Hakata

Thanks everybody for the comments. I kind of figured that the beneficiary's info goes there but because of how the form is laid out I was a little bit confused. Thanks again!

I am having my mother be the joint sponsor for my wife and am a little confused by something. When filling out the first page there is Part 1. Basis For Filing Affidavit of Support. Below this is Part 2. Information on the Principal Immigrant. To the right of Part 1 is Mailing Address and then parts 2.a. 2.b. and so on.

Sorry for this seemingly dumb question but I can't find an example online where thsi form was filed by a joint sponsor and I don't know if my Wife's (the principal immigrant) address goes in 2.a. or my mothers.

Could anybody assist me with this?

Thanks

My mother is going to be a joint sponsor for my wife and I was wondering if she fills out and signs I-864 and scans it will this be suffifcient when filing directly at the Consulate?

I will have just two business days to get this form from the U.S. to Japan and was wondering if a copy that I printed out here would work. I suspect it won't but figured I would ask anyway.

When there is no field office within the country, the threshold necessary to file is very high. Certainly you can try, and it's good you've already filed a request, but I wouldn't get hopeful. I think I've seen a couple of approvals where it was literally a matter of life and death, otherwise they will usually just tell you to file through the normal process.

This is what I figured so we have printed out the necessary forms and have begun preparing to file regardless of DCF or through the Chicago lockbox. It's such a crazy system but we just have to jump through the necessary hoops to get it done. In Japan I just flew over went to the ward office and adjusted status. It was quick, painless and inexpensive.

There needs to be a USCIS field office within a US embassy in the foreign country for DCF to be an option. You can find a list of international USCIS offices here: http://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-uscis-office/international-immigration-offices

There is no USCIS office in Japan.

Japan does not have Direct Consular Filing except in special circumstances. I looked at the list of circumstances and without going into them here I believe we qualify for two of the acceptable reasons. After calling the embassy in Tokyo yesterday they gave me an e-mail to request for special permission and I sent the request yesterday morning.

According to the woman that I spoke with on the phone, they have to get permission from the Embassy in South Korea where they do provide DCF. She said they try and get an answer as soon as possible so I will wait a week or so and give them another call if I don't hear back by then.

Thanks everybody again for all the info! I feel I should clarify a few things. We went to the consulate to inform them of our sons birth and my wife used her Permanent Resident Card as identification along with her passport. The Japanese lady at the window just makes sure the correct documents are present. When looking through the stamps in my wife's passport she noticed she has been out of the country approx two years. She then said this would be considered "no status" which I took to mean considered abandoned. She didn't use a computer or look anything up in a database and only mentioned that because she had to use my wife's Japanese license for identification in place of the green card.

It's somewhat of a nebulous grey area, but is legal.

Consider this a rule of thumb:

- Looking into this possibility after you have already entered the US and are exploring your options = OK.

- Looking into this possibility from overseas and perhaps trying to do an end-run around processing times for an immigrant visa (not saying this is what you are doing, just making the point) = not OK.

The first option is legal and is discussed here regularly. The second is not, and threads planning this will be locked here.

Thanks again. Here was my original thought. If she didn't turn in her Green Card and we flew to the U.S. with our two kids there is a slight chance that she would be just let in. Not likely without some explaining but perhaps. We have been out of the U.S. for up to a year in the past and were always trutthful explaining that we are indeed planning to return to the U.S. permanently in the future. We were always able to be let in. But this time a considerable amouont of time has passed.

What is the typical outsome for a situation like this? In this instance would they still let her in but default to letting her in under VWP? I am quite certain that we are going to just file for another spouse visa from Japan but I am just curious. Had we not been told at the consulate that her green card is probably considered abandoned, we would have left in July as scheduled and turned up as we have in the past. I feel like we either dodged a bullet or in the end we would have arrived as planned and been tasked with some extra paperwork.

Entering the US on a nonimmigrant visa (or the VWP) with the preconceived intent to remain and adjust status is considered visa fraud.

If your wife has been outside the US for at least a year then yes, the presumption in law is that she abandoned her residency. In that situation you would need to re-file for her. It will take around a year to complete the process.

Fair enough. Thank you for taking the time to help me. We will proceed with formally abandoning the Permanent Resident Card at the local consulate and applying again for a spouse visa.

I was just confused by reading that immediate relatives who enter on VWP may adjust their status while in the U.S. I can't think of relatives visiting the U.S. without the intention of staying and then on a whim filing to Adjust status and staying for a long period of time. Something isn't adding up for me.

did you stay more then six months?

I thought I had included that in my original post but see now that I failed to do so. Sorry about that! We have been in an out of the U.S. a dozen or so times but this time we have been out just under two years. We should have applied for the re-entry but it's too late for that now.

My wife of 13 years has a Permanent Resident Card that expires in 2016. We came back to Japan to care for her grandparents but are now free to return home to the U.S. with our two children both of whom are U.S. citizens. While at the consulate reporting the birth of our son, we were informed that my wife's green card would be considered abandoned automatically. This was news to us as we had plans to return home permanently in 3-4 months time.

She never obtained a Re-Entry permit and are not going to waste time filing an SB-1. My question is wouldn't she be able to enter the U.S. under VWP and Adjust Status from there? From my research online it seems to me that an immediate family member is indeed allowed to Adjust status if they are already in the U.S. Can anybody clarify this for me?