IYAAYAS05

I'm going to be starting my wife's soon as well, her's is due up in January. I'm trying to decide if I should wait until we PCS and file or try and do now. we leave next week (the 6th of November) for Okinawa. I believe there is a u.s. consulate on the island who could do the fingerprinting, but I'm just afraid of waiting longer, even 1 week. the base I'm at now does FD-258's only for contractors, if you're needing for anything else they send you to the nearest ASC (which is 1 1/2 hours from us). and we don't have a physical address yet since we haven't even arrived there yet and have no home. we do have our APO address though, so that's a plus.

thanks for any help/advice!

just an update, we got the visa to Japan no problem. the embassy processed her visa and sent it out within the same week and we actually had to wait longer on our crappy mail system here in the good ol' States than we did for to get the visa. and usps wonders why they're going broke....

ok well i called the JP embassy in Chicago to clairfy. they do ask for a copy of your GC to get the visa. but blessedassurance is correct, they ead/ap card will suffice is what they told me. they also require things like a hand written invitation letter from whomever you are visiting and it must be in japanese and have their name and address. there is a formal type document that is in japanese, but they said it's not needed, just a made up hand written document straight to the point. also they'll need a copy of recent bank statement and copy of marriage certificate (if your spouse hasn't changed their passport to their married name like mine).

i would go to chicago if it wasn't 10 hours away driving or 2 hour flight. i don't have time, nor the money for that anyway.

we should have my wife's GC by beginning of december, but i can't wait til the last second to get this done.

Hi. Have a question, hopefully this is the correct area to ask, if not my apologies. My wife (who is from Philippines) and I (i'm a U.S. citizen and in the military) are planning to go to the Philippines for Christmas and New Year and then on the way back to the U.S., stop in Japan and visit her sister, who lives in Japan, for a week before finally returning to the U.S.

Our issue, is that as of right now my wife is still waiting for her AOS to be approved (USCIS is saying 39 days or less we should have an answer) and get her green card/residency card. We know we need need a visa for her to be able to go to Japan. The Japanese embassy closest to us (Chicago) says they need a copy of her green card along with all the other documents and her passport before they will issue her a visa. Has anyone ever been able to get the visa with only the AP/EAD card or is it impossible and we need her to have a green card?

Basically what i'm asking is, was the person at the Japanese embassy correct and we have to wait or did they maybe misunderstand me (as I told them all the information about my wife and that she's still waiting for her GC). We just don't understand why her AP/EAD card won't work. We're married, have a 3 month old baby, she's about to start college, has assets here, ect,. She has no reason to stay in the PI or Japan illegally or anything, which is why i'm guessing they want that stuff.

Thank you for any help!

Congratulations!

thank you!

so.... any new updates from any other May filers?

just for future reference i ordered her ticket on Orbitz, 1 way and no problem. she DID have to pay the 1650php tax and of course the 750php terminal fee.

hopefully this helps in the future for anybody who's confused or curious if you can buy outside the PI. i got her ticket for $900 3 days before she was to leave, i saw it for $780 1 week before she was to leave and i'd imagine if you could buy it sooner would be maybe cheaper than that. but 1 day before, went from $900 up to anywhere from $1890-$2460, so buy asap!

something else... if this were true, why wouldnt it be briefed at the cfo seminar? the tax of 1620php is mentioned, but not that you have to do round trip flight or that you cannot buy the ticket out of the PI.

just pondering.....

nobody uses orbitz? i just booked her's one way on orbitz website, didnt come up with anything saying "cant do this or that".... i'll send her some money in case those greedy bastids want their 1650php and 750 for the terminal fee.

got her visa the other day and she will be here nov 2. so friggen excited i dunno what to do!

good luck to you ray-j, hope you get that all settled and get your ladies here with you.

and hopefully we'll get some more interview's and approvals this week!

However, we now have Amy's visa in hand.

luuuuucky!! good luck to ya, hope you all can make it outta there before they come up with some other bs way to squeeze more money out of ya. dont forget the 750php each for terminal fee to leave... made that mistake my first time leaving the PI and was a hassle to scrounge up the money, almost missed my flight.

well good luck to you Ray-J... sounds like you're having a bit of fun there! i heard from the embassy this morning and they said our visa went out today (24th), so hopefully with any luck it'll be in her hands this week and then i can fly her out this weekend or during the week next week. i'd wait til another weekend, but i'm just so impatient to get here.

yehey! i called up the Embassy today and they check with 2GO and told me that my visa is ready for pick up now..im so happy..

congrats! what number did you call? cause i tried the regular call center number and they didnt know squat. i've emailed usem and 2go also, but havent heard anything yet. would like to maybe call them as to put my and my fiancee's minds at ease.

thanks for the congrats and congrats to those who also have gotten the approval. hopefully more interview's and approvals each day!

and ray-j - i'm back in the states now, didnt see your message til i got back. she's from dasmarinas in cavite, so thats where we were. i got advance leave permission and stayed until yesterday (thursday) waiting for the visa but it didnt arrive so i had to come back and go report back in to work. hopefully they'll have our visa's out to our ladies this coming week, cause i hate leaving her there every time, it kills me inside and im sure the same for her. and i'm sure you and your lady feel the same way. which conulate did you get, guy or girl? we got a girl with brown hair and she was really nice.

i've been trying to track the visa via 2GO, still saying invalid so dunno if it just hasnt been picked up by 2GO or USEM is still processing something. we didnt get any slip or anything so dont see why it would need further processing. i went ahead and emailed the embassy today too, though i know i wont hear back from them til monday. i might try calling the 2GO office tonight.... i'm impatient what can i say. but if a person isnt somewhat active with their visa stuff it seems like they (they being uscis/nvc/embassy) aren't too motivated to get things going.

anyway, who else has interview's coming up this week?

had the interview Friday at the usem and we got approved!!! i'm sure it really helped i was there for the interview, but i think even if i wanst she'd have been just fine. it was fast too.... we were only interviewed for maybe 3-4 minutes and then she told us congrats and good luck and wait for the visa to arrive. didnt ask for any pics, chat/phone records, paycheck stubs, tax forms, ect... hopefully we get the visa this week while i'm still here cause if so, she'll be coming back with me.

hopefully a few more will get interview's and approvals this week or next, cause this is a stressful process that shouldnt feel like waiting for the next Haley's comet.

Thanks! Actually maybe it is an administrative review. who knows how long that goes. .....

congrats!

Ray-J - so i just called her and she is already finished for the day. got there at 5am and was done by like 940. and she said there were alot of people there even. so i'm guessing that pre-registering on slec's site really did speed up things. so if all goes well, she'll go back in the morning and if she's passed (which should be no reason she won't), she's gonna opt to not get the vaccinations until she gets here as i'm active duty military and we can get them here. at least as far as i understand it via the checklist letter, we're allowed to do that, correct me if i'm wrong?

i realize we paid the fee and it includes the cost for the vaccines, but i think she just really wants to go home and we have other reason for wanting to wait on the vaccines.

so hope that is of some help if you or anybody is getting ready to do the exam at slec!

I pre-registered Amy for her medical, but she hasn't gone yet. I think she's allowed by me to wait a while to go considering she just delivered our daughter. Our interview isn't until 10-18 anyway. I think we'll be fine as long as we get it done before the 72-hour mark prior to the interview. I'll be arriving in Manila late night on the 10th.

well i dunno if it helps or not, being as i dunno when aissa showed up to slec... but she just texted me and said shes almost done for the day already and its only 930am there. so unless she's mistaken, not many are there today or she's just really healthy, then maybe that pre-reg does help speed up things.

totally understandable for her to wanna wait a while til she has her exam. by the time she has her exam's she'll probably have had enough of hospitals for quite a while!

and i'll be arriving late night the 9th, too bad... woulda been nice to have somebody to chit chat with on the way there, hate that loooooooooooooooong flight.

for those of you who's fiance(e) has already done the med exam in the PI, did your fiance(e) do the pre-registration via the slec website? mine did that and i'm just curious if it was at all a time saver or not? she's at her exam right now, hope i can get a text from her soon for an update. i can tell by chatting with her earlier she's a bit stressed, poor gal probably didnt hardly sleep a wink. sounded like she wasnt too fond of the area at all and said the lotus garden is pretty noisey. not sure if we'll stay there next week when we go for the interview...

13 days til our interview, last thing gotta do is med exam this week. hope the dang typhoon's will stop rolling in one after another! makes me nervous for her to go all the way to manila with that mess there.

Yes, I got my case number from NVC.

Ning

How do you figure out the DHL number ? My file was sent out on Aug 12, 2011 I used your format and said it can't find the tracking number.

did you put the "A" at the end, like this: EXP 12 AUG 2011A ? i kept doing my date without the "A" at the end and it didnt work, thought it was a typo when i saw the thread telling how to track it. put that "A" in there and worked.

Yep, thats what we're planning to do. Thank you so much!

know this is an old thread, but curious the outcome of some of these. did they ask for the record/cert? is the dos travel site really inaccurate?

getting her med exam next week and interview on the 14th... i will be there for the interview, so hopefully that will help out. sucks its the day before i leave to come back to the states, but if the visa is issued that day or a few days later (which i know is slim chance of happening), then with any luck she'll be coming back with me! if not, then hopefully few weeks after the interview, we'll have the visa and i'll just have to meet her at the POE. now is crunch time though, sweating all the details of making sure got all the forms we need and they're all perfect.

since we didnt get the official letter from usem, do we need to send the downloadable checklist/letter and any of the ds forms to the embassy before the interview? i thought i read somewhere we had to send the checklist and the ds-156, 156k and 230 to the embassy with the checklist. is that old procedure or was i just misinformed and we just bring them with our other documents, papers and pics to the interview?

thanks!

Update on the Update:

Amy's blood pressure was too high to do the c-section. Still no word on their condition. This is soooo frustrating!!! If Amy were having Serena here in the USA, she'd be in the nursery by now.

good luck! congrats too! keep us posted on how it goes!

Thank you everyone and as I promised, I'm back since we got approved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hey good news! congrats!!