Replacement Visa

[Eve & Jim 4]

Have you been able to get through to the embassy and talk to anymore, USC might do better at getting answers.

I just got off the phone with the USCIS and they told me to talk to the U.S. Department of State and I talked to a supervisor

there and he said that they shouldn't have issued the visa for that short of a period without first talking to Eve. When she went to the embassy on Tuesday, she was told that they should have warned her about the short timeframe when they gave it to her, but that didn't happen because it was delivered to her by a courier.

They are telling me I have to wait for the embassy to decide what they are going to do based on the letter she delivered to them yesterday. They also told me that I should get my U.S. Senator involved, which I already have done.

[Eve & Jim 4]

Jim, why aren't the 1st class tickets non-fundable? Now everything else is just a timming issue, and there is nothing you can do about it now. Plus with you being this non-calm is making your SO feels as if she has done something wrong, or she didn't do enough.

Sure by now you have learned you can't control the embassy, so wait out the 7 days. It generally take 7 days to re-print a visa. Is there any other document you can think of that might be close to expiring, the PCC from Japan? Generally PCC's are good for 6 months.

They weren't 1st class tickets, just normal tickets that I had upgraded to comfort class. 1st class tickets that are refundable would have been about $4,000 each.

I don't really think that the U.S. Embassy in Manila understands time or the impact of their mistakes on other people. The police clearance from Japan was just another unnecessary delay because it had been more that 10 years since Eve was in Japan and Japan won't report anything more than 10 years old on a police clearance. There really is no reason that should ever expire unless she were to go to Japan again.

Yes, she is VERY upset, and my being calm has very little to do with it. She wants to see something done about the problems so she can come here and we can be together. She didn't go to the embassy on Monday because she was too tired and mostly crying all the time because of what has happened.

While I may not be able to control the embassy, I can raise public attention about the ####### that people who try to follow all the rules and do the right thing go through. I think everyone who has gone through this painful process needs to make the U.S. Public understand just how hard it really is so that they can put pressure on lawmakers to fix the problems.

I really don't think they will just re-print the visas, they will run us through more things to do as long as they think they can. The shameful part of it is that we are just two people who really do love each other. She doesn't have much family and isn't like many who go through this just to get a green card or support their families back home.

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

While I may not be able to control the embassy, I can raise public attention about the ####### that people who try to follow all the rules and do the right thing go through. I think everyone who has gone through this painful process needs to make the U.S. Public understand just how hard it really is so that they can put pressure on lawmakers to fix the problems.

I really don't think they will just re-print the visas, they will run us through more things to do as long as they think they can. The shameful part of it is that we are just two people who really do love each other. She doesn't have much family and isn't like many who go through this just to get a green card or support their families back home.

Jim,

While I agree with everything you've said here I can assure you that the general public doesn't care and they never will. We (who marry foreigners and use USCIS) are a very small minority in the US. Most equate immigration reform to fixing the illegal immigration problems and when they become aware of the difficulties we've encountered their attitude is more often one of "Good it should be difficult because if it was easier then there'd be more scammers coming in legally".

If you really want to make a difference then your efforts should be focused on helping educate those who are behind you in this process.

One of the things I learned early on (from reading others' experiences is that it doesn't matter who makes a mistake in the process we the Petitioners & Beneficiaries are the ones who will pay for that mistake so we need to be triply vigilant and reduce (to the best of our ability) the possibility of USCIS, NVC, DOS or the Embassy making a mistake.

We were aware of the Myth of "All Visas are issued with a 6 month validity period" when the truth is that the validity is either 6 months or the validity of the Medical Exam whichever is sooner. For that reason we did the medicals only a month early when we were seeing other CR/IR filers complete their medicals as soon as they got their MNL Case Number (which could be 3 - 4 months before the interview).

I would suggest you do yourself a favor and stop vilifying the US Embassy in Manila, not that I'm defending them, and accept that a mistake was made on both sides. It would be nice if they pointed-out the short validity of the Visa at issuance but I it also important that once the Visas are issued the Beneficiary review the Visa for mistakes. I have seen cases where the Beneficiary's name was misspelled or other information on the printed Visa was incorrect and they had to return the Visa for correction. I believe the letter that comes with the Visa even instructs you to review the Visa for correctness. It's our lives that are hinging on this documents being correct, why blindly trust anyone else that everything is correct?

Being angry at the Embassy won't help the process of correcting the situation and overcoming this issue.

[Hank_ 9,171]

I just got off the phone with the USCIS and they told me to talk to the U.S. Department of State and I talked to a supervisor

there and he said that they shouldn't have issued the visa for that short of a period without first talking to Eve. When she went to the embassy on Tuesday, she was told that they should have warned her about the short timeframe when they gave it to her, but that didn't happen because it was delivered to her by a courier.

They are telling me I have to wait for the embassy to decide what they are going to do based on the letter she delivered to them yesterday. They also told me that I should get my U.S. Senator involved, which I already have done.

This is the only info I have on DOS contact phone number:

For DOS:

1-202-663-1225

Press 1 for the Main Menu

Press 4 for Foreigners Applying To Come To the US

Press 2 for Immigrant Visas (yeah, yeah - we know they're not really)

Press 3 for Family or Employer Based Visas

Press 2 for Fiance(e) visas

Press 0 for an Operator

[S_R 148]

This really sucks...i hope u get some pleasant news without having to loose more hard earned money

[Eve & Jim 4]

Jim,

While I agree with everything you've said here I can assure you that the general public doesn't care and they never will. We (who marry foreigners and use USCIS) are a very small minority in the US. Most equate immigration reform to fixing the illegal immigration problems and when they become aware of the difficulties we've encountered their attitude is more often one of "Good it should be difficult because if it was easier then there'd be more scammers coming in legally".

If you really want to make a difference then your efforts should be focused on helping educate those who are behind you in this process.

One of the things I learned early on (from reading others' experiences is that it doesn't matter who makes a mistake in the process we the Petitioners & Beneficiaries are the ones who will pay for that mistake so we need to be triply vigilant and reduce (to the best of our ability) the possibility of USCIS, NVC, DOS or the Embassy making a mistake.

We were aware of the Myth of "All Visas are issued with a 6 month validity period" when the truth is that the validity is either 6 months or the validity of the Medical Exam whichever is sooner. For that reason we did the medicals only a month early when we were seeing other CR/IR filers complete their medicals as soon as they got their MNL Case Number (which could be 3 - 4 months before the interview).

I would suggest you do yourself a favor and stop vilifying the US Embassy in Manila, not that I'm defending them, and accept that a mistake was made on both sides. It would be nice if they pointed-out the short validity of the Visa at issuance but I it also important that once the Visas are issued the Beneficiary review the Visa for mistakes. I have seen cases where the Beneficiary's name was misspelled or other information on the printed Visa was incorrect and they had to return the Visa for correction. I believe the letter that comes with the Visa even instructs you to review the Visa for correctness. It's our lives that are hinging on this documents being correct, why blindly trust anyone else that everything is correct?

Being angry at the Embassy won't help the process of correcting the situation and overcoming this issue.

I don't think the American public really gets the whole citizenship thing, and 99.44% of them are purely clueless. Most don't even realize that Native American Indians weren't considered citizens until rather recently. I have even been treated like a foreigner in this process because I was born in Canada while mymother and father were helping build early warning radar systems for the U.S. Air Force that would be turned over to the Canadians to maintain. My parents were caught in that situation during the problems between the U.S. and Cuba during the JFK administration. The base didn't have medical facilities so I was born in a clinic on Canadian soil. JFK wouldn't allow them to return to the U.S. for my birth. The result was me being a dual citizen at 9 months. My father's grand mother was a Native American Indian (Chickasaw). I've never even seen the place I was born that I can remember, but I'm a immigrant of sorts.

Most Americans have a immigrant heritage, unless you are one of the few pure bread Native American Indians who were finally given their citizenship in the last 70 years or so. The media forgets to remind people of that when they talking about immigration and so do our elected politicians. People really need to spend more time on Ancestry.com before they open their mouths and call someone a foreigner.

Actually, it's kind of funny that the "All Visas are issued with a 6 month validity period" thing is a myth, because when I talked to USCIS today about the situation, the nice guy I talked to there thought the visas should be valid for 4 to 6 months too. But then he wasn't able to access any of the visa records because they are controlled by the Department of State and the embassy.

Its is also very strange that the CDC basically sets the visa validity with their rather strange matrix in their TB protocol that says if they see anything on a X-Ray and they run a series of tests and try to grow a culture and all of that is negative, you are still considered to have TB. So the result is that you have endured a 2 month delay while they culture something and are guarenteed to have only 3 months of validity on your visa. And to make it even better, they will probably take their time and not even tell you that you were negative for a week, so you lose that week too. Then when you reach the U.S. you will have to go through it all again.

As a software engineer I am really just outraged by the errors on printed visas. There really isn't an excuse, the information is passed around and verified so many times during the process that having a mis-printed name or something like that is just unacceptable. Hasn't the U.S. Government subscribed to the Six Sigma protocols that they try to push on everyone else? As far as us checking the visa's, we did when she received them, for spelling errors and all of that, she just missed the one expiration date. They are very quick to scare everyone about their sealed package, but nothing in bright letters that says "You Must Use This Visa By XX/XX/XX"!

While we are on the subject of the embassy, why don't they provide a nice web page to allow a person to see what documents have been submitted and are missing or need to be submitted and a status of what's going on with you case, rather than just nothing? They complain about the phone calls and emails, but they don't do anything to let people know what is going on with their case. People can whine about security, but security can be addressed, we do it everyday with our financial systems, it can be done.

As far as illegal immigrations goes, yes, things do need to change, but a big part of the problem is what we see here everyday and that is a system that makes doing things legally incredibly difficult. I honestly think that a portion of the illegal immigration population is created by the current system.

At some point in this process maybe anger is a good thing in that it brings about change. The Boston Tea Party was about anger. All of the wars have been about anger. While I don't want to sound like I'm angry all the time, because I am not really a angry person unless I'm pushed into a corner where I have no other choice, this system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.

--Jim

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

As far as illegal immigrations goes, yes, things do need to change, but a big part of the problem is what we see here everyday and that is a system that makes doing things legally incredibly difficult. I honestly think that a portion of the illegal immigration population is created by the current system.

At some point in this process maybe anger is a good thing in that it brings about change. The Boston Tea Party was about anger. All of the wars have been about anger. While I don't want to sound like I'm angry all the time, because I am not really a angry person unless I'm pushed into a corner where I have no other choice, this system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.

Jim,

I'm not going to rehash your reply mostly because I agree with it. FWIW, I'm an Enterprise Architect with over 15 years in Software Development.

I agree that anger can bring about change but that change would take too long to have any impact on your situation today. That's why I advised "Being angry at the Embassy won't help the process of correcting the situation and overcoming this issue."

Good luck in getting your Visa's reissued, be prepared to get her St Lukes Medical Results updated (and possibly the child's also).

Edited February 29, 2012 by Bob 4 Anna

[Eve & Jim 4]

We are still waiting on some indication that the embassy will replace the visas. Eve surrended her and her daughters passports and information packet and we wrote a letter asking the Embassy to replace the visa's with ones that will give us enough time allow them to leave the Philippines. In the mean time Eve's daughter Mae isn't in school because we don't know when/if/how anything is going to happen. They are living out of the boxes that were packed to come to the U.S. and all of our friends on either side want to know what happened. Yes, we made the mistake of not noticing the expiration date, and Eve does need to get glasses as soon as she get here to help her read, but even the clerk at the embassy said that they don't usually issue visas with such a short validity without consulting with the petitioner or reciepient first.

In all of the emotions that were a result of this, one thing really touched my heart that is just beyond my ability to find good word to describe. I have been married twice before, the first time for 25 years and the second time for officially less than 2 years, but in reality is was only about 2 months before I was trying to find ways to fix a bad situation where I tried everything I could think of and everything any counselor or anybody else could think to try. In both cases I bought my own wedding ring. I guess it's pretty common place in the U.S. A few months ago I bought Eve a rather nice bridal set and while I wanted to go to the Philippines to put her engagement ring on her finger, we have always thought that she would be here soon. She was conceren because she didn't have a ring for me and didn't have the money to buy one. I told her several times that we would deal with it when she got here and not to worry about it. In all the emotions that were comming out she wanted to show me the surprise she planned to show me when she got here. She had gathered up some of her gold jewelry that she had when she was working in Japan and had it melted down and had a custom ring made for me. She took 8 diamonds from one of her rings and put in the ring she designed for me. She wanted 8 because 8 sideways is the sign for infinity. She designed the ring to match the rings I had bought her based on pictures that I had sent her. Needless to say, the whole thing was a total surprise to me and I don't even know the words to say.

You see, we truly love each other. We have both lost our parents, dealt with bad relationships, raised our kids as single parents, and we are the very best of friends that would do anything for each other. It is really the kind of love that we had both always dreamed about but could never really find. If it were possible for me to move to the Philippines and provide the life for my family that I can here in the U.S. it would have probably already happened. Neither one of us are rich or wealthy. I'm sure many people know what a divorce can do to a persons finances especially one like my first one that was very messy, and I've had two. Eve isn't rich or wealty and is in fact rather poor because she lost all of the money she earned in Japan while trying to pay for medical care for her mother while she was fighting cancer and her father a year later who came down with Alzheimer's. Then a couple years ago her home was flooded with 8 ft. of water in typhoon Ondoy. I am a Solutions Architect for a part of the Ohio School systems and have been writting software since I was 14 years old or so and I'm coming up on my 50th birthday in a few months. It sounds great, but my previous job a few years ago paid a whole lot better.

Every day we see couples having trouble on VisaJourney due to cultural adjustments and all of that, and I really wanted to share with you that some of us really found our soul mates. My 22 year old son loves Eve and Mae to death and we both have been working to make sure they are both happy when they get here. Mae calls me "pop's" and we have a really great relationship and she is really looking forward to having my son Michael as an older brother. Michael and Mae are as upset about all of this as Eve and I. This hasn't been just a tragedy for Eve and I, it has been a tragedy for our whole little family. I so many ways, Eve is that one person in the world that I know I would never meet by chance, just walking down the street, and we are a better fit for each other than anyone else that has ever been in my life.

Delta Airlines has refunded the Comfort Class upgrades for the plane tickets to my A/E Skymiles card, without me even asking. They tell us the tickets can be rescheduled for $75 each as soon as the visa situation can be cleared up. So the financial pain is somewhat lessened, but we are still dealing with another black hole of delays that have the precious days of our lives ticking away 8300 miles apart.

We are both Christians who honestly feel that God brought us together because of some of the circumstances around our meeting. This was further enforced by how fast our application was processed through USCIS. Things didn't turn into a mess until our application was turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Every day I think about my father passing away, and how I would give up anything just to spend another good day with him, and I think about the days that are being wasted by these delays.

We are just two normal people trying to close the 8300 mile distance so that we can enjoy the rest of our lives together for better or worse, and we are hoping the "worse" stuff is getting behind us to make room for the "better".

I have been thinking that maybe a lawyer that is based in the Philippines might be able to help our situation. Does anyone have a recomendation of a good lawyer that could really help?

Please remember us in your prayers that we can somehow get this situation fixed without a lot of these endless delays and expenses that we have been encountering.

God's blessings to all of you.

--Jim

[Kelly C 16]

Good Luck to you guys. Your post has given me more insight on what to look for as far as mistakes etc. Thanks for sharing, it must be very difficult. Hang in there 1 hour at a time.

[Hank_ 9,171]

Jim & Eve ~ You have been in my thoughts since I first read of your mishap.

I believe in that quote in my signature - Chance favors the prepared mind. The embassy may issue you new visas (hope they do), but then they may not, be prepared to handle the situation either way. The airline issue is handled so one less worry there. Now plan for the possibilities....

Where is Eve and Mae now?

[Eve & Jim 4]

Jim & Eve ~ You have been in my thoughts since I first read of your mishap.

I believe in that quote in my signature - Chance favors the prepared mind. The embassy may issue you new visas (hope they do), but then they may not, be prepared to handle the situation either way. The airline issue is handled so one less worry there. Now plan for the possibilities....

Where is Eve and Mae now?

They are back at their house in Antipolo City, just waiting for someone to tell them what they need to do. It's really hot there compared to here in Ohio. Even if they have to recheck their medical, that wouldn't be a big problem as long as we don't have to go through a 2 month culture again which the CDC protocol says isn't necessary if the embassy just asks for a pre-departure check. If they just told us that they need to do that, Eve and Mae would go Monday and get it started. While I won't like it much if we have to pay for the visa application fee again, as long as we don't have to redo all the paperwork, NBI, CENOMAR's and all that, I'll just find the money somewhere and pay it to get them on the plane. We have agreed that as soon as they get the visa's they are on the next possible flight out of there that we can afford. Once I get them into the country here, we can deal with whatever problems there are, and at least we will be together.

I really think that if they had gotten to Seatle (POE) on Sunday, the border patrol would have given her a hard time and maybe made her wait, but in the end they would have probably let her through. But that is just a guess. I base that on the fact that the guy at the embassy asked her if someone called them and asked them if she could still use the visa, but it was Sunday, so there wasn't anybody to call that I knew of.

--Jim

[Eve & Jim 4]

We have had some progress. Yesterday I received a copy of a letter from the U.S. Embassy in Manila via my Senator's office, dated 06 Mar 2012 telling us that we needed to repay the visa application fees for both visas, update DS-156, DS-156K and DS-157, repeat the medical, and schedule another interview. They said that they don't know if Eve will be required to repeat the Sputum test and that is up to St. Luke's. The zip code on the letter was wrong, and we aren't sure if they sent it to Eve via regular mail, or 2GO and we don't know if the package contains their passports. She hasn't received it yet. I may be wrong, but I'm under the impression that they need their passports in order to get the medical repeated. I sent her the money to pay the visa fees again of $350 each and a new medical exam $215 each, but BPI isn't open on Saturday, so she can't pay them until Monday. They aren't requiring any of the police clearances and other paperwork to be updated because they are still valid.

I still have a couple questions:

1) Would they have sent the passports with this letter and if so, I hope they wouldn't send that via regular mail?

2) Do they need the passports to do the medical again? Could the Embassy just be holding them until the interview and the letter is enough for St. Lukes?

3) Since she has a reference X-Ray that is more than 3 months old, if nothing has changed, or only gotten better (She quit smoking) would they require the Sputum test again?

4) If the require the Sputum test will they require a full culture or just the smears, given that both were negative at the last exam?

I'm going to reserve my comments about how I feel about this whole thing until they are out of the Philippines, but I do feel like the CDC protocol that is in place supercedes U.S. Immigrations Law and that needs to be changed. In this case, the visa itself should technically be valid for up to 6 months and the K2 up to a year, but the CDC protocol would never allow that to happen. The medical certification to travel should be a separate item from the visa so that the medical certification can be updated separately from the visa. Just like the FAA requires a pilot to have a pilot's license, they also require a up to date medical certification, and the two are separate. Doing things that way would not create any additional danger to the public and would make this whole situation much easier. One could even argue that everyone should have a up to date medical certification when they travel to another country.

--Jim

[Hank_ 9,171]

I am betting the passports are still at the embassy. St. Luke's may or may not need to see the passports again, after all they have all that info on record already. I would make lots of copies of that letter from the embassy and bring a couple to St. Luke's when re-doing the medical. Contacting St. Lukes would be my be next on my list to verify, then off to BPI, then online to (this one may require a phone call) schedule the interview - again.

There is still a tunnel... but there is a light at the end!!

[Eve & Jim 4]

The U.S. Embassy in Manila sent Eve and her daughter's passports back to them via regular mail in the Philippines and used the wrong zip code. We have no idea if and when they will ever show up, and getting replacements isn't easy, it involves getting police reports and such and will certainly take a lot of time. They certainly had the right zip code because they previously sent her a letter to the right address.

--Jim

[Hank_ 9,171]

Jeez!!!! The party keeps going all night long!! Unbelievable !!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone needs to stop the music ....