Help! My husband is might be detained or sent to jail

[sipoftea 0]

We need any and all advice we can get regarding my husband's situation. He is Nigerian and a merchant mariner and went to work in the netherlands for six weeks and upon arriving, he sent his passport to the London Embassy for further processing because we needed to send the passport and another affivadit of support for them to give us (hopefully) the IR1 stamp and they said it would take at most ten working days! So we figured instead of waiting for him to return if it got done that fast, he could get in done while onboard the ship and enter the US upon returning on the IR1 and we'd be finished with this whole process. However it has been over three weeks and we've not gotten any updates. We emailed asking for status on last Thursdayand they wrote back Monday afternoon and asked us to tell them when we sent the amending documents, we wrote back immediately but that was two days ago. He is due to leave the Netherlands on the 2nd of May and that is not a lot of working days in which to receive his passport. We are scared he'll be sent to jail or something with no passport, and don't know what to do. I'm in the US and cannot access their visa line and nor can he in the Netherlands. So we've arranged a conference call with a friend in the UK, but are not sure if this will work. Does anyone have any suggestions? Any advice, reassurance. Please help. Sorry so long, just wanted to explain as much as possible.

sent passport to london for processing i mean

[desert_fox 32]

What does London have to do with any of this??

He should be interviewed and processed in his home country.

Jail??...have him contact his Embassy for adviece.

[sipoftea 0]

What does London have to do with any of this??

He should be interviewed and processed in his home country.

Jail??...have him contact his Embassy for adviece.

We met, married and lived in the UK for three years and were able to file with them. I'll have him call his embassy but i'm not sure how that will help. And I said jail because I'm not sure what happens to someone in this situation.

[meddykomp 0]

If he doesnt have his passport and London does not have his passport, you have a case of a missing passport. A bit inconvenient, but I dont think it is punishable by imprisonment. He should immediately contact the nearest embassy for his country to get his passport replaced.

[sipoftea 0]

If he doesnt have his passport and London does not have his passport, you have a case of a missing passport. A bit inconvenient, but I dont think it is punishable by imprisonment. He should immediately contact the nearest embassy for his country to get his passport replaced.

It really seems no one has taken this seriously at all. What are we supposed to do, sit in detainment while the embassy takes days to make and send a new passport? and what about the k3 visa stamps and all the other visas he has obtained through his travels? how are we to recover those? We've called the embassy and they put him through to the courier service and no one knows anything. Anyone know if we can get another k3 stamp without going through the whole process again and other visas too?

[Jaylen Brit 0]

When I was in Australia I had my passport stolen - I contacted the British Embassy and they sorted me out a new one in one day.

If his passport is lost or stolen then it shouldn't take the Embassy too long to get him a new one - they HAVE his details on file and HE has his passport number to aid them. The US embassy can advise him on what he needs as per his K3 stamp - just call them and explain his passport is lost or stolen and he has to get a new one.

My temp one btw was issued for one year after which I had to renew to get a 10 year one. And I entered the US with the temp one as well.

Btw - I dont think people havent taken it seriously - they are telling you what you (or rather HE) needs to do to sort this out as quickly as possible. I know its panic time (heck I panicked when mine got nicked) but really it was all sorted out really fast - the British Embassy were great.

Edited April 27, 2006 by Jaylen Brit

[sipoftea 0]

When I was in Australia I had my passport stolen - I contacted the British Embassy and they sorted me out a new one in one day.

If his passport is lost or stolen then it shouldn't take the Embassy too long to get him a new one - they HAVE his details on file and HE has his passport number to aid them. The US embassy can advise him on what he needs as per his K3 stamp - just call them and explain his passport is lost or stolen and he has to get a new one.

My temp one btw was issued for one year after which I had to renew to get a 10 year one. And I entered the US with the temp one as well.

Btw - I dont think people havent taken it seriously - they are telling you what you (or rather HE) needs to do to sort this out as quickly as possible. I know its panic time (heck I panicked when mine got nicked) but really it was all sorted out really fast - the British Embassy were great.

So, I guess he should contact the Nigerian embassy for a new passport, and then contact the us embassy about another visa? Well, I don't think that could work because to contact the embassy regarding a visa would require calling that 090 number that isn't accessible from outside and if we Could acess that we probably wouldn't be in this situation. Furthermore, he most likely won't be let into the UK because he was allowed in because he had a valid US visa and won't have that. We've called all of the people in the UK we know to make the conference call (three way call), and no one has that facility on their phone. We called the switchboard to explain but they just put us to their courier which was useless since we didn't send the documents via their courier.

[Jaylen Brit 0]

So..what HAS he done so far?

Maybe the Nigerian Embassy can advise him about the procedure for any visas he had in his passport or can give him a direct number..

Is he completely unable to contact anyone due to his being on a ship?

Can you not phone for advice on his behalf? Or have you already done this?

[meauxna 15]

Why don't you email the consulate in London? The 090# is of no use to you anyway---they are in Scotland, don't have your case informationand are not immigration employees.

I'm not sure it was such a great idea to send the pp---it's possible that his case would go thru a period of AR. Did London specifically ask him to send in the pp?

At any rate, the email seems to work quite quickly; maybe you'll get the response you're looking for?

[goldenheart 0]

Sipoftea,

I am sorry to hear of your situation and I understand your frustration. We are placed in a similar situation as you are. We turned in our passport last month because the Embassy promised that we would get the visa within 10 working days. That was 4 weeks ago, however we do have a copy of the passport. Does your husband have a copy of the passport and did you use certified mail when you mailed the passport (i.e. tracking capability?) BTW, Does your husband have travel documents instead of the traditional passport?

My only advice to you is to call the Embassy to find out where your passport??? Also, if you have a tracking number, call the postal service for verification of delivery.