Possible to sponsor tourist visa from China?

[lukoktonos]

My girlfriend is going to apply for a tourist visa (B2) to visit the USA this summer, and we are preparing the documents. I'm currently teaching English in the same city as she is going to college.

Does anyone know if the I-134 Form (http://www.immihelp.com/visitor-visa/form-i-134-affidavit-of-support-form.pdf) for sponsoring a visitor is useful for this situation?

I already prepared a letter of invitation and proof that me and my family can support her during her stay, but I never came across this form before now.

The US consulate website for Chengdu (where she will apply) never linked to this form, but a friend whose Vietnamese girlfriend visited last summer said that he used this form. I'd never heard about it before then.

All the websites that mention the form seem to be about applying for relatives, and for Indian people applying for visas rather than Chinese.

[roddy]

If they don't ask you to do it, don't do it. They're not going to thank you for giving them extra bits of paper.

[dreamon]

She will not get the B2 visa. They will deny her because of her lack of strong connections to China, especially if you are sponsoring her. And then she will have a visa denial on her record. If you are a US citizen, consider the K1 visa.

[lukoktonos]

To Roddy:

Thanks, sound advice. I'll make that my plan unless someone comes and posts a story of the form successfully (not likely as I already googled around quite a bit).

To dreamon:

You may be right. I wonder if you have any experience in a similar situation that leads you to make this conclusion?

Her ties to China are:

• Her enrollment at a pretty good art college. She's a junior now, which logically should be the best year as far as time already invested goes, although they might not consider that to be good enough.
  
• Her family has nice property in a big city and is not on the poor side of things. Both her mom and aunt have companies. The reason we are paying for her trip is because we invited her and want to, not out of necessity.
  
• I can prove I'm under contract to return to China with her in the fall. She also has no relatives in the USA, but it's hard to prove a negative like that I suppose.
  

The friend I mentioned had a similar situation with his Vietnamese girlfriend, and she was able to come. I suppose it depends on the person interviewing her and other circumstances. I don't think it's worth the hassle of getting married before we have time to make that decision just to make a visit easier. Also, I'm under the impression that the US has made the process for getting tourist visas from China somewhat easier recently. Anyway, we decided it was worth the risk of losing the application fee and dealing with a visa denial (I don't think that's such a big deal) for a chance to have a fun summer. Maybe we will indeed have to wait until the fiancee visa is viable. 看着瞧吧！

I'll report back in a couple of weeks for any readers with a similar situation in the future.

[yialanliu]

I think it'd be worth the try. A denied visa isn't the end of the world in my opinion. My grandparents have a denied visa to the US when they first applied to come to the US. Now they've came 3 times to the US since that denial and never had a problem afterwards. I would say an overstay of a visa is much worse.

Another method is to see if you can go through a tourist agency who will sponsor a visa and then pay a fee to leave the tour and just stay with you. My aunts did this since it guaranteed them a visa to come to the US without the hassle of being denied (having to goto Shanghai again type of thing).

I strongly disagree with Roddy on the extra bit of paper problem. In my experience I-134 is important. My grandparents were granted the visa on the second try . We also got a letter from the senator (very easy to get, just write to them and a staff should be able to get you one). Those two items got my grandparents the visa in my opinion as that was the only difference.

Anyways, I wonder where Roddy got that information since I don't think you have invited Chinese people who need to goto the US?

[lukoktonos]

Thanks for your reply, yialanliu. I did find some mentions of using the I-134 form with relatives, as you did, but not for non-relatives. I think I may fill the form out and give it to my girlfriend, who will have a stack of various papers with her for the interview. That way, if the visa issuer specifically asks for that form, she can provide it, but if they don't, it won't be a problem. I already stated in my letter of invitation the details about putting her up while she's visiting.

[lukoktonos]

Following up for anyone who might find this info useful later.

She didn't get the visa, as dreamon predicted. He asked about our relationship, which she proved, whether she had met my family before (not in person but they've talked on skype), whether she had been out of the country before, which she hadn't, and asked if she was a student. He didn't ask for any proof about her being a student, and wasn't interested in seeing anything else we had prepared, including the form I asked about. Perhaps it's their policy that students aren't granted tourist visas without previously leaving the country, regardless of their family's situation.

Oh well, we had a nice time in Chengdu and the weather was great

[yialanliu]

Sorry to hear that. I'd recommend trying again if necessary or do the travel agency method which although expensive might work.

[roddy]

Thanks for the follow up.

Anyways, I wonder where Roddy got that information since I don't think you have invited Chinese people who need to goto the US?

Consulate didn't ask for the form, consulate therefore doesn't need the form. Seems like common sense, to be honest.

[yialanliu]

For someone who knows even 1 thing about China it's that common sense doesn't work in this country. There's not 1 set of rules of China that works for every instance and there is no common sense.

Anyways, if you were smart, you'd realize that that post occured around the time when you asked why I posted about PKU when someone was asking about BLCU. I may not have gone to BLCU, but I can still offer advice. But since you disagreed, I was just thinking maybe you should use your own advice since you posted it. So why did you post things you never did yourself when you tell others not to?

[lukoktonos]

True, in China there might not be "rules" so much as "guidelines", but the US consulate is run by American employees, so what Roddy said probably still holds true there as it does for any bureaucratic procedure in the US or UK

However, the way the interview is done doesn't require you to give your forms up front and waste their time or energy with useless forms--they will ask for things specifically and you can respond if you have the appropriate form. In this case, it makes sense to have too many documents, just in case they might ask for something.

[Flying Pigeon]

"So why did you post things you never did yourself when you tell others not to?"

Is this a Zen koan?

[yialanliu]

I was referring to this:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/37013-credits-for-language-courses/page__view__findpost__p__276898

But Roddy obviously says one thing and does another.

[anonymoose]

Roddy is god. Roddy may do as He will.