Sounds like you are saying that you and your American Fiancee want to fly to USA and get married?

If you were just coming to the USA for sightseeing, you would need to apply for a tourist or visitor visa. The US government will gladly issue these to Filipinos who are well off, and have strong ties to the Philippines, like great jobs, or real estate. Basically to people that immigration is confident will only visit for a while, then return right back to where they came from.

If you are only planning to visit the USA, get married, then return to Korea. Immigration might allow the tourist visa. The more you can guarantee to go back, then the more likely it would be granted.

If you are really planning to come to the USA, get married, and stay here, then the tourist visa would not work. If you used one then got married, immigration might deport and ban you from the USA for a long time.

You have two real choices. Ask your fiancee to apply for a Fiancee Visa for you. This allows you to come to the USA to marry him, then apply to live here permanently.

Or Marry in Korea, then have your husband apply for a Spousal Visa for you.

Most tours of duty are about 2 years, so be sure to apply about 12 to 8 months before your fiancee returns to the USA so that you won’t be separated.

A decade ago, the normal immigrant visa process, to get a your Spouse to the USA (CR1 Visa) was horribly slow. The Fiancee (K1 visa) process was much faster. The Spousal (K3 visa) was invented to be faster than the Spousal (CR1), and in practice was faster than the Spousal (CR1) but slower than the Fiancee (K1).

Fast forward to 2010. Currently USCIS and Department of State have greatly improved their processing times. Today the time to enter the USA for all three visa types is roughly the same, 7 – 8 months.  The main difference between the visa types, is that the ‘K’ visas require a second petition to ‘Adjust Status’ after the fiancee or spouse enters the USA, to get her ‘Green Card’. The CR1 visa includes a Green Card.

By avoiding the Adjustment of Status petition, $1,010 of USCIS fees may be saved. Thus the CR1 visa is about $1,000 cheaper than the alternatives.

I have put together a new youtube presentation discussing which is the better visa to apply for

Watch it at: http://fianceevisaservices.com/youtubefianceeorspousevisa.html

Or call me directly at 1-800-806-3210 x702 to discuss your options.

Getting Fiancee or spousal visas for Vietnam is much harder than from most other countries.

The consular officers in Ho Chi Minh City apply a higher standard before they accept that a relationship is genuine.

Like the consulate in China,  see my blog http://www.expertfianceevisas.com/?p=26 they expect a petitioner to have made multiple trips, to have had a long engagement, and to be able to communicate well with his fiancee (English no problem).

In addition they expect each petitioner to have celebrated a large, formal engagement party and banquet called “Dinh Hong” (but not on the first trip).

Some of their “official” reasons for denial are:

Photographs submitted as evidence of the relationship indicate that Petitioner and Fiancee have spent only four or five days together.

(This is their “code” what it really means is “only one trip = no visa”. If only one trip, it doesn’t matter how many photos you give)

It does not appear that the claimed relationship is continuous and on going. For example, Petitioner has not returned to visit Fiancee for one year.

Fiancee and-or Petitioner submitted evidence of only a small, inconsequential engagement ceremony without any US guest. This contradicts local social and cultural norms in which many family members and friends, including those in the US, are invited to engagement celebrations numbering in the hundreds of guests for families of even modest means.

In contrast to Vietnamese social and cultural norms which mandate a lengthy and careful period of pre-nuptial arrangements, Petitioner and Fiancee became engaged before meeting in person.

The decision to approve or deny is generally made by the consular officer before he meets with the Fiancee, before the interview. This is why taking the extra effort to make a complete and convincing petition at the start is essential to your success. If the officer has decided to deny, he will ask her detailed questions about the “proposal, the petitioners home town or the future wedding plans”. Any answer the Fiancee gives will not be “credible”.

Beneficiary’s chronology of the claimed relationship is not credible. For example, Fiancee can not recalled when Petitioner proposed to her.

Fiancee is unaware of basic facts regarding Petitioners location and or hometown (features, characteristics, etc). For example Fiancee was unaware of where Petitioner has lived for the past two years.

Fiancee is unaware of the exact wedding plans, what church, or venue, when the marriage would take place.

If these issues apply to you, to be successful you MUST remedy them prior to submitting your Petition.  And you MUST provide the supporting documents to irrefutably prove the remedies have occurred.  Many petitioners have their multiple trips and engagement party after the fiancee visa petition has been submitted, then bring proof of the trips, etc to the Fiancee’s consulate interview. They leave dumbfounded when finding that their Fiancee who attended the interview alone, but with all the documents, was not allowed to show the proof, instead was asked a few questions and left, denied due to the weak initial petition documentation.

Submit a stronger petition with more “proof of a genuine relationship”, UP FRONT.  Contrary to official statements, decisions to accept or deny a petition are often made early, prior to the interview, while the consular officer is reviewing your petition. The officer then asks pointed questions during the interview in order to justify the decision he has ALREADY made. Be sure to provide all proof of your genuine relationship “up front” in the petition.

See my youtube on proving a Genuine Relationship at

http://fianceevisaservices.com/youtubegenuinerelationship.html

Strategy to successfully petition:  Immediately take extra care to ensure that your “paper trail” is solid, and put at least two trips to meet her into your plans,  sign her up for English lessons if her conversational English is not good,  and celebrate your “Dinh Hong” during one of your trips.

If you are using a prepaid phone card make sure it provides you with itemized call records. These are the best proof that you are making regular and frequent contact. If your current phone card does not give you an itemized call logs
see http://fianceevisaservices.com/international-prepaid-long-distance.html

My petitions generally get approved faster than average. This is due to the professional way I assemble your petition package, including extensive, but very necessary efforts needed when applying for  a Vietnam fiancee, to prove the “bona fides” of your genuine committed relationship.

Click for Fiancee Visa Preparation Help

Prepaid Calling Cards: a great way to watch your budget and at the same time cheaply talk with your fiancee. These services provide you a toll-free access phone number and a personal identification number (PIN). To make a phone call, you dial the access number and then enter the PIN. An automated voice will ask you to enter the phone number you are calling, and tell you how much time you have left. You get AMAZING cheap rates for your international long distance calls.

But BEWARE! when it is time to demonstrate to immigration you have a sincere genuine relationship most calling cards are not worth the plastic they are printed on.

As expressed by the US consulate in Guangzhou China in their recently updated Packet 4 instructions, (the info packet they provide just before an interview), “Calling cards, without an itemized list of calls made using the cards, will NOT be accepted.”

My guess is, those consular officers were plain tired of the frequent arguments they had with applicants, having to explain that a pile of dead calling cards, or handful of calling card purchase receipts DOESN’T PROVE ANYTHING. If there is no specific record that the phones which were connected were yours AND your fiancees, then there is NO record. There is NO proof.

In fact a Full Fiancee Visa Support client of mine with a fiancee in Thailand, had known the gal for five years, and had carefully retained every phone bill for all those years. But he used a calling card too. The only thing that his detailed records demonstrated, was that every day he called the access number of his calling card service. There was no proof at all where the calling card routed his call. It could have been to Thailand, could have been to his fiancee, but it could have also been to anywhere or anyone else.

Why are these calling cards not accepted as proof of contact? Well, a tricky person could buy a calling card, and claim he used it to call “Ms X” when he really used it to call “Ms Y”. Or he could buy cards and resell them to friends, retaining the original purchase receipts. Dead cards or receipts do not show how the cards were used.

Rejecting calling cards that do not provide itemized records, is not only a policy of the Guangzhou consulate. It is the policy throughout the State Department. Guangzhou just had too many unpleasant scenes, and was frustrated enough they decided to post the policy specifically in their interview instructions.

What to do? Use a service that lets you keep detailed calling records. There are plenty of cheap long distance calling services, and some of them provide itemized usage records. Shop around.

I did.  I checked out dozens of services from a google search. And I was AMAZED at what I found. Almost NOBODY wanted to provide a useful call log. They gave bogus answers like “we can’t do it because of privacy issues”.  “Contact us a speak with an operator and she will tell you what was the number you just called”. ” Send a certified letter requesting the information”.  “If we receive a subpoena we will provide the information”.  And best, “for $200 we will provide you with your last year’s call re cords”.

So I was surprised to find that the service I currently use stands out from the crowd because it provides this information. And this information is necessary for proving you have been calling your fiancee regularly. The service I use and recommend is called LD-Peanuts offered by LDPost.
More details are available at http://fianceevisaservices.com/international-prepaid-long-distance.html

It is cheap, prepaid, you buy in chunks of $20, AND you get access to their website, where you can view the last 60 days of call history. The history shows the number you called from, and the number you spoke with, the date, time, and how long you spoke. What you should do is log in every two months and print out a copy of the call history page and save it for when you apply for your fiancee or spousal visa.

You pay online with a credit or debit card and it buys you a ton of time. Calls cost  US to China 1.7 cents a minute, to Philippines 16 cents a minute, to Thailand 1.8 cents a minute, to Vietnam 7.5 cents a minute. There are no connection fees, and there are competitive cheap rates for the rest of the world too.  You can make calls from any phone by calling a local access number. And they have local access in most countries. You can even give your fiancee the pin number and she can call the local access number in her country and call you.  And EVERY call made would be listed on the history page of your account. Just regularly print out the history, and you have clear proof that you and your fiancee or spouse talked regularly.  More details available at http://fianceevisaservices.com/international-prepaid-long-distance.html

Another of my Full Fiancee Visa Support clients went to visit his Fiancee in Morocco. He took his cell phone with him. He ended up with about $2,000 in roaming charges. If he had signed up for LD-Peanuts the same calls would have cost him less than $100.

For more information on International Prepaid Long distance visit Fiancee Visa Services.