Travel to Belarus

[Vera-N-Mike 0]

My wife needs to travel to Belarus soon. Her father is Ill. The USCIS has lost our I-485 Document. I am sending a 134 application for travel and it appears that it takes 3 months to get approved for travel or sooner if I have it Expedited. I have a couple questions? 1. I am under the impression that our daughter Sveta (11 years old) will be ale to travel with her mothers travel VISA. The cost of the mothers Visa is $305 dollars. Do I need to send an additional $305dollars for the daughter? 2. Is it possible for My wife to leave before we receive the Travel Visa and when I receive it, send it to her Express mail or DHL) so she can re-enter in the States. Thanks! Oh!! I need to tell everyone. My Vera is the greatest !!!!!!

[HeatDeath 430]

My wife needs to travel to Belarus soon. Her father is Ill. The USCIS has lost our I-485 Document. I am sending a 134 application for travel and it appears that it takes 3 months to get approved for travel or sooner if I have it Expedited. I have a couple questions? 1. I am under the impression that our daughter Sveta (11 years old) will be ale to travel with her mothers travel VISA. The cost of the mothers Visa is $305 dollars. Do I need to send an additional $305dollars for the daughter? 2. Is it possible for My wife to leave before we receive the Travel Visa and when I receive it, send it to her Express mail or DHL) so she can re-enter in the States. Thanks! Oh!! I need to tell everyone. My Vera is the greatest !!!!!!

Some clarification is probably in order about who needs which documents when for which stage of the travel. I am assuming that your wife and daughter are both citizens of Belarus.

The trip will have four stages:

A ) Leaving the US.

B ) Entering Belarus.

C ) Leaving Belarus.

D ) Reentering the US.

For Part A - leaving the US - no documents are required. At all. Anyone, regardless of status, can leave the US, any old time they want, with a few exceptions, listed under part B.

For Part B - entering Belarus, I have no idea what documents are required. If you wife and daughter are Belarusi (-sian?) citizens, they should be able to reenter using their current, valid, Belarusi passports. If they renounced their Belarusi citizenships as part of the K-1 process, or Belarus requires entry visas, then additional paperwork may be required, and the best source of information is the appropriate regional forum here, the airline flying them to Belarus, or the webpages of a Belarusi consulate in the US. Note that an airline flying to Belarus will probably not let them board unless they can show appropriate entry documents, so checking with the airline to find out what documents are required is probably a good first step.

For Part C - leaving Belarus, that is totally up to the Belarus government. Some governments require exit visas. I have no idea if Belarus is one of them. Best source of info is a Belarusi consulate in the US.

For Part D - reentering the US, both your wife and daughter will need their own current, valid Belarusi passports, and both will need their own current, valid AP documents, which you apply for using the USCIS I-131 form, and should be free if you include a copy of the GC application I-485 NOA1. An AP document is the only way a K-1 (or derivative status from a K-1) holder can reenter the US between filing of AOS and issuance of the green card. Make sure that neither your wife nor your daughter leave the US without their AP documents in hand, or they may very well get locked out. As with part B, the airline flying them to the US will not let them board the plane unless they have their AP documents to allow them to reenter the US.

Responding to your specific questions, you seem to be using the words "travel visa" in a non-standard way. The answers to your questions depend on what you mean by "travel visa".

If by "travel visa" you mean an entrance visa and/or an exit visa issued by the Belarussian government, then 1 ) I have no idea if your minor daughter can simply be listed on your wife's visa, and you should ask the Belarussian consulate, and 2 ) if it is an entrance or exit visa to Belarus you almost certainly cannot travel before it is issued, as it will have to be affixed in your passport, and you will not be able to enter Belarus without being in physical posession of it.

If, on the other hand, as seems more likely by the way you worded question 2, you mean by "travel visa" your AP documents, then the answer to question 1 is that I think, but am not absolutely certain, that your wife and daughter each need their own, but they should not cost you $305 each. The fees for AP documents are waived if they are applied for in conjunction with adjustment of status. If you include a copy of your I-485 NOA1 receipt with the I-131 application, you should not need to include any money. In answer to your question 2), they should definitely not leave the country before the AP documents are approved, but, if necessary, they can leave after approval but before delivery, and have the documents sent on to them. This is obviously quite risky - those documents are their only tickets back into the US, and sending something that valuable and important is obviously less than ideal. I personally would not leave the country before I had the AP documents in my hand.

Because the purpose of travel involves a medical emergency, it may be possible to get the AP documents approved very quickly by scheduling an InfoPass appointment with your local USCIS office. Bring filled out I-131s for your wife and daughter, and some kind of documentation of the medical emergency (doctor's note, translated if necessary, etc) and you can often have the AP documents within a few days of the meeting.

Good luck!

Edited June 12, 2010 by HeatDeath