he people, I desperately need the detailed procedures on how to apply a visiting visa or a marriage visa for my newlywed, who is a kunming local and I am an American, I am only looking for her to come to america to visit not immigrant because we are planning to live in this beautiful city for many years to come, we would really appreciate the steps of getting this done quickly and hectic free, any info would be appreciate it, thanks.

martin

Off the top of my head I believe you have to apply for a B-2 tourist visa.

chengdu.usembassy-china.org.cn/business_and_tourist_visas.html

As newlyweds my guess is they're going to be highly skeptical of such a big rush to get this done.

Congratulations on your marriage. I'm also a newlywed. We also like Kunming a lot, but the overcrowded, strict schools is just a bit too much for us to raise kids here. So we plan to take the slow road.

Someday in the future we'll come back. Hopefully by then China's drug abuse problems, and overcrowded schools will be fixed... ok, getting off topic now :P

A friend of mine has the same problem. He married a Chinese lady in June, then applied for a tourist VISA while they await the official immigration documents for Canada. The tourist VISA was turned down and they were told to proceed with the full immigration package.

My brother worked for immigration for 20 years. He says they would turn down any tourist entry where there was not a "clear and compelling reason" to return to the homeland. Obviously a newlywed would have a clear and compelling reason to NOT return, hence the denial of tourist VISA.

I married a Chinese woman in 2008. I am Canadian, but at the time I was a permanent resident of the US (now a dual citizen). Being on a greencard in the US is a really bad situation to be in if you marry a foreigner, as there isn't a practical way of bringing your wife over. I attempted to get my wife a tourist visa just to meet my damn family and was denied several times. So instead my wife applied for a tourist visa to Canada, which was granted. I think if you can prove substantial assets (money in the bank, a house) or employment, then being in a marriage shouldn't be a big concern.

Now that I am also a US citizen I would like to attempt to get my wife the tourist visa to the US again (to visit family). However, things are now different as she has permanent residence in Canada, which supposedly makes it easy to get a 10 year tourist visa to the US. Being married to a US citizen supposedly brings few benefits to this process.

I would guess that if you can provide some solid proof of assets in China that this would substantially improve your wife's chances of getting the tourist visa. However, having been treated as subhuman by US immigration for over 10 years myself, I am less than optimistic. Those people are seriously fucking assholes (and they don't like Chinese). You had better be prepared to do a lot of paperwork and face rejection.

You will never get your wife into the US on a tourist visa. I went to the consulate in Chengdu and was politely told that, Yes, I could apply (and pay the fee) but the whole time the official was shaking her head to tell me no. I showed her my wifes' house deeds and business and bank documents and told her that we would be leaving our son in China and she politely looked at them and told me that she couldn't tell me "no" but still kept shaking her head to indicate that it wouldn't happen. I was a little surprised and upon returning to the states checked with a lawyer who said that no, my wife wouldn't be granted a tourist visa-ever! Whatever documents I could provide,it just wasn't going to happen. The reason given was "Why would she ever want to go back?"He said that we would never be able to provide enough "proof" to the consule official who has sole discretion over the decision. Our only option, he explained, was to go for an immigrant visa. We did the paperwork ourselves and after a few thousand dollars and a few years of waiting we finally got green cards for my wife and son. The time frame was the same as if I had paid a lawyer $5000-$8000 to get them here. When we went to Guangzhou for the immigration interview, we did find a few people who had managed to get their wives some sort of business visa but they then were having all kinds of trouble getting an immigration visa.We found that the most of the interviewing officials in Guangzhou were not fluent in Chinese and were using interpreters. The interpreters were incredibly rude to the potential Chinese immigrants, asking the immigrant applicants questions in a manner that was different from the way it was asked in english and then then giving the answer back to the official in a way that was different than was said in chinese. We were lucky and got a relatively new official who wasn't "burnt out" yet and who was fluent in chinese and both my wife and son could speak enough english to answer his questions in both english and chinese. As an American, I could not be present for the interview, but my wife said she saw very few of the hundreds of applicants getting approved. She also said the American officials were very rude for the most part. For some of these people, this was their second and third try at getting a visa. Some had been married for 5 or more years. Most of their failures were due to the fact they could not speak adequate english, did not know very much about their spouse, their spouses' family and details about their spouses' life in the US. My advice would be to take the immigrant route, take lots of photos with friends and family and make sure that your wife can recite your address in the states, street,city and state, explain what your occupation is,can list most of your immediate relatives and pick them out of photos and PRACTICE YOUR ENGLISH!

Good luck!

I think the immigrant route would work provided that you actually intend to reside in the US, but if you just want to come for a visit I suspect it might not work out well. There are a couple of issues. First being that while you are an American, you are not currently a permanent resident of the US. Assuming that you are, and you got the immigrant visa for your spouse, it would take a bit of money and several months of waiting for the visa to come through.

I don't know how strict the travel restrictions are for spouses on green cards, but in my case (immigrated to the US on an H visa), if I left the US for more than a certain period of time the greencard would expire and could not reissued (one strike you're out). More than 6 months out of the country derails your path to citizenship, and more than 2.5 years out of the country will cost you the greencard. As I said, there may be exceptions to your case since it involves a legal partnership. You can try consulting an immigration lawyer on this one, but I personally found these people to be completely useless. Everything I learned was through wikipedia and the US gubmint website.

I just applied for a US tourist visa for my Chinese wife to visit my parents this Christmas (both of us now permanently residing in Toronto), and I just went through all their paperwork bullshit again. They just changed their website system recently, and it's half broken (like everything else in the US these days). But at least now you can submit the photo digitally rather than having to waste your time with a professional photographer. I'm highly skeptical the visa will come through, but as it's on my parent's dime I figure what the hell.