So they say it is extremely difficult to get a tourist visa for your Dominican wife, since the fact that she is married to a gringo makes her look right away like she is planning to go to the states and stay AND only about 5% of female applicants for tourist visas under the age of 40 get one. (The rest are banned from re-applying for 1 year)
This is what the attorneys will tell you, attorneys who want you to hire them to process a K class visa.
AND this is not a bad advice for most people, but for me, since I don't have any plans of moving to the states but WOULD like my wife to be able to travel with me in the event I do take a trip a tourist visa seemed like the most logical choice and for a change when dealing with government agencies logic won out.
Now I did have alot going in favor of her getting a visa and these are the things that helped:
* I have legal residency in the Dominican Republic.
* I own a business, legally registered in the DR with a RNC (tax ID) number . (I was not required to show proof of this, and would not have been able to on the spot in any case, but if I had known it would help I would have brought proof of ownership of my business)
*My passport entry and exit stamps clearly show I have been living in the DR for years, my visits to the US have been few and short.
One thing I thought was interesting is that they ran a credit check (Dominican credit check via Datacredito) on me right there in the consulate, and asked me about an old phone bill showing I owed 100 pesos that had been written off to bad debt by Orange. (I was unaware of it until then)
Supposedly if I had really bad credit in the DR my wife may have been denied a visa.
Another thing is that my wife had had a visa canceled about 5 years ago, when she tried to enter Puerto Rico on an invitation from a company that turned out to have a bad reputation wtih immigration, and though we were going through the motions of this application we had our hearts well prepared to be turned down. Supposedly having a visa cancelled in the past severely limits the chances of a tourist visa being granted, and we were tempted (fleetingly) to skip over that part of the application and hope it would escape notice, but instead were honest it looks like honesty is still the best policy.
We nearly lost our minds through nervousness waiting in line behind several hundred people almost ALL of whom were denied Visas but finally our efforts were rewarded when my wife was granted a 5-year multiple re-entry B1/B2 visa!
This is what the attorneys will tell you, attorneys who want you to hire them to process a K class visa.
AND this is not a bad advice for most people, but for me, since I don't have any plans of moving to the states but WOULD like my wife to be able to travel with me in the event I do take a trip a tourist visa seemed like the most logical choice and for a change when dealing with government agencies logic won out.
Now I did have alot going in favor of her getting a visa and these are the things that helped:
* I have legal residency in the Dominican Republic.
* I own a business, legally registered in the DR with a RNC (tax ID) number . (I was not required to show proof of this, and would not have been able to on the spot in any case, but if I had known it would help I would have brought proof of ownership of my business)
*My passport entry and exit stamps clearly show I have been living in the DR for years, my visits to the US have been few and short.
One thing I thought was interesting is that they ran a credit check (Dominican credit check via Datacredito) on me right there in the consulate, and asked me about an old phone bill showing I owed 100 pesos that had been written off to bad debt by Orange. (I was unaware of it until then)
Supposedly if I had really bad credit in the DR my wife may have been denied a visa.
Another thing is that my wife had had a visa canceled about 5 years ago, when she tried to enter Puerto Rico on an invitation from a company that turned out to have a bad reputation wtih immigration, and though we were going through the motions of this application we had our hearts well prepared to be turned down. Supposedly having a visa cancelled in the past severely limits the chances of a tourist visa being granted, and we were tempted (fleetingly) to skip over that part of the application and hope it would escape notice, but instead were honest it looks like honesty is still the best policy.
We nearly lost our minds through nervousness waiting in line behind several hundred people almost ALL of whom were denied Visas but finally our efforts were rewarded when my wife was granted a 5-year multiple re-entry B1/B2 visa!