Ok now that I have your attention what I am about to say is NOT for EVERYONE!
First a little encouraging news, my wife got her VISA (CR1) on April 14th. It took us less than 8 months from start to finish. She will be here on the 8th of May... damn I'm one happy man!
The consensus here is generally to use an attorney to prepare the VISA paperwork. I took some time and did my research before I fired the attorney I had hired. It was quite obvious to my wife and I that I was doing all the work and the attorney was only going to collect $1500 for mailing my work to USCIS. I requested a detailed description of what the process would be with the attorney if we did in deed continue to use his services. Yes, I spent a couple bucks but cut my losses before they were too great.
When my wife went to the interview she echoed some of what Maxx has reported in the past, many women left in tears with no VISA. My Laopo, Jialian, was a bit disappointed because the process was "too easy", she tried to show Christmas Cards from my family and our 2009 taxes etc.. Ok, so if I did it all myself how did it become so easy for her? I don't claim to be a genius just an average guy with a college education. With that said the key to the success would appear to be something I read on Visa Journey and took to heart. "Front load" everything and be sure what you write is coherent, complete, and grammatically correct. I included a lot of things to validate our marriage such as email with our benefits coordinator stating Jialian could not be covered by my health insurance and a number of other things of similar nature. Obviously, emails, chat logs, phone logs, and evidence of my trips to China were included. By including more than just a few emails and photos we were able to satisfy the VO without any additional information request. With the initial submissions I made sure that all bases were covered but did not make the package too large, I learned long ago that sometimes less is truly more. My wife told me she saw many women being asked to produce many things, but she only answered a few questions. Jialian told me that several women commented that she carried too much material with her to the interview, she told them that “my lagong told me we need to have everything so there is no problems”. Sadly, the same woman who told her this was one who left in tears with no VISA. Somehow I am now SuperMan in her eyes because everything I told her worked as we expected. Additionally, we spent weeks reviewing possible questions (found on VISA Journey) so she was extremely confident and ready for any question they could ask her. Confidence goes a long way in these things.
Again, my experience and thought are not for everyone but it can be done without the need to pay a lawyer to submit your work. I would never want anyone to misconstrue this advice and go off half-cocked and fail. If you should decide to proceed with out a lawyer please be certain that you have all the I’s crossed and T’ crossed. As a side note my son in-law (Chinese) used a Chinese American attorney to handle his brother’s immigration issues and fired him quickly and did it much quicker himself.
I hope all of you find the woman of your dreams and get her here quickly and inexpensively.
Peace,
Tom
