First off, if you and your wife aren't planning on settling in the states right away, avoid the CR1. The CR1 will get her a green card, but if she doesn't end up spending most of her time in the states, it can be revoked at any border crossing without warning (not terribly common, but it does happen). If that happens, it will be very difficult to successfully apply again.
Applying at the same time doesn't seem to change the likelihood of success. All interviews are conducted separately except in special cases. If you do go for the CR1 for the wife and the tourist visa for the parents, they won't even be processed by the same office.
I still live in China with my wife. When I first tried to bring her to the states, we applied for tourist visas for her and her parents. They interviewed in different locations. The parents were accepted, but my wife was denied.
It took a while to get my wife her first visa (tourist visa), but now we're basically golden. We renewed twice via the mail service, and now she has ten years, at six months for each entry.
One last thing: don't expect to have everything finished within "a few months," especially if going for the CR1. If you're lucky scheduling an interview for a tourist visa, you might be able to wrap it all up, visa in hand, in about that time, but CR1 applications can sometimes stretch on for quite a while.
@Xiefei. Was the turn down at Chengdu?
She got turned down once in Chengdu and once in Beijing. Third time went through and it's been smooth sailing ever since.
I'm not sure if this is true statistically, but ALL of the people who've discussed taking their spouse to the USA to visit have been denied on the first application. The consulate/embassy never provides a reason (perhaps, so one can't "game" the system) - but the application fees and time spent doing all these things is non-trivial...for those on trivial local salaries.
Regardless - I detest paying for things with high probabilities of failure, such as spousal visas. If ANYONE has a first time around success story - please feel free to share.
Seems to me, it's actually easier to sneak terrorists, drugs, and illegal aliens into the USA, than to enter legally. The biblical "strain for a gnat, let a camel pass through" criticism.
My wife was approved the first time when we applied in Beijing. Take pictures of the wedding along to the interview as evidence. Make sure your wife knows about your family/background. The State Department is cautious about fake marriages. Generally US visa policy seems to have relaxed in recent years, which helps.
Before I met my wife she was turned down 2 or 3 times in Chengdu. (She wanted to visit her sister who lives in America.)
@baiyuxiang
Thanks for the encouraging mail. You're actually the first person I've heard of who didn't have to pay 2-3 times to get through the US visa process for spouses.
From rumblings on the vine, I think that there may be an issue with some consulates in China, but not with others.
My experience in doing B1/B2 visa applications with Chinese nationals for them, is that they tend to inadvertently, not fill in these government forms properly. One question on the form, last year, was have you ever been fingerprinted. Whenever I ask my Chinese friends this they automatically say No. They are not criminals. Right? Yet many of them actually have been fingerprinted. They can then be seen by a visa officer, in some cases, as "lying"on the application and get denied and they will never know why. Yet clearly pregnant women get visas to go have their baby in America. Those specialized hospitals in California were raided in February.
@ScubaAlaTuba
For that situation, I'd recommend consulting an immigration lawyer. If you want to live together in the states for a few years, technically, she should be applying for a green card. But if, after that, you move back to China, she may have some issues a few years down the line. It may amount only to some extra questioning when trying to enter the US, but worst case scenario, her green card can be revoked. Also, keep in mind that as long as she's on a green card, she's expected to file worldwide income, banking and investment holdings to the IRS, effective until the green card is officially cancelled.
So the long and short of it is: talk to an immigration lawyer before you take the plunge.
