Bryan in Tokyo

Hi guys, me again. Simply wanted to ask if anyone could share their turnaround time for their medical check in Tokyo; that is, how many days weeks, did it take to receive any required documents/test results. Is it instantly on the spot, or did you wait a couple of weeks? Thanks! M & B

Thanks for the help everyone! Here's a quick amendment:

I ended up calling and long story short, digital fingerprinting is speedier, it'll cost 72CAN for the 1. fingerprinting and 2. RCMP background check. These are two separate entities, however, point of entry and payment is simply with the company, in this case "Commissisionares"

Here's a summary:

Ms. Barinder Parhar was nice and answered all of our questions. Process goes like this

1. Come in the morning (recommended) - make sure fingers moisturized; they'll ensure readibility and quality with you there.

2. Digital fingerprints are sent instantly to RCMP

3. RCMP processes for 3 days

4. Mailinng takes 5-6 days (forgot to confirm 'business days'

5. Total: 8-10 days , but no guarantee

Highlights:

* Definitely faster, it is a green light

* May receive it while you are on vacation

* Bottom line, it'll come within about 10 days

* Clear process, so easy to understand

* Have a contact name: Barinder Parhar called

Hi all. Proud to say, our I130 was approved the other day, fairly easy. On to the next step, in a nutshell

o We are planning to move to LA from Tokyo early 2010 - asap.

o I'm a USC just married to a Japanese Citizen

o We are in the process of obtaining police records

I'm e-mailing to check if anyone has experience with the "Real Time Identification (RTID) Project" which supposedly expedites fingerprinting processes within 72 hrs vs 'paper based' which manually obviously takes longer (~120 days?)

Our question is has anyone flown to Canada, fingerprinted electronically and received their police record in 72hrs or so?

Has anyone had their fingerprints done electronically OUTSIDE of Canada and had them sent in and experienced a quick turnaround?

Does anyone know if the Tokyo embassy will take electronic fingerprints and send to Canada? (Forgot to ask at the Embassy the other day!)

My wife is considering visiting friends in Canada anyway, so she mailed the Emb. to confirm, but they simply copy and pasted info from the website. OUCH. Can anyone confirm the quickest way to get her police record???

Thanks for any feedback ; much appreciated!

I am not sure you can do that outside Japan. HERE IS WHAT I FOUND FOR PPC FOR JAPAN.

Contact the Embassy again and ask them, or NVC. I think that's an issue only they could answer you to.

Congrats on the NOA2 and good luck in your visa journey

Thanks mate; here's an amendment:

So, I ended up calling and long story short, digital fingerprinting is speedier, it'll cost 72CAN for the 1. fingerprinting and 2. RCMP background check. These are two separate entities, however, point of entry and payment is simply with the company, in this case "Commissisionares"

Here's a summary:

Ms. Barinder Parhar was nice and answered all of our questions. Process goes like this

1. Come in the morning (recommended) - make sure fingers moisturized; they'll ensure readibility and quality with you there.

2. Digital fingerprints are sent instantly to RCMP

3. RCMP processes for 3 days

4. Mailinng takes 5-6 days (forgot to confirm 'business days'

5. Total: 8-10 days , but no guarantee

Highlights:

* Definitely faster, it is a green light

* May receive it while you are on vacation

* Bottom line, it'll come within about 10 days

* Clear process, so easy to understand

* Have a contact name: Barinder Parhar called

I replied in your other topic:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=220827

Hi guys, at the behest of the moderator, wanted to share information regarding digital fingerprinting for police records for those of us who lived in Canada, but currently do not.

I ended up calling and long story short, digital fingerprinting is speedier, it'll cost 72CAN for the 1. fingerprinting and 2. RCMP background check. These are two separate entities, however, point of entry and payment is simply with the company, in this case "Commissisionares"

Here's a summary:

Ms. Barinder Parhar was nice and answered all of our questions. Process goes like this

1. Come in the morning (recommended) - make sure fingers moisturized; they'll ensure readibility and quality with you there.

2. Digital fingerprints are sent instantly to RCMP

3. RCMP processes for 3 days

4. Mailinng takes 5-6 days (forgot to confirm 'business days'

5. Total: 8-10 days , but no guarantee

Highlights:

* Definitely faster, it is a green light

* May receive it while you are on vacation

* Bottom line, it'll come within about 10 days

* Clear process, so easy to understand

* Have a contact name: Barinder Parhar

***By the way, we're planning to move to the US, I'm a USC. She simply lived in Canada for 12 years, so police records are required; currently living in Tokyo!

Amendment: We've been approved for I130 and received our packet for the next step. Regarding name change, it is as stated above in the quote from the embassy website. My Japanese wife simply added my name to her passport but kept her maiden name (mine's in parenthesis). In American, her maiden name has become a "middle" name.

We used my family name for her when applying for the I130, hope this helps.

Hi, Bryan

I just found this on the US embassy Tokyo website.

Should I use my married name on the I-130 petition?

If you would like to use your married name in the U.S., you may use your married name for the I-130. Please make sure to amend your passport to your married name before your immigrant visa interview. We cannot put your married name on your visa unless you have amended your passport.

(Source: http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/visa/tvisa-ivspousefaq.html)

It isn't completely answering your question, but sounds the only step your fiance needs is changing her name (I mean putting your name in parenthesis) on her passport.

Hi guys,

Thank you for the information, we wanted to confirm this once and for all for us, so we paid the 2200yen and called the American embassy here in Tokyo today; we spoke with a "Fuan" who basically confirmed

1. The only step needed to keep maiden name, but be able to apply for the visa IS in fact to include my name (ACS) in parenthesis when she goes to change her passport.

Calling the embassy is a process in and of itself, and once you finally get through you aren't guaranteed a native speaker, so be sure to prepare for everything and if so, ask for one. Fuan gave us the information, but her confidence wasn't exactly what we had expected from an embassy; but hey, that's just me.

Thank you so much for your stories, I hope this helps, next up is to file DCF!

Hi all. Proud to say, our I130 was approved the other day, fairly easy. On to the next step, in a nutshell

o We are planning to move to LA from Tokyo early 2010 - asap.

o I'm a USC just married to a Japanese Citizen

o We are in the process of obtaining police records

I'm e-mailing to check if anyone has experience with the "Real Time Identification (RTID) Project" which supposedly expedites fingerprinting processes within 72 hrs vs 'paper based' which manually obviously takes longer (~120 days?)

Our question is has anyone flown to Canada, fingerprinted electronically and received their police record in 72hrs or so?

Has anyone had their fingerprints done electronically OUTSIDE of Canada and had them sent in and experienced a quick turnaround?

Does anyone know if the Tokyo embassy will take electronic fingerprints and send to Canada? (Forgot to ask at the Embassy the other day!)

My wife is considering visiting friends in Canada anyway, so she mailed the Emb. to confirm, but they simply copy and pasted info from the website. OUCH. Can anyone confirm the quickest way to get her police record???

Thanks for any feedback ; much appreciated!

____________________________

Reply from Emb.

> Good day,

>

>

> Paper-based fingerprint submissions:

>

> Paper-based fingerprint submissions require a great deal of manual

> processing and it is not uncommon for a criminal record verification to

> take an average of 120 days to complete for individuals who don’t have

> a criminal record and have never been fingerprinted for a criminal

> offence in Canada. If a criminal record is encountered during the

> verification process, the turnaround time could exceed 120 days.

>

> Electronic fingerprint submissions:

>

> In an effort to process criminal verification requests more quickly,

> the RCMP is implementing the Real Time Identification (RTID) Project to

> modernize these processes and promote electronic fingerprint

> submissions. The goal of CCRTIS is to respond to 85% of civil requests

> (those that do not hit a criminal file) submitted electronically within

> 72 hours. If a criminal record is encountered during the verification

> process, the turnaround time could exceed 120 days. You may enquire at

> your local police service about electronic fingerprinting. If they do

> not perform this service, they may be able to refer you to approved

> private firms. These firms can also be located in local yellow pages and

> internet searches using the term 'fingerprinting services canada.’

>

> Before you make inquiries about your request, make sure you’ve taken

> into account not only the time it takes to process your request but also

> the time it takes to mail it to you.

>

>

> CFSS processes more than 15,000 criminal record searches each month.

> The processing time is currently in excess of one hundred and twenty

> (120) working days from receipt of an application. Note that processing

> time can vary due to incoming workloads

>

>

> We are unable to give you a specific time to when this will be

> completed.

>

>

> Thank you for contacting us,

> Merci de nous avoir contacter,

Hi all. Proud to say, our I130 was approved the other day, fairly easy. On to the next step, in a nutshell

o We are planning to move to LA from Tokyo early 2010 - asap.

o I'm a USC just married to a Japanese Citizen

o We are in the process of obtaining police records

I'm e-mailing to check if anyone has experience with the "Real Time Identification (RTID) Project" which supposedly expedites fingerprinting processes within 72 hrs vs 'paper based' which manually obviously takes longer (~120 days?)

Our question is has anyone flown to Canada, fingerprinted electronically and received their police record in 72hrs or so?

Has anyone had their fingerprints done electronically OUTSIDE of Canada and had them sent in and experienced a quick turnaround?

Does anyone know if the Tokyo embassy will take electronic fingerprints and send to Canada? (Forgot to ask at the Embassy the other day!)

My wife is considering visiting friends in Canada anyway, so she mailed the Emb. to confirm, but they simply copy and pasted info from the website. OUCH. Can anyone confirm the quickest way to get her police record???

Thanks for any feedback ; much appreciated!

____________________________

Reply from Emb.

> Good day,

>

>

> Paper-based fingerprint submissions:

>

> Paper-based fingerprint submissions require a great deal of manual

> processing and it is not uncommon for a criminal record verification to

> take an average of 120 days to complete for individuals who don’t have

> a criminal record and have never been fingerprinted for a criminal

> offence in Canada. If a criminal record is encountered during the

> verification process, the turnaround time could exceed 120 days.

>

> Electronic fingerprint submissions:

>

> In an effort to process criminal verification requests more quickly,

> the RCMP is implementing the Real Time Identification (RTID) Project to

> modernize these processes and promote electronic fingerprint

> submissions. The goal of CCRTIS is to respond to 85% of civil requests

> (those that do not hit a criminal file) submitted electronically within

> 72 hours. If a criminal record is encountered during the verification

> process, the turnaround time could exceed 120 days. You may enquire at

> your local police service about electronic fingerprinting. If they do

> not perform this service, they may be able to refer you to approved

> private firms. These firms can also be located in local yellow pages and

> internet searches using the term 'fingerprinting services canada.’

>

> Before you make inquiries about your request, make sure you’ve taken

> into account not only the time it takes to process your request but also

> the time it takes to mail it to you.

>

>

> CFSS processes more than 15,000 criminal record searches each month.

> The processing time is currently in excess of one hundred and twenty

> (120) working days from receipt of an application. Note that processing

> time can vary due to incoming workloads

>

>

> We are unable to give you a specific time to when this will be

> completed.

>

>

> Thank you for contacting us,

> Merci de nous avoir contacter,

Hi, Bryan

I just found this on the US embassy Tokyo website.

Should I use my married name on the I-130 petition?

If you would like to use your married name in the U.S., you may use your married name for the I-130. Please make sure to amend your passport to your married name before your immigrant visa interview. We cannot put your married name on your visa unless you have amended your passport.

(Source: http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/visa/tvisa-ivspousefaq.html)

It isn't completely answering your question, but sounds the only step your fiance needs is changing her name (I mean putting your name in parenthesis) on her passport.

Hi guys,

Thank you for the information, we wanted to confirm this once and for all for us, so we paid the 2200yen and called the American embassy here in Tokyo today; we spoke with a "Fuan" who basically confirmed

1. The only step needed to keep maiden name, but be able to apply for the visa IS in fact to include my name (ACS) in parenthesis when she goes to change her passport.

Calling the embassy is a process in and of itself, and once you finally get through you aren't guaranteed a native speaker, so be sure to prepare for everything and if so, ask for one. Fuan gave us the information, but her confidence wasn't exactly what we had expected from an embassy; but hey, that's just me.

Thank you so much for your stories, I hope this helps, next up is to file DCF!

...also posted in DCF forum...

Hi again!

Both our Minato Kuyakusho and American embassy did not know the answer to this question....

- Is changing my wife's (Japanese citizen) passport to include (my name in parenthesis) all we need to do keep her name in Japan, and allow her to take my name in the USA (I'm USAC)????

- What other processes are involved?

- Can you recommend any sites/information/people that may know the answer to this question? Please PM us!

Background: We'd like to avoid the paperwork that goes with changing names in Tokyo, so troublesome; but the fact that we cannot get quality information from the "sources" is very stressful; is it better to simply take my name on her Japanese passport and go through the mess of changing bank accts, etc. etc. By the way, we are planning to exit Japan early 2010!

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Hi again!

Both our Minato Kuyakusho and American embassy did not know the answer to this question....

- Is changing my wife's (Japanese citizen) passport to include (my name in parenthesis) all we need to do keep her name in Japan, and allow her to take my name in the USA (I'm USAC)????

- What other processes are involved?

- Can you recommend any sites/information/people that may know the answer to this question? Please PM us!

Background: We'd like to avoid the paperwork that goes with changing names in Tokyo, so troublesome; but the fact that we cannot get quality information from the "sources" is very stressful; is it better to simply take my name on her Japanese passport and go through the mess of changing bank accts, etc. etc. By the way, we are planning to exit Japan early 2010!

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Hi guys,

I'm a US Citizen and she's a Japanese Citizen; we were married last month in Tokyo (Aoyama) with plans to move to the US early 2010 via DCF. All things considered and confirmed, the only thing left is the fact that I haven't filed US income taxes for the last 8 years I've been in Japan (I know); my lawyer friends say it is a "technicality" since I do qualify for the "foreign earned income exclusion".

The issue is speed. I want to move over early 2010, so the question is what is the fastest way to obtain proof of late filing for the last 3 years; I'm putting this question out in hopes that some have had experience with this.

Can anyone help?

Thanks! - Bryan

(also posted in DCF forum!)

Hi guys,

I'm a US Citizen and she's a Japanese Citizen; we were married last month in Tokyo (Aoyama) with plans to move to the US early 2010 via DCF. All things considered and confirmed, the only thing left is the fact that I haven't filed US income taxes for the last 8 years I've been in Japan (I know); my lawyer friends say it is a "technicality" since I do qualify for the "foreign earned income exclusion".

The issue is speed. I want to move over early 2010, so the question is what is the fastest way to obtain proof of late filing for the last 3 years; I'm putting this question out in hopes that some have had experience with this.

Can anyone help?

Thanks! - Bryan

Hi all,

Miwa (JPN) and I (USA living in TKY 7 years with M) married at the Kuyakusho last month, we are planning to file DCF around beginning of the year, but our question is how did everyone change their names? The Kuyakusho gave Miwa a choice to keep her name, but she gets 6 months then we'd have to go to a family court to change it.

One thing we've heard is that some Japanese ladies will keep their name in Japan, but are able to change it to their spouse's name upon moving into the US. My question is, is there a time limit to do so, or will she keep her family name forever once she leaves Japan?

Any information would be greatly appreciated; we're thinking of filing in the following months with an exit around early 2010! - Bryan

Hi guys, thanks for posting, this site has been so helpful for Miwa and I (I'm a US citizen, and she's a Japanese national) We are planning to get married this year in Tokyo and most likely file DCF with the embassy to expedite at the end of the year (faster than k1?) and move back to LA.

My question: Miwa went to the police station to request Japanese police record , the policeman said they needed "written proof" of the "reason" the finger prints were needed, in this case, for a wedding visa I 130 app; but there is nothing on the US website that shows this fact.

Was wondering what doc you showed the police to prove you needed finger prints for wedding visa? Thanks!

Konichiwa!

Hi all~!~ Thanks for reading...in a nutshell, I'm a US citizen (8 years living/working Tokyo); she's a Japanese national (spent 13 years in Vancouver now back in Tokyo); we're planning to get married this year and apply for DCF with a return to LA.

re: Police Certificates, the Japanese police have requested to have a "reason" in writing as to why the fingerprints are needed. My question: since the RCMP has an official website, would an "official translation" suffice?

Any input would be much appreciated! Thanks all!

Konichiwa!

Hi all~!~ Thanks for reading...in a nutshell, I'm a US citizen (8 years living/working Tokyo); she's a Japanese national (spent 13 years in Vancouver now back in Tokyo); we're planning to get married this year and apply for DCF with a return to LA.

re: Police Certificates, the Japanese police have requested to have a "reason" in writing as to why the fingerprints are needed. My question: since the RCMP has an official website, would an "official translation" suffice?

Any input would be much appreciated! Thanks all!

Hi guys, thanks for all of the help so far , please feel free to mail me your experience with the Tokyo embassy; in my opinion access to the US embassy is limited i.e. no e-mail/no walk in window. Our exit strategy is to become married this year, apply and move back to the states from next year 2010. (CR-1 -under 2 year marriage).

I did have a general question: At the moment we are living separately. After marriage , is it absolutely imperative we live together at the same address; more specifically, will the embassy expect this?

She currently lives with her parents, and, as she'll be starting a new life, I'd like her to spend this year with her family. What do you think?

We didn't actually do DCF in Japan. We met in Sapporo (Hokkaido), lived there together and married there ("paper" marriage at the ward office, then ceremoy & celebrations a few months later in the States - I wasn't an LPR then so I entered on VWP). However we didn't start our DCF process until about 10 months after we had left Japan & returned to Australia (my home country).

All in all it's a pretty simple process - far more simple than the K-1 process in my opinion. And you're lucky you live in Tokyo beause the Embassy there actually does handle visa processing. First thing you'll have to do obviously is to get married. The US Embassy in Tokyo's website has good information on this: http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-7114a.html

Once you're married, the first step of the DCF process is to file the I-130 : http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/visa/tvisa-ivpetition.html

Then when the petition is approved (not sure of the timeline in Tokyo but in Sydney it took 1 week), your spouse applies for her visa: http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/visa/tvisa-ivapplication.html

I did a quick search on the forum to see if anyone had done DCF recently in Japan and found this thread: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...13&hl=japan

Wow, that seems simple enough. Thanks for the info.

Since we are not married yet; our first intention is to get married "on paper" and start the DCF process. If our exit strategy was to leave by September 2009,,

I'm assuming we'd get married on paper asap say Feb/Mar, and then start the process some time around July 2009? Would that make sense?

Also, in terms of "joint accounts" or "same apartments"as newlyweds often will do ; how much of a weighting does that have on our petition? We currently live separately (she's with her parents/I'm in Ikebukuro); after we marry, would you recommend we move in together even if it will be for a short time? i.e. marry in Mar, live together Mar-Sept (approval date).

Once approval is given, is there a time limit within we must leave Japan? Thanks for your help!

By far, the most informative post specific to my situation; I'm in the same situation and was preparing for the K-1 Visa, but will go this route. Question: After petitioning is successful and you are free to leave, are you in fact expected to leave the country by a certain date? Say 3,6, 9 months, a year? Maybe a stupid question, but I feel relieved and motivated by your post! Thank you!

Hi,

My wife and I just had our I-130 submission interview in Tokyo. All the advice I received here was really helpful. I thought I would post our experience for others who apply in Tokyo since the consulate website was vague about many issues.

We spent many days/months collecting documents and researching the forms (mostly on this site). I'll just say that all the extra time spent collecting the documents/filling out the forms correctly really paid off. There were other couples also submitting their I-130's with us and it was obvious that some of them were having lots of problems. If you take the time to do things properly, it really makes the submission smoother. However, we had a few last minute problems when I found some mistakes in my I-864. I was reprinting some of the forms just a few hours before the interview (talk about nearly having a heart attack).

First we made our interview appointment online at the Tokyo consulate website. When we applied there was one slot open a few days later, but after that, the next one was about a month later. Since we didn't have all our documentation at the time, we chose the 1 month later slot. I advise anyone making Tokyo interviews to keep an eye on the reservation website to know approximately how long the appointment will take to make.

So, we arrived at the consulate in Tokyo about 1:30 for our 2:00 interview. The consulate opened at 2:00, so we lined up outside. We were third in line. The two couples in front of use were also submitting their I-130s. About 10 minutes before 2, they started processing people through security. When we got into the consulate at 2, there was a clerk with a list waiting at the door asking for I-130 submitters. I saw his list and it seemed there were five people submitting I-130s in the afternoon time slot. The clerk assigned numbers based on the order you walked in, so we were number #3. Then he gave us two folders and a check list. We divided our documents into the two folders according to the checklist, then sat down and waited for our turn. The documents on the check list (if I remember correctly) are

Folder #1

A. I-130

B. Proof of U.S. Citizenship. I took both my passport and my birth certificate.

C. Petitioner's photo ID (I used copy of my passport)

D. petitioner proof of residency (in japan for 6 months)

Copy the visa page of your passport

E. Marriage Certificate.

For your marriage certificate, your spouse's (if Japanese) koseki tohon + English translation is sufficient.

You do not need the juri shomeisho

F. Evidence of legal termination of previous marriages. This was our first marriage, so we did not need this.

G. Birth Certificate of Beneficiary.

They also used the koseki-tohon (+translation) as my wife's birth certificate also. My wife was born in Brazil, so we brought

her Brazilian birth certificate and translation also.

Folder #2.

A. Copy of Beneficiary's passport. My wife has both a Japanese and Brazilian passport, so we submitted both.

B. G-325 petitioner

C. G-325 beneficiary

D. DS-230 Part I

E. DS-230 Part II

F. Proof of Relationship.

Since we had been married less than two years, both my wife and I wrote short statements (half-page) about how we met.

We also included a small album of photos from our dating/wedding/afterwards. In addition, since my wife added me to

here juuminhyou, we submitted the juuminhyou (+ translation). I do not think the juuminhyou is necessary.

G. I-864

We submitted I-864 + copy of 2007 tax return + 2006 transcripts + 2006 transcripts + proof of assets.

Also, I was worried about my assets being sufficient, so I got my Dad to submit an I-864 (+supporting evidence) as a

co-sponsor. However, after checking my assets, the clerk returned my Dad's I-864 and said it was not necessary since

my assets were sufficient. They didn't require a 2007 transcript and accepted just a copy of the return. Which is good,

because the IRS has not posted my 2007 transcripts yet. I don't know if a copy is always ok or if later in the year they

may want a transcript.

H. One passport-size photo (50mm x 50mm) of petitioner

I. One passport-size photo (50mm x 50mm) of beneficiary. (there is a photo booth at the embassy, but I would

recommend taking it beforehand for safety. you never know when the photo booth might be out of order.)

Any foreign language document you have must have an English translation. We brought an extra set of copies of all documents as well.

Once our name was called, we went to the window and the clerk checked all our documents. He especially paid attention to the I-864. In particular, he wanted to evidence of income and evidence of assets. For the income, he said the tax return was sufficient. I had transcripts from the two previous tax years, but he actually said he didn't need them and returned them to me. Since I had very little income listed, he mostly examined my evidence of assets. The clerk said I could have listed my Japanese income, but most people on this site said you could not list foreign income, so I did not. I suppose this is one of those issues each consulate can choose for themselves. I do not know if he was correct on this issue however. I was allowed to list the money in my Japanese bank account as assets. I wrote a short attachment explaining how I converted to dollars and how I was going to transfer the money to the U.S. You can get a statement from your Japanese bank called a zandaka-shomeisho. If you ask, they can print one English (at least at Mizuho). Once he was satisfied with the evidence, he returned those documents. So he only kept the I-864 and my 2007 tax return copy. He also returned my Dad's joint sponsor I864. I think they want to keep the paperwork to a minimum, so whatever the do not need explicitly, they would rather not take.

After the clerk was satisfied, he told us sit down and wait. After waiting about 5-10 minutes, a second clerk called us up. He had me swear that everything was true to the best of my ability. He then gave me a bill and told us to pay at the cashier ($355 I think). We paid in yen. They also accept dollars and credit cards. Someone told me that every once in a while, there credit card machine might be broken, so I think cash is the way to go. It would really suck to have everything and then go on a day the credit card machine is broken. After we paid, we returned to the second clerk and he checked our documents again (only those accepted by the first clerk). He looked through our proof of relationship and just made some general small talk with us. He told us that my wife would need police certificates from everywhere she lived for over 6 months since the age of 19(?) I think, which is Brazil and Japan. He said that everything was in order and he was going to preliminarily approve our I130 subject to FBI background checks, which should take about two weeks. After the checks are done (if clean), he would mail us a final set of instructions for scheduling the final interview and that we should start thinking about how to obtain the police certificates. Finally, he said that usually from that day until the visa was in hand took about 4-6 weeks (2 weeks for th FBI check + a few weeks to obtain police certificates + a few weeks to schedule the final interview). He then said we were free to leave.

As we were walking out, we noticed the other couples before us had been sent to a different area and were waiting, so I really felt all the time spent preparing our documents really helped. As we were about to leave though, I nearly had a heart attack because my wife had not signed the bottom of the DS230 Part II, so we went back. The clerk had already closed the window, but I could see him under the window blind. At the expense of ticking him off and spoke under the blind and asked if I could ask a question. After about a minute, he opened the blind. He said that the DS230 Part II is signed only at the final interview. We thanked him and left.

The Tokyo embassy is definitely top notch and very efficient. The clerks are very kind and are very helpful. All my nervousness was definitely not needed.

Other things that people might have questions about.

1. Since you submit in person in Tokyo, you do not need a cover letter. I assume if you wrote one, they would return it

anyway due to their apparent desire to keep paperwork to the bare minimum.

2. You need to fill out the form G-325, not G-325A. However, they might accept G-325A. You can get the G325 from the

embassy I130 web page. This VisaJourney has the G-325A, so be careful.

3. The beneficiary should go with you (I think) as well as any children there might be.

4. Your spouse will not sign the bottom of the DS-230 at the petition interview.

5. DS230 question about who will accompany to the U.S. : We did not know how to answer this, so we left it blank.

When asked, the clerk said it was really concerning me (the petitioner), but was concerning other relatives who may go.

He said we could leave it blank.

6. My wife had some traffic tickets in the U.S. We asked if this was considered an offense for DS230 Part II Question 23.

We had answered it no, but we included an attached page stating she had a traffic ticket. The first clerk said it probably

was, but the second clerk said that was not the intent of the question unless the traffic ticket was a DUI. Still, he said that

adding the attachment stating she had one was definitely a good idea.

7. We did not translate our own documents, although we have been told by others who went through the process that you could. I think it would not be a problem. For those who would rather use a translator, we used this person

http://www.kenjiarai.com/english/index.html

He is fast and efficient. I think it was about 5000 yen per page.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a detailed description for others applying in Tokyo. I hope this helps others as much as the help I received from everyone here. I will try to post our experiences from the latter half of the process later.

John

If I were you, I'd get married there (easy process at your local ward office - all you need is your gaijin card and a certificate from the US Embassy saying that you are free to marry. My husband got his from the Sapporo Consulate and paid a small fee. I believe your wife requires a copy of her family register and perhaps a few other pieces of documentation too, I'm not sure), file DCF and in a few short months when that is approved you can move back to the US and have a wedding ceremony & reception there to celebrate.

Wow,, this is rocking my world; it almost seems to good to be true,, how about this....

1. I live in Tokyo,, I'm assuming your hubby lived in Kansai and that is the reason he used the Sapporo Consulate, correct? The reading I've done on the internet re: DCF = "...DCF is not available at all consulates" which worries me. After reading your comments, I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel...

2. How did you start the process exactly? Did you go to to the embassy and make an appointment to get counseling; then , start the process from there?

3. Any landmines (common mistakes/time wasters) I should look out for?

Congratulations on your experience, and I appreciate the advice, feel free to PM me at bguevarra@gaba.co.jp

DCF is only good for marriage based visa'a, not K1's. Why not get married there being you lived there for the 6mo requirment and have this process done in a few weeks instead of 6+ months? If you come back here and file for a k1 then you are going to be seperated for a long time and you will have to be the one to visit her as she wont be able to use the vwp.

Thanks for the quick reply!

Konichiwa!

Good evening,, THANK YOU so much to all involved in this forum,, if anyone can help to answer my questions, 'twould be much appreciated

Background: I'm a US Citizen (LA native;) living and working (full-time; management level) in Tokyo since Oct 2001 (long time). I met and fell in love, at work, with a wonderful Japanese lady (same age) and we've been together as a couple for over 6 years now. Last Sept '08, I popped the questions, she said YES (Phew ).

Currently: We are engaged and intending on moving back to LA to start out lives together here. Financially, we're OK according to USCIS guidelines and, in addition, have my parents in LA to co-sponsor the Affidavit of support. I am currently home for the holidays (Culver City), and intending on sending our K-1 petition package on Jan 5th; I fly back on the 6th to Tokyo.

Question:

1. Am I correct in understanding the DCF avenue applies only to currently married couples? We are only engaged with intent to move back and marry; does DCF apply?

2. Have any of you applied via DCF with my similar background? What were your experiences/results? I live in the heart of Tokyo at the moment, but haven't visited the embassy yet.

Thanks in advance for any help; again, this website is a wealth of information! -b