Back2Charleston

Don't worry JR, I won't send out the search parites until Monday morning!

Good luck with the flights, gosh I hate flying! And thanks for the extra info. Hope the house hunting turns out to have been successful, it is a buyers market at the moment!

Cheers

Stephen

OK, call off the dogs. I made it back quite safely ... the immigration guy asked me whether I'd had my green card yet. When I said "no", he grunted "figures ... they're always late".

And that was the extent of the questioning.

I guess I'm "in the system" - your journey should be equally simple then, I trust.

Now, I just need to get my body clock adjusted properly to Eastern time.

Thanks JR!

Haha! I was wondering how you were doing...seemed a while since you posted so wasn't sure what happened with your situation.

Well, all I can say is, I'm glad to have you as a guinea Pig, and would really appreciate any feedback as to what happens when you return! I'm sure, from what people are saying, that all will be fine, especially since they didn't seem to hassle you when you left, did they? Not that they usually bother anyone on departure in my experience.

Great! I wish you luck, and please let me know what happens! I want to buy tickets before they go through the roof!

Cheers

Stephen

I'm not promising tomorrow, but I'll try - right now, I'm overnighting in Amsterdam airport, then catching a 10:00am flight tomorrow.

FWIW, my initial entry (on November 4th) was painless and easy, via JFK - p'raps everyone was distracted by election news? Life has been kind of busy since arriving - I had a week of visiting with family in New York and PA, then we moved down to Charleston. I had work to do - an online training class - for the following week, from 3:00am through 11:00am, then spent the time house-hunting. I think we have one - but I then flew back here (and no problems in leaving!) to work in Holland for a week.

Once I get back, I'll go online asap and update you once more, but I might need to catch a few ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz first - don't panic if there's nothing until Sunday am Eastern.

Jeremy (JR)

Although I started this topic, I can't really answer your specific question, I'm afraid - or at least, I cant answer it with any authority! That said, as far as I understand it, your situation is ok since you have that stamp in your passport.

I sure hope I'm right, since I'm about to put theory into practice tomorrow. I entered the US on 4th November, had my passport stamped, hung around for 10 days trying to buy a house then had to shoot straight back to Europe for business.

I'm done today and I'm flying back from Amsterdam tomorrow.

If I don't reply ever again, I'm stuck somewhere in no-mans land!

But I don't believe that'll happen to me or to you.

Cheers,

JR

He's good to go but there definitely is an I-551 stamp.

Maybe they just don't do that in JFK? This does seem like a "YMMV" issue ...

I didn't enter on the spousal visa, but I got a temporary GC (I-551) stamp in my passport at my AOS interview recently. It says the same as yours 'Upon endorsement serves as temporary I-551 evidencing permanent residence for 1 year' and underneath has the issue date, officer, valid until date and 'employment authorized'. It sounds to me like you do have the temporary GC stamp, so should be fine to re-enter

I do hope so, 'cos I'm going anyways I also did a search on Google images and found the sort of picture that Karin and Otto posted. I'm gonna go with the common wisdom (or Delta ) and hope that the immigration guys see it the same way on my return.

If not, I'll figure it out whilst in London.

Again, thanks for all the advice.

Jeremy

Probably. You can go to a local USCIS office and get the stamp. Show them evidence of your imminent travel abroad.

I've been on the phone for like an hour, trying to get to speak to a real live person at USCIS. I finally managed it - although she did sound like a robot - and during the call I noticed the following printed on the actual visa in my passport:

"Upon endorsement serves as temporary I-551 evidencing permanent residence for 1 year"

I read that out and I think that the USCIS robot lady said that was sufficient to allow me to leave the US - provided it was for a period of less than one year - then re-enter.

My IR1 visa was overstamped when I entered, via JFK, last Tuesday 4th November. I presume that stamp is the "endorsement" and I can then go back to Europe for just ten days and return here without a problem.

Since I've been here less than a week, I've of course not received a real I-551 yet.

Your passport should contain an I-551 stamp - this will allow you to reenter the US.

It doesn't - if I wanted to leave as I described, does that mean I'm going to have a problem getting back again?

Hi; after a relatively easy entry to the US, I'm going to need to go back to Europe for a short time and wanted to confirm that I can do that.

Information

Firstly, entering the US through JFK was a nice easy ride. We flew from Heathrow on a one way Virgin flight to JFK, arriving earlier than scheduled at around 11:45am last Tuesday (flight VS003). We were at the back of the plane, therefore I expected to be at the back of the immigration line but were pleasantly surprised to find no lines at all. My wife (the US citizen) and I went to the citizen line. The less than cheerful guy in the booth took my mysterious brown envelope, opened it and took a long look at all the contents, which appeared to be all my original handwritten forms and some pieces of paper from the Knightsbridge doctor. He asked me one question "what do you do for a living?" and that was pretty much it. He stamped my passport on the opposite page to where the visa had been stuck, wrote "IR-1" (upside down) over the stamp and hand wrote the visa registration number over the stamp.

We were directed to a side office, followed a corridor around to where an immigration agent was waiting - he took the contents of the envelope from me and sent us to an area with several desks. Another agent had a brief look at the papers, took my fingerprints and sent us off to collect our bags and go. Elapsed time from getting off the plane to clearing customs - 20 minutes only.

I'd anticipated a two hour+ waiting period and therefore we arrived at the Hertz car rental counter wayyy too early, therefore I have a feeling I'm going to have extra charges if I don't turn my car back equally early. However, that's a small price to pay ...

Questions

Now, here are my questions:

1) I've been offered some work back in Europe (Amsterdam). With the annotated visa in my passport, am I definitely free to leave the US and return again? I plan to fly out on Saturday 22nd November and return Friday 28th November.

2) Should I have received any other paperwork - like an employment authorisation - during my entry to the US? We've been married well over two years, therefore my visa is IR-1, not CR-1. Additionally, I lived and worked in the US from 1997 to 2002 on an H-1B and therefore have a social security number.

After all the stress of the visa process, it's kind of ironic that I need to go back to Europe so soon, especially since I have a job the prior week - for a US company - to teach a training class online to students in Europe. I'm going to be working from 2:00am through 10:00am - from my hotel room - which doesn't feel like fun, but at least I'm free during the days to go house hunting!

Good luck to everyone waiting for their visa, whatever statge you're in ... my own visa journey was relatively straightforward, although it didn't feel like it sometimes.

Thanks once again for all the help and advice I received ...

Did you ask about a refund on the extra payment or is it just that they didn't offer it? If you haven't asked, you should. It's not your fault that you haven't gotten what you paid for!

Oh sure, I asked ... I'm well known (at least locally!) for being the #1 whiner However, they're going to redeliver before noon tomorrow, instead of today, which still counts under the terms of the agreement, apparently. That small print'll catch you out every time ... six pounds, when set against the overall costs of the visa process (and the plunging sterling/dollar rate), is small beans, I suppose.

But it better be here by noon tomorrow!!!

Thanks, btw, for the other advice I've gleaned from your postings.

Jeremy

congrats on the visa!

Thanks ... and what I sincerely hope will be the final postscript to this long and arduous journey, is that the SMS courier who was scheduled to deliver my passport back before noon today (at extra cost) has been involved in a traffic accident and returned to base. I've been promised delivery before noon tomorrow ... and no refund of any part of my payment!

Just when you think nothing else can go wr ... wr ... wr ... ...

Phew! All done and dusted - approved at the US Embassy in London this morning (and met Russell Brand (http://www.russellbrand.tv/) in the security hut) ... and I've received a text message promising return of my passport by tomorrow.

Just a flight to book and the plunging exchange rate to fix!

Thanks, everyone, for your help and support.

I was reading a forecast site earlier today and it "forecasts" the dollar to go back up around dec/jan and then keep going till March/April. They also forecasted the current dip but not quite as bad. The dollar dipped 10cents to the pound in the last 24 hrs.!!

Hopefully they will be right and we will see a rise again.. I am seriously considering keeping my cash here for a little longer... I guess it's gamble!!

**Note** I am in a no way a financial Adviser..and am not regulated by the FSA... I am just the worlds biggest freaking optimist!! LOL

Which site was that, please? I'm waiting for a taxi to take me to the local station, to get to London for my interview in under two hours. I wish our I-864 was written in pencil, so I could change the numbers on the train ... Our UK house sale completes next Friday and I figure we're losing thousands of $ each day right now.

Anyways, interview report will follow later today.

Hi, I'm a UK citizen, married to a US citizen, living in London and attending the US Embassy in London tomorrow for a visa interview. Assuming - as I sincerely hope - I get issued with the immigration visa, we intend to pack up and move to the US early in November. We've been married since 2000, i.e. more than two years.

I've been offered some work in the UK at the end of November, which I'd like to accept - this would mean me leaving the US for a week.

Are there any restrictions on my ability to travel outside the US so soon after moving in?

Would I need to apply for any additional permission / paperwork / permits to leave and re-enter?

Thanks in advance

JR

Nah, I'm sure everything will go fine.

It did - and very quickly, both in time to arrange (under 24 hours) and duration (about 45 mins). The only downside was the GBP£ 200+ but that's one more hurdle dealt with.

When I did it, I requested it by phone as well and explained why I needed it and they knew what to send.

Well, clearly you got someone more knowledgeable that the person I managed to reach! They wouldn't talk to me - despite my name, SSN and secret pin code being entered on the forms filed by my wife - 'cos apparently the "Third Party Designee" box on an F-1040 form is only good for one year from the end of the relevant tax year (which is kind of pointless if the tax form was filed later than that).

Anyhow, I was asking for tax transcripts to support an I-864 form - the IRS telephone service in Philly asked me "for which years?". When I said "the past three ... 2005, 6 & 7", that's when the one year issue arose.

So, now I'm on hold again at about 4:30pm in the UK, in the hope that by the time I get answered, my wife might be back from work and can deal with this in person. In the meantime, I'm reading the I-864, which says, for section 25, "You must provide either an IRS transcript or a photocopy from your own records of your Federal individual income tax return for the most recent tax year."

To simplify this process, can I simply provide a photocopy of what my wife filed for 2007, or do I really really need an IRS transcript? From what I see regarding poverty guidelines, my wife's current income exceeds the 125% level. Although this income will not continue in the US, she is employed in a government type role that is a) in demand and B) transferrable.

The reason for resurrecting this is that I received a further pack of forms from the US Embassy in London today - I suspect it might be "package 3" - asking for an OF-230 (which might be a DS-230! What's that about??). Whatever "packet" it is, I have fixed a date for a medical (tomorrow) and I'm anxious now not to give any further excuse to anyone for delaying stuff ...

Thanks in advance,

Jeremy

A lot of people have the BCG vaccine for TB done in their teens and if these people are tested for TB the result comes back positive. They take the x-ray to confirm that you don't have TB and that the positive result is due to the vaccine. You don't need to worry about the collapsed lung. Ouch!!

Ok, thanks ... I guess I'll need to find something else to worry about then!

OK, I'm probably worrying unecessarily, but what's the purpose of the chest x-ray required to be taken during the pre-interview medical exam?

I've suffered a collapsed lung twice in the past (I'm not going to dwell on how painful that is!) and on the second occasion, I had an operation to staple my lung to my chest wall (which may be one of the reasons I always get body searched in airports).

Is this past medical issue going to affect my medical results?

Alrighty then, phone it is - and thanks for the advice.

When my husband requested his transcripts he just gave the IRS a call and requested them by phone, therefore knew exactly what he had ordered and they arrived within 10 days.

Thanks for that - did you mean that the IRS knew what he needed or was your husband absolutely specific in saying what he required? I'm just not quite sure what to ask for and they now seem to want the relevant form returned to them.

Hi; I'm a UK citizen working through the DCF process with the London embassy. My wife has lived in the UK since 2002, after our marriage in the US in 2000. As with others, she didn't file taxes in the US until we realised that she needed to have done so, as we started the DCF process. We (I!) therefore completed forms for 2002 - 2007 and submitted them. To further complicate this requirement, we didn't realise that we'd already filed for 2002 after we had moved to the UK (we had an efficient CPA at the time!). We therefore needed to sort out the dual filing for 2002 and get agreement from the IRS that we didn't owe any back taxes and/or penalties. Fortunately, that's now behind us and we're clear.

With regard to the DCF process, my wife has received notification that her application was approved and had been forwarded to the visa unit in London. We're now waiting for the next package of forms to arrive and trying to be as ready as possible as fast as possible. I believe that we will need to provide some evidence regarding tax filing status (a "transcript") and to request this, we need to submit a form F4506-T.

Query 1

On this F4506-T form, I'm not sure what item to check for Q6, Transcript Requested. The choices are:

a) Return Transcript

b) Account Transcript

c) Record of Account

Query 2

The form's Q6 also says "Transcript requested. Enter the tax form number here (1040, 1065, 1120, etc.) ______". Again, I'm not sure what to enter. We submitted form F1040 and F2555EZ for the years 2002-2007, so I'm guessing that "1040" is the correct answer to this part of Q6.

Query 3

For Q9, Year or Period Requested, is it correct that we need just the past three years i.e. ending 12/31/2005, 12/31/2006 and 12/31/2007?

Can someone please confirm or correct me on answers to these three queries? Thanks in advance.

Sheila & Jeremy

You got it ... and we've been getting prepped for the beach - I was in Barcelona all last week and herself was in Sicily (but it's surprisingly warm in the UK also this weekend). Sometimes, global warming has an upside

See you soon!

Whatever their process, sending a second copy of the document I described earlier seems to have done the trick. I've received a "Notice of Approval" in the mail this morning, saying that the petition submitted by my wife has been forwarded to the US Consulate in London. I'm guessing this is a good thing and that the copies of the certified entry in the relevant register - which are still winging their way across the pond - are not now required.

I'm not going to worry any more, but I am puzzled as to why sending a second copy of the document that I sent originally was really necessary. Perhaps someone just missed a page?

My guess is that divorce decrees are similar to marriage certificates. It sounds like you sent a copy of the finalized form before it was filed, which is like sending a copy of the signed marriage license before it was filed. So I think they are looking for a certified copy of the divorce decree from the county clerk after filing, which you would need to request from the county clerk and probably pay a small fee. It sounds like you sent what the lawyer prepared to file rather than the certificate you can request from the clerk after filing.

This is not a great site, but it looks like the certified copy if $9.50 and these are the people to contact -

http://www.york-county.org/departments/courts/proth.htm#FEES

Thanks, but I'm not quite sure that's what I sent. The document I have is a one page original document, signed in pen by a judge (whose name I can actually decipher and who is still er, judging). There's also a gold embossed seal, which copies OK on my All-In-One inkjet, save for the embossed stuff. I think it's the final and original divorce decree, at least based on the legalese - what I think the USCIS might be wanting - in addition to what they now have - is a copy of the register from the courthouse, presumably with the exact same seal!

Thanks also for the website - fortunately, we still have friends in the area, and my local personal pitbull will be at the courthouse on Monday, getting copies and sending them immediately to me so I can give them to the Embassy. It won't hurt that the local pronotary (sp?) is a personal friend from when I lived in the US previously.

It's just another frustrating step in the journey, I suppose - I'm not sure what a photocopy of a court register will disclose that's anything different to a photocopy of the original divorce document, but the USCIS gets what the USCIS wants, I suppose

Onwards and upwards ...

Further to the above, I note this instruction on the "Step-by-Step Guide on How to File an I-130 for Relative (spouse) Outside the US" page on this site:

"9. If either you or your spouse were previously married, submit copies of documents showing that all prior marriages were legally terminated (court certified copies of the petitioner's and/or intending immigrant's divorce documents)."

What I sent off originally was a photocopy of my wife (the petitioner)'s final divorce decree, where the original included an official seal from the Court in PA. That's pretty much all we have to hand, therefore I've sent another copy to the relevant unit at the London Embassy today.

Again, your views on whether that's what was requested or whether they mean something else would be very helpful.

Thanks

Dammit! If I'd only waited 1 more minute - the mail arrived (with a letter from the Embassy) as I hit the "post" button to send my previous message.

Well, that's put me out of my misery, except that I am being asked for my wife's previous divorce decree, which I KNOW we included with the original filing!! I have a document that looks official, is signed "by the court" and witnessed by someone - it has a gold sticker with embossed wording that is partially unreadable, but says "COURT OF XXXXXXXXXXXXXX" and "YORK CO., PA" (where the divorce took place).

The exact wording on the embassy letter received today is :

"Please provide a death certificate or divorce decree issued by a public authority to show that a public record exists of the death or termination of all prior marriage(s)."

and

"Please provide the full and final divorce decree, and proof that the decree was filed in York County, PA, for the marriage between the petitioner and <former husband's name>"

Is the document I described above going to be sufficient, do you think?