PJWhitby

7 hours ago, milimelo said:

Re: US passport issue - see if this is a solution: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel.html

Returning to the United States on an Expired U.S. Passport

If you are overseas and your passport expired on or after January 1, 2020, you may be able to use your expired passport to return directly to the United States until March 31, 2022.

You qualify to travel on your expired passport if all the following are true:

• You are a U.S. citizen.
• You are currently abroad seeking direct return to the United States.
• You are flying directly to the United States, a United States territory, or have only short-term transit (“connecting flights”) through a foreign country on your direct return to the United States or to a United States Territory.

Your expired passport was originally valid for 10 years. Or, if you were 15 years of age or younger when the passport was issued, your expired passport was valid for five years.

• Your expired passport is undamaged.
• Your expired passport is unaltered.
• Your expired passport is in your possession.

You do not qualify to travel on your expired passport if:

• You wish to depart from the United States to an international destination.
• You are currently abroad seeking to travel to a foreign country for any length of stay longer than an airport connection en route to the United States or to a United States territory.
• Your expired passport was limited in validity.
• Your expired passport is a special issuance passport (such as a diplomatic, official, service, or no-fee regular passport).
• Your expired passport is damaged.
• Your expired passport is altered.
• Your expired passport is not in your possession.

All other passport rules and regulations remain in effect. The Department of Homeland Security maintains discretion to reject any bearer in accordance with 22 CFR 53.2(b)(7) and 8 CFR 235.1(b)

 

 

Thanks a lot - the issue apparently wasn’t with ‘expiry’ (its unexpired) but that the airline wasn’t accepting it for some very strange reason which wasn’t particularly clear (it sounds incredible, but the level of English wasn’t great and they were apparently quite adamant about the whole thing). I’m really not sure what that was about, so sorry that this all sounds quite vague. We don’t have any qualms about this for the subsequent flight to the US though…

16 minutes ago, PandoraG said:

My husband needed me (I am USC) with him at immigration when we entered U.S.. if I wasn't with him, he would have been denied entry. You will definitely need her to enter.

I wonder what happened to require that in your case? For my first green card (2012) I arrived in the US alone, some eight months after my wife relocated and I was fine - and this, as people above have said, is well within the rules and a very normal scenario (perhaps more so than arriving together, I suspect). 

Thank you. We were travelling separately since she had a work trip and decided to fly onwards to NY from there. My route was different. Where she is has very infrequent flights to the US. Thank you for the ideas re: saving the money.

You know, the more I see if this COVID pandemic, the less I care for it… 😔

Thank you. My IR1 expires in three weeks. That is my own fault (well, not wholly, but same-same). I’m utterly devastated. 

Thank you. This is heart-breaking. Not sure how I’m going to be able to stay ‘in transit’ in this foreign country for a few days. I can’t fly ‘home’ since that means weeks of quarantine. I can’t leave the transit area of the place I am (quarantine requirements also). I can’t believe we’ve messed this up so badly.

Apologies - I wasn’t clear: my wife is the USC hence the emergency! I’m in an airport having to decide whether to miss my flight on purpose so my USC wife can ‘catch up’ and arrive in the US ahead of my (the intending immigrant). The issue is not having a refundable flight ($$$), I’m in transit (so not say ‘at home’) and my wife may be delayed for a significant period of time (days).

Hi all - apologies for the hyperbole, but it’s a bit of an emergency. I know the idea is that IR1 visa holders have to come to the US with or after the USC spouse. However, my wife and I are currently in transit and she has missed her flight (we’re travelling separately). This means I will arrive in the US before her. Can I still go through immigration etc pending her arrival? Sorry for the urgency but I’m actually sat in an airport right now, not knowing what to do. This is a bit of nightmare. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

7 minutes ago, Chancy said:

 

A green card is not a visa.  If the applicant never had an actual US visa cancelled or revoked, then the answer to that question in the DS-260 should still be "No".

 

Perfect - that makes sense. Thanks a lot! 🙂

Not sure if it is allowed to jump into an old conversation threads but interested to know how people dealt with the DS-260 when applying for a second green card after surrendering the first - specifically, do you answer ‘yes’ to the question of whether a US visa of yours has been ‘cancelled or revoked’? It was a voluntary procedure under Form I-407 but the upshot was that it was cancelled, i.e. invalidated, so presumably the answer is ’yes’..? (Or do they mean ‘visa’ in narrow terms, as in, the original I-551 - which will have expired by that point anyway - not the LPR status etc; in which case, you’d answer ‘no’ as you’re abandoning LPR status, not cancelling a visa)?

14 hours ago, Paul & Mary said:

Fax it to them . .  .(852) 2801-4151   You can also use the email support-hongkong@ustraveldocs.com   I remember there being another email but I can;t seem to put my finger on it.

Thank you very much for that! It seems they have a bunch of fax numbers in different parts of their website (and the website says they will / won’t accept different things on them etc). I’ll give the one you provided a try as that appears on the immigrant visa page as well - many thanks again!

Thank you - makes sense. Turns out there is only a 500 character limit (!) in what I can submit to the consulate anyway, so barely enough space for anything. Does anyone know how one is supposed to ‘attach’ the required files to the Visa Inquiry Form for the HK consulate? I think this may be a HK-specific question, but the web form doesn’t appear to allow you to do this, despite the instructions requiring it... Ho hum.

Thanks! I thought maybe the Consulate wouldn’t really care about rental arrangements etc, but wondered if it provided a bit of colour - you think it’s detrimental to include it (or worth keeping in as an aside)?
 

Otherwise, do you think an HR letter without a ‘transfer’ date is problematic, or is the reference to ‘ASAP...’ etc sufficient? I know it’s difficult to tell what any one consular official might do on any given day, but if anyone has any experience in writing (or receiving!) these types of request that would be really great to understand! 🙂

Ah, thank you! 😊

Moderators: obviously feel free to remove, or re-home this post if it fits better there. Thanks a lot!

Hi everyone - I was wondering if anyone had any experiences with obtaining permission to file locally (I.e. at a local consulate) under the ‘exceptional circumstances’ route?

For background, my spouse (the I-130 petitioner) was just about to mail the I-130 package to the US to start the ‘normal’ process, when her company (at short notice) brought forward her transfer timeline. They now need her to move “ASAP” which leaves us a bit high and dry (among other things, her accommodation allowance is currently paying for our apartment; when this gets removed once she heads back to the US I’m going to struggle to cover the rent by myself). We were planning to request permission from the local US consulate here in Hong Kong to file locally since my spouse is having a change of employment at (very) short notice.

Does anyone have any tips on how to set out this request (I believe we email the consulate here through a web-form) in order to give us the best possible chance of having this approved? We were planning on mentioning the financial impact of the loss of the accommodation allowance, for example. We will also attach the letter from my wife’s company ‘proving’ the transfer of her employment back to the US; at the moment it simply reads that they anticipate her moving date to be “as soon as possible once all necessary administrative and logistical steps have been completed” - is this sufficient, or should we ask for a ‘set’ date to be included in a revised letter from her HR team? (It actually took us a while to get this letter from them since they were initially reluctant to put it in writing for some reason, but I only mention that as it might mean receiving a more ‘precise’ letter might take some time, for some internal company reason which is beyond my understanding). Realistically, she could be moved as soon as July, or maybe August/September depending on whether she tries to push back or not etc.

Any tips of thoughts would be greatly appreciated, and thanks a lot in advance!

Just to confirm, you are the petitioner in this case, right? (ie, you’re not the beneficiary asking on behalf of your petitioner)? In any event, Part 5.1 is asking if the petitioner submitting the I-130 has ever filed for this specific beneficiary (the non-US intended immigrant) before. As you say, in your case it sounds like this would be ‘yes’. Part 5.5 would then be ‘withdrawn’.

Part 4.10 is asking if anyone else (I.e. anyone other than the petitioner in the I-130 you’re currently completing) has submitted an I-130 for this same, specific beneficiary. They are two different questions and, assuming the only I-130 ever filed in respect of your specific named beneficiary is the one that was withdrawn (per your original email) then the answer would be ‘no’.

Everything people have said above is correct, and consistent with this approach. You just need to be careful to understand who ‘you’ refers to at each stage of the questions on the I-130 and, especially, in the I-130A.

38 minutes ago, Villanelle said:

Badname BC does not technically exist anymore so to speak

That’s what I was thinking - it’s essentially anachronistic to some degree! (And next-to-impossible to retrieve from the authorities since all they have on record is the birth certificate in the new, changed, name). Thanks so much for chipping in, and everything you say makes absolute sense! 
 

To update:

Wouldn’t you know it, we found an original birth certificate (ie in the name of ‘Sarah Badname’) and with my wife’s parents also using ‘Badname’. Should I send this birth certificate (along with the court change of name for all three people) as ‘the’ birth certificate evidencing my wife’s US citizenship under the I-130, or the one using ‘Goodname’ do you reckon? Both are certified copies from the relevant US state. Such a pain! 🙂

Thanks a lot @JKLSemicolon, much appreciated! Absolutely agree there isn’t really any upside usually to being economical with details; my only concern was that I couldn’t remember whether we had ‘disclosed’ this to USCIS in our last Green Card application, or if it was at the NVC stage (so didn’t want to ‘confuse’ USCIS with what might be ‘new’ information about my wife). As you say though, better just to disclose and explain given it should be fairly simple.

I’d heard the K-3 visa approvals were low, but I hadn’t realised how low. Just a shame that it means a possible two-year wait and a lengthy period when we can only see each other sporadically after shelling out $’000s to do so... A familiar song for many on this site though I suppose.

Hi everyone. My wife (USC) and I (the immigrating spouse) are just embarking on our green card journey - actually for the second time (I originally successfully obtained an IR1 some years ago, before formally surrendering it at a US Consulate abroad after leaving the US for work).

I was wondering if anyone had any views on a query concerning the petitioner’s details in the I-130. My wife’s name at birth was changed when she was young for, basically, aesthetic reasons (e.g. from ‘Sarah Badname’ to ‘Sarah Goodname’). However, her formal US birth certificate appears to have been reissued in the new name, ie we have a certified copy of her birth certificate in the name of ‘Sarah Goodname’. I do not believe we have a copy of a birth certificate using the ‘Sarah Badname’ name.

Given all her documents required for demonstrating eligibility as a USC petitioner are in the new name, is it even worth potentially confusing things by referencing her original name that, as far as we can tell, does not appear to be recorded anywhere?  I’m afraid I cannot recall what we did when we previously filed our I-130 (ten years ago) on this but I do believe we did we ‘disclose’ it at some point, though I can’t remember if this was at the I-130 stage or later on (the from fields appear to have changed a fair bit since that time). I wonder if this means USCIS has this information somewhere and any inconsistency with our newly-filed petition might lead to an RFE... If anyone has any suggestions, that would be really useful!

And, just to add a supplementary question if that’s okay: presumably my A-number (from my old, successful, IR1 visa) as well as the US social security number I received ‘persist’ and are the ones that should be referenced in the relevant place in the I-130 and I-130A, is that correct? 
 

Thanks a lot everyone! I’ll start a timeline once we file the I-130; looking at the way things are, I suspect we’ll end up going down the I-129F route to see if: (I) that maybe expedites the I-130 process (which I understand has at least anecdotally happened in some cases; and (ii) we can be one of the small number of people to have a K-3 actually issued by our local US Consulate.