My "DCF" in Bangkok

[bbqBarry 0]

Hello again.

My wife went to Bangkok today to get a copy of her birth certificate because she couldn't find the original. This is turning into a big hassle as her name changed from her birth name. Her father is in Samut Prakan today trying to get the original house paper showing her name change.

In light of all of this, I looked back at the requirements and noticed that nowhere does it say that a birth certificate was required, but in your intake package it seems like they payed a lot of attention to it.

Am I missing something? Is the birth certificate required? My wife was never married before and neither of us has any kids or previous divorces, she has a passport and a 10-year visa.

Jimmy,

In my case, my bc supported my claim to be a USC. My wife's bc supported her name change. I won't try to answer your question about whether it is "required" or not since I'm not an expert. If I were you, I'd call USCIS in BKK and ask them directly.

Cheers,

Barry

[jimmyd 0]

Ok, we filed our I-130 today in Bangkok.

Got there just before 8, out by 9:30, one guy ahead of us in line.

We've been married 4 and a half years. We have no joint property or bank accounts. We both work and have our own accounts, and since we intend to move to America and don't know where we will live when we come back to Thailand, we have bought no land.

Our Documentation of bonafide marriage included passport copies showing we've been to the US to visit my family 4 times in the last 4.5 years, letters from my landlord and friends and colleagues testifying on our behalf, proof that both of us are employed near our home (and have been for quite a while), and 80 pictures of us over the years showing how we have been getting fat and happy together. The contrast from how we looked back then is quite striking, unfortunately.

It took the lady 3 tries to get me to fill in all the forms correctly, and she was not exactly rude about it, but understandably terse. In my defense, I could give a flying bleep.

I paid with my US debit card, no problems. Finding the Cashier was a bit tricky--but only because I refused, in proper manly way, not to ask where it is. After I found it, I realized that I had had trouble finding it on my last trip to the embassy as well. *sigh*

BarryBBQ, would you prefer if I started my own thread, or should I just add to this one? I prefer the latter option--since we are in a similar situation (my wife was amazed that your wife had a name change issue in Samut Prakhan just like her) it seems like our info goes together, but I'll leave it up to you.

Cheers,

Jimmyd

Edited April 29, 2009 by jimmyd

[jimmyd 0]

We got the I-171, notice of approval today. Expecting packet 3 soon, as that seems to be the next step from BarryBBQ's experience.

[bbqBarry 0]

BarryBBQ, would you prefer if I started my own thread, or should I just add to this one? I prefer the latter option--since we are in a similar situation (my wife was amazed that your wife had a name change issue in Samut Prakhan just like her) it seems like our info goes together, but I'll leave it up to you.

Sorry, just saw this. Yeah, I think it makes sense to keep all the BKK data together. Somebody will appreciate it someday.

[bbqBarry 0]

It seems that things are certainly slowed down in my fast track DCF. US Embassy in BKK confirms that they received our Pkg 3 April 7 but we've yet to receive an interview date. We've asked several times. The first time we asked we were told another 4-6 weeks. Second time we were told another 6-8 weeks. Yesterday we were told another 8-10 weeks. I'm thinking that if we ask again it will go up to 10-12 weeks!

I took the latest pdf of the last published interview schedule here: Scheduled Appointments and parsed in it Excel then sorted it by dates to get the following graph:

You can see that they took some time off over Songkran and that the daily average number of appointments was up near 15-16 in April while it has dropped to 10 near the end of May. This was published April 10 although the data goes back to April 1. I've got a strong hunch that they pile up interview packages and schedule them every 6-8 weeks and that we will see the floodgates open soon and interviews being scheduled through June and into July within the next week.

I was kinda hoping to be in TH for the interview - although there's nothing I can do to help. We have a boatload of legit proof/documentation and shouldn't have any problems. If there is a problem we'll deal with it when it happens.

[bbqBarry 0]

I guess it's about time I posted an update here. I'm back in San Diego now and busy with work so this will be brief.

We had our interview June 22 and picked up the CR-1 visa a few days later. Start to finish it took 102 days. At times it seemed like we were never going to get the interview letter (packet 4) and in fact we never did. It was an email inquiry that my wife sent and was answered by the embassy that told us what date the interview was.

All in all it was an interesting process. I was glad to have VJ as a resource and wish everyone that's still working on their visa the best.

Now it's time to start studying the POE data and get ready for my wife's August arrival.

Cheers!

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

That's great news, Barry! Congratulations, and hope all goes well at POE next month.

[jimmyd 0]

Congratulation BarryBBQ.

[sunnysayan 0]

Thanks barry and jimmy for posting this. very helpfull!