and even conception out of wedlock. We’re applying for a citizenship, not a bishopric for christ’s sake.

6

When you get packet 4, they pretty much insist on an x-ray during the medical. This is a bad thing if your wife is applying and there is any chance she is pregnant. Better use contraceptives or abstain for 1 week before the exam. Urine test for pregnancy cannot detect 1-week-fresh pregnancies. Blood test probably also requires 1 week window, but not all hospitals have it on site. After all that, it takes 1 week to get the results. Cost approaches NT$6000; its slightly less if you don’t need all of the many many vaccinations.

Now, on the back of the packet 4 form instructions, it says something like “must submit all documents in chinese or english, if not in chinese or english must get certified translation”. So I read this as saying that Chinese language is OK for the many documents you submit. Which is odd because earlier in the process (and in other AIT processes like Consular Report of Birth Abroad) I recall them insisting on English. This would affect the police report and household registry documents among others. Does anyone know what the bottom line is on this?

7

Judging by the response I can see what a hot topic this is. So here is the last post. We went in for our interview. They only seemed to be processing 3 or 4 people that shift. You go first to someone who checks all your paperwork thorougly. We were worried that they wanted my (US petitioner’s) original birth certificate but they didn’t ask for it. They wanted both parts I and II of the DS-230. They didn’t even look at the X-ray. Everyone there had a bag with the giant X-ray in it. It turns out that you bring this to the US in your checked luggage when you finally immigrate. I’d bring it along to this interview just in case though. Then you go down to the 2nd floor to pay the cashier $370 (they take credit cards).

After that, the immigrant goes for their interview (alone), through the glass, at another window. Several other people there that day got rejected for insufficient paperwork, though apparently anyone could simply drop off the 2004 tax return or whatever was missing and then they were cool. The interviewer was a bit strict, a bit of a ballbuster. The questions were all along the lines of, are you sure you want to quit your job and emigrate? Are you really going there?

In response to some of your questions, the interview was no big deal. I do think the consular officer could have turned us down if she felt like it, but we didn’t give her a reason to. Maybe other people could talk about their experiences. It wasn’t like that thing where they interview you both separately and ask you what kind of toothpaste you use or what type of underwear you like. They don’t even interview the petitioner (me, the US citizen), in fact I’m not even supposed to be around. They just do it at the window (those nearby can hear the questions) not in a closed room like in Blade Runner. Maybe all that stuff is what the INS or DHS or whatever its called now does. They’ve already had a month to get your FBI record etc. and perhaps at this point they’ve already made up their minds. It was in Chinese so I didn’t understand it all. Just general questions… what’s your job… do you have a job here… do you have a job there… last trip to USA… how long was it (would be a good idea to review the stuff you submitted originally)… (similar questions about sponsor)… do you REALLY want to go to the USA… how did you meet your spouse. Not sure if any of those were trick questions. Certainly you would not want to contradict anything you’ve said on the papers you signed and submitted. When I submitted packet 3 they did ask me a couple questions (how did you meet) and maybe they took notes. Took like 10 or 12 minutes. I don’t know if my experience is typical, maybe because we’re both older they think we are not the 'droids they are looking for.

OK then, I’m taking my family and getting out of here. Good luck.

8

So at any point did they ever ask for the I-864? Also, can the I-864 be substituted with the 1-134?

9

We are getting ready to start the immigrant visa process but my wife is having trouble locating her birth certificate as she was born in a small clinic which is no longer operating. Can anyone confirm whether or not we actually need her birth certificate and do I need mine too??

10

Prepare your wife’s birth certificate. You, the US citizen, probably won’t need it, but I would prepare it just in case. The process that me and my wife are going through (in Malaysia) is almost identical to Shenme Niao’s story here with AIT. One major difference is that the US Embassy in Malaysia required my presence (at all times) and did interview me along with my wife.

11

Original poster mentioned before that wife should get 16 photos ready. What about me? Do I only need 1 photo?

12

Although research at U.S. govt websites can eventually turn up this answer, I’m hoping someone who’s done that and experienced this can give me the overview.

What is the basic financial requirement to be able to bring a Taiwanese spouse back to the U.S?

How many options exist to meet this requirement?

13

[quote=“seeker4”]Although research at U.S. govt websites can eventually turn up this answer, I’m hoping someone who’s done that and experienced this can give me the overview.

What is the basic financial requirement to be able to bring a Taiwanese spouse back to the U.S?

How many options exist to meet this requirement?[/quote]

The basic financial requirement is the same for all spouses, regardless of nationality.

What is tricky though is that each Embassy will interpret the rules differently as it pertains to you, the primary sponsor (spouse). The US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur for example, did not recognize salary gained OUTSIDE OF THE US. What that means is you will need a co-sponsor for your application if you cannot show proof of income from within the US. It may be different with AIT Taiwan. You won’t know until you ask them or submit your petition.

The minimum salary requirements information you need to find are based on Section 213A and I-864 which can be found HERE

Good luck.

14

If you can’t find it, then download a copy of 213A, and it’ll have the latest financial requirements to satisfy the sponsorship threshold.

15

[quote]“Step 5: Issuing Visas: When an immigrant visa application has been approved, the visas, passports, and other documentation will be returned to visa applicants through our courier service… rate of $NT160 per envelope… Passports containing visas and the additional documents will be returned to applicants in sealed envelopes via our courier service within two to three working days once a Consular officer approves the immigrant visa application. Applicants should NOT open their envelopes and must hand-carry them on the airplane”
[/quote]

I found this info here and on the AIT website. Very confusing - am i not supposed to open the envelope with my own passport??? How am i supposed to go through passport control then? Don’t think they would let me on the plane without a passport. Is it some kind of a misprint or misunderstanding from my side?

16

You do not put the large envelope in your checked luggage, you carry it through, checked lugage gets lost. Your wife cannot enter the US unless she has that x-ray and she should never open the packet given at the consulate, that is for the custom official to open at POE.

17

Isn’t it saying that the passport and the visa will be in the sealed envelope that can’t be opened? How is a person supposed to get on the plane with a passport “sealed” in the envelope? That was the question :rainbow:

18

The passport and visa will come in a different envelope than the x-rays and the x-ray packet is marked to not open. Of course the passport and visa envelope can be opened.

19

Bump.

Has anyone gone through this process recently?

20

It’s different now:

Step One:

Fill out an I-130 form and a G-325A for yourself and your spouse:
uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ … f3d6a1RCRD

Attach your marriage certificate and Household registration form (translated into English)

Passport photos of you and your spouse

Send to the “Chicago lockbox”
uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ … f3d6a1RCRD

Include a check or money order for 420$
uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ … f3d6a1RCRD

The very nice woman at AIT told me that once this is done and approved, USCIS will contact you and you then make an appointment to go to AIT with the next batch of paperwork…

to be continued. :thumbsup: