JapanResident

8 hours ago, Chancy said:

 

She can get another I-551 stamp through an appointment at the local USCIS field office.  Bring proof of filing the I-90.

 

That's an excellent idea! We hadn't thought about the possibility of extending my wife's I-551. If they reject her green card reissue application again, we'll definitely look into that. Interestingly, our local congresswoman got in touch with us yesterday, so hopefully we'll actually get things settled relatively quickly. Thanks for your input!

3 minutes ago, milimelo said:

Long time ago before you had to pay a fee for the green card to be issued, my green card was “lost in mail” per USCIS though they could never provide proof actual card was printed and mailed. I ended up having to go through my congressman’s immigration aide to get that green card. One time it was sent back for lack of payment, the second time I was told what to write on the envelope and then it went through (something involving do not open in the mailroom attn so and so unit). 

It sounds a lot like our situation, up until the end. Interesting that the congressional immigration aide was able to help you. Ours did nothing at all. Thanks for your feedback, and I'm glad the envelope advice ended up working out for you. (Also, how do they go from charging $0 for green card issuance to $540? That's a huge jump...)

1 minute ago, SusieQQQ said:

If she arrived in august 2020 her stamped visa serves as proof of green card status till august 2021. The expiry date of the visa became irrelevant as soon as she entered on it. Please see the line at the bottom of the visa about it being a temporary i551 when endorsed. 

Thanks for that info. That's what I thought, but that only gives us three more months to get this resolved. Which is why I decided to pay the $540 fee, even though it's due to their errors that we still don't have it.

1 hour ago, Pinkrlion said:

It is normal for them to reject waiving the fee when your GC has been returned due to address.  If you pay the fee, you get it back quickly.  You can contact your congressman and have them look into it, but that prolongs the issue.  

Thanks for your reply. Yes, now that we've paid the fee (grudgingly!), hopefully we'll get the green card soon. We contacted our congresswoman before but she and her staff, despite their promises to help, never did, and long ago stopped responding to our requests. I'm looking forward to putting all this behind us!

Just now, Coco8 said:

I don't think it's worth risking it since her other documentation expired. Just pay. Is all this trouble really worth it?

Thanks for your reply. I just finished submitting the forms online and paying. It sucks to have to pay another $540 (on top of god knows how much we've already paid), but like you said, it's not worth risking the trouble. It amazes me how broken this whole system is.

I apologize if I'm posting this in the wrong place, but it wasn't clear to me where else to do so.

My wife came to the US in August 2020 and her green card, though issued quickly, was sent to the wrong address, so we never got it. We had to fill out various forms to request that the green card be re-issued, but since the error with the original mailing wasn't our fault we requested that the $540 fee be waived and included lots of documentary evidence to support our claim. They ended up rejecting this application because they said we'd checked two boxes on the application's first page when we hadn't done so at all.

So in February we sent in a new application exactly like the first, complete with evidence of why the error wasn't our fault and why the $540 re-issuance fee should be waived. Today we got another rejection because we didn't include a check – but that was the whole point of our application, along with all the documentary evidence we supplied. Not a single word about our evidence and claim having been rejected. Simply that there was no $540 check included with our request for the $540 fee waiver.

It's beyond frustrating. My wife's temporary visa, affixed to her passport, expired at the end of December. Does anyone know if this is an issue for us? We're thinking of leaving the US in January – and not coming back to live – so I'd prefer just to ride things out. Does anyone have thoughts on this, either from personal experience or based on what you've learned about the immigration process?

Thank you!

24 minutes ago, Tofu said:

I haven't done my research on this yet, but I believe there are temporary insurance plans available to permanent residents you could obtain in the meantime.  One insurance company I was going to look into was called Seven Corners.

Thank you for the insurance company name. It seems that you need to go with a private insurance company in whatever state you plan to live in.

However, I just called the healthcare marketplace again and spoke with a very helpful woman who told me that you can speed things up by uploading proof of your spouse's entry into the country (proof of moving to the US within the last 60 days, or even proof of visa issuance), then calling them to make sure that your spouse's status is updated. This will ensure the fastest enrollment eligibility, and you can enroll with this proof along with the alien registration number instead of a social security number. This was great news for us. The phone rep checked with her supervisor about this, and then she actually used my wife's alien registration number on my enrollment page (to change from an individual to a family plan). Because my wife hasn't actually moved to the US yet, she wasn't able to enroll yet.

44 minutes ago, dwheels76 said:

Well the Social Security Number should come 10 to 14 days after arrival. If not Lord with SS office closed in majority of places don't know what you can do. So pray they followed the DS-260 (If you checked the send SS card to address).

Again, thank you for your message. I did check the box to have my wife's SS card sent to our address. Since she's arriving on August 6th, it looks like she probably won't get her SS # until August 16-20th, which means she won't be eligible to get health insurance until September 15th. (I was told this morning by a health insurance representative that if you apply after the 15th of any month, you have to wait until the 15th of the next month to get insurance, but if you apply before the 15th, you only have to wait until the 1st of the next month.) It's insane that she can't have health coverage during a pandemic until 40 days after she arrives.

3 minutes ago, dwheels76 said:

Well you are welcome anytime to come on in and say hey and give status.  It's nice when people come back and report how long they got Social Security card and green card and life in general. I will always be here and it's just nice to gear from you.

Thanks for your message. Yes, I'm sure I'll check up on the forums now and again, as the process won't simply end with my wife's arrival in the U.S. I'm now looking into Social Security #s and health insurance, and part of that means coming back to VisaJourney to learn from other people's experiences.

1 minute ago, JGG5 said:

Thanks for the heads up. My wife actually already had her medical and the results were mailed to the embassy. Assuming this should speed things up after the actual interview. Congrats again and thank you. 

That should definitely speed things up. Getting the medical afterward dragged things out for us. I can't say for certain, and I don't want to get your hopes up too high, but I'd expect you to have her visa in hand by the end of next week, if not earlier. Once we answered the embassy's final medical question in an email, it took four or five days for my wife to get hers. (They did send us a notice that they were backlogged and to expect delays, but following that notice there were no delays at all.)

4 hours ago, JGG5 said:

Congrats to all. My wife's expedite request was approved yesterday. I see your wife was interviewed shortly after. Did you need to schedule the interview or did the embassy reach out to you? Thank you in advance.

Congratulations on the expedite! We didn't have to schedule anything. The embassy sent us an interview date almost immediately, and it was for only two days later (actually, around 36 hours later). My wife had to get her medical after the interview, which the embassy agreed to. Good luck!

3 minutes ago, TamMhmd said:

@JapanResident @Alix64 Congrats to you both! Sad to see you guys graduate this forum . I wish you a happy reunited married life. You may not remember all that you comment on / to but I remember you guys as being really positive and supportive to me!

 

 

 

Thank you! Oddly, I'm a little sad to graduate from the forum, too. Of course, I'm thrilled to have my wife finally able to come be with me, but there are so many good people here that it's kind of hard now to leave. I wish you a happy reunited married life, too, as soon as it can possibly happen! Hang in there, and all the best of luck going forward – together!

13 minutes ago, Nathan B said:

We received some great news this morning! Our expedite request was accepted! The Tokyo Embassy is on vacation the rest of this week, so hopefully we get an interview date next week.

Congratulations! My wife got an expedite in late June, and was interviewed immediately after her notification. Yesterday, four weeks after her interview, she received her visa and passport in the mail. You're in a good place now, but be patient!

I want to thank everyone who's posted here, as their experiences and advice have helped us throughout these last 19+ months. I also want to wish everyone good luck moving forward. I hope other members here are soon able to reunite with their loved ones!

6 hours ago, carpfan said:

Was at the Tokyo embassy today on unrelated business. The visa area was completely empty, no interviews taking place. Seemed like not a great sign. Any other people hear about interviews recently? Still waiting to hear back, DQ in late May.

My wife got a medical expedite at the Tokyo embassy late last month and an interview early this month. In the waiting room were two or three other expedited cases, apparently, but the embassy's communications to us since then have all asked for our patience moving forward because of slowdowns in processing and in normal embassy and consular functions. So, when she went, the visa area was nearly empty, as you described, and there were interviews taking place, but only expedited cases. I haven't heard of non-expedited interviews being held there yet, unfortunately.

14 minutes ago, mave said:

Our lawyer said I need to bring the medical exam results to the interview so I should reschedule the interview.

My medical exam is today (Thurs) and my interview is next Wednesday. I'm a bit reluctant to reschedule the interview.

 

On the other hand, my lawyer said I need to bring the I864 original to the interview, and ask my husband to pick up the original (signed by the lawyer as well) and FedEx to me.

 

I'm quite frustrated now. I was DQ in March but the lawyer didn't give any further info in the last few months on how to prepare until now. 

I would call the embassy and explain that you won't have your medical results before your interview and ask if it would therefore be better to reschedule your interview. This happened to my wife, and they wanted to do the interview when it was originally scheduled. They just asked her to send in her medical results and vaccination info afterward. (Six days may be enough time to get them your medical exam results.)

1 minute ago, SETETA said:

I understand. Congrats on the successful interview!! Yes this changed a while back. They don't put AP anymore and it caused a lot of worry. There are a couple YouTube videos talking about it.

Thank you, but we're not going to celebrate just yet! We're hoping it was successful, of course, but we know that crazy things happen in this process, even at the very end. Knock on wood, though!

1 minute ago, SETETA said:

This is standard procedure--any sort of administrative processing goes into the CEAC system as 'refused'. So don't worry. Just complete the medical and submit the required documents and keep checking back in with your embassy.

Thank you, that's good to hear. I figured this was the case, but after having dealt with this visa process for 19 months, and without ever getting an RFE, the word "refused" really worried me (maybe more than it should have). The wording of things matters...

We were granted an expedited visa interview in Japan (medical reason) and my wife went yesterday to have it. Because she didn't have time to get her medical check beforehand, the embassy suggested doing the interview first and receiving her health check results afterward. After the interview, however, they gave her a document saying that her visa application had been refused due to not having her health check results. They said they would reconsider her application if and when she mails in what she wasn't able to provide at the interview, which is good, but does anyone know if a once-rejected visa application influences later decisions about resubmissions? 

I wish they had simply said that her visa application remained pending rather than refused, especially since they suggested doing the interview before getting the health check results.

15 minutes ago, carpfan said:

Really happy to see so many interviews scheduled. Come on Tokyo! You can do it!

We were DQ'd on 4/30 and are now hoping for Tokyo to come through soon, too! When were you DQ'd? And have you heard of any Japan filers getting interview appointments recently?

7 hours ago, A.j. said:

I was planning to try to visit my fiance in Japan this summer, however the ban on us citizens from entering the country is still in place, and my flight was just cancelled.

 

Only options I see now are we have to wait indefinitely until other country travel restrictions are lifted, or she can try coming here to the United States for 3 months.

 

Has anyone had any luck with this approach with the travel restrictions that we have in place?  I didn't see anywhere where it said Japanese citizens are banned from entering the United States.

 

I'm in a similar situation – wanting to visit my wife there, then fly back to the US together after she's had her visa interview at the US embassy – though I don't have a flight booked already. There are still flights going between the US and Japan, and aside from US citizens returning to the US from Japan, the flights seem to be predominantly for Japanese nationals traveling between both countries. I see no way to work around these barriers, unfortunately, and would simply counsel patience until travel restrictions are lifted.

3 minutes ago, Quarknase said:

I don't think that is true. Our visa category is under the current ban, and processing is supposed to continue normally up until interview stage. The ban is only for visas, not for the process prior to visa issuance

I see. Thanks for the explanation, and I'm really sorry to hear that you've fallen under the current ban. I hope it lifts soon and that your visa situation gets quickly resolved.

1 minute ago, BWman said:

So, we got an RFE for proof of domicile today.   All of our other documents were accepted.

 

I live in Europe with my spouse, but have plenty of evidence of US domicile- Drivers license, bank accounts, US credit cards with billing address in the US, permanent address, etc.. I am happy to upload it all, and will do today.

 

The question is what kind of delay might we expect from this. (more than a bit irritated at the moment at my attorney....) are we back to another 60+ days for document review?

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

It's hard to know how long you'll need to wait. I think it's possible that documentation is being viewed faster now since Trump limited certain types of immigration. But that's only a guess. If you have a good reason to request an expedite, I'd seriously look into it. In any case, your RFE seems very straightforward (and quick to resolve). That's the silver lining here, as many times their requests can be really confusing and therefore hard to deal with. I'm sorry this isn't more helpful. Good luck!

2 minutes ago, Quarknase said:

Congratulations! Every single DQ info makes me so happy!

Thank you! Someone suggested that DQ times are accelerating now because of other visa applications not being processed. I don't know if that's true, and we waited a long time for ours, but that could be the case – for normal submissions but also RFEs. Hopefully you'll get yours soon, too!

2 minutes ago, TamMhmd said:

I am so happy for you! Your timeline is insane and you've had to wait so long!!! Congrats

Thank you! Yes, it's been an insane wait (and there's more waiting to come, unfortunately). At no point did we get any RFE, either. It was just a normal processing time, I guess, since we had to go through Nebraska. I really appreciate everyone's support and encouragement here!