A few questions about the Tokyo consulate and forms

[JlovesH 0]

Hello everybody!

I just discovered this forum the other day. It looks like a great resource!

I am an American citizen (male) and my fiancee is Japanese. After a long wait, we are almost ready for the interview. She is going to try to schedule it for October 11th. That means that I need to send her my Affidavit of Support and supporting evidence of our relationship. And I need to do it right away! I thought I had it all under control, but now I've read a few things here that have me worried. She also has a few questions.

First, her questions:

1. Biggest question, on DS-156, question 14: "National ID number, if applicable". She thinks there is none for Japan, but thinks it might be something called a "Nenkin" number. Any other Japanese immigrants out there who might know?

2. She's lived in the US before on a student visa, then OPT, then left before the OPT expired. She wonders if she should put Yes or No on DS-156 #35, where it asks if she's ever had a visa "cancelled or revoked." I'm pretty sure it's a No! Expiration is not the same as cancellation or revokation.

3. She also wonders if she should mail her Malaysian Certificate of Good Conduct to the embassy ahead of time, because when the embassy got her application, it reminded her via email to get one. (She recently returned to Japan from a 1-year job in Malaysia.) Again I'm pretty sure the answer is no. The email didn't seem to tell her to mail it to them.

Now, my questions:

1. I read here that I should send her as many original documents as possible, including the originals of everything I included in the I-129F. Does that include my original birth certificate?! I'm nervous about sending it because I'm afraid it will get lost in the mail, or the government will not give it back! I actually included 2 birth certificates for myself in the petition. One is an official-looking "Birth Certificate" that appears to have been ordered from the state of TX a few years after my birth. I guess I could get another copy of that one if I lost it. But the other one is the original "Certificate of Birth" that the hospital gave us, that has my parents' signatures and my footprints, that is irreplaceable and I would hate to lose it. Right now if I have to send anything, I'm thinking that I'll just send the "Birth Certificate" and keep the other one. One birth certificate should be enough anyway. Any opinions?

Maybe I'll have other questions later, but I'll post this one first so that maybe someone can see it and answer quickly. I want to mail everything tonight!

[JlovesH 0]

I guess I'm a little nervous about mailing anything overseas. My question about originals also applies to personal items I'm sending to prove the sincerity of our relationship, things like birthday cards. We do not give each other many gifts (our money is usually spent on trips), so I'm a little nervous about mailing all of the cards I've ever gotten from her (less than a dozen) for fear of losing them. Moreover she seems to have lost the cards I gave her in the process of moving from Malaysia to Japan.

Our history is probably a little different than that of most couples on our forum. We met almost 6 years ago, when she was in the US for a student visa. We lived together for almost 4 years as she went to school here. We took many pictures and trips (but not with an eye towards documenting anything for the government). But after she graduated she had trouble finding a job, so we agreed that she would go back to Japan and work there while I continued work on my grad degree. (If I only knew...)

Just before she left, I gave her a wonderful gift, a photo book I made at Shutterfly.com with over 30 pages crammed with photos of us, documenting our relationship in chronological order. Again, I had no thought at that time about using it for immigration evidence, but now I think it is probably the best thing possible for that purpose. It has pix of us in NYC, Long Island, Niagara Falls, MA, NH, the Grand Canyon, etc! And her graduation pics.

In fact, I did not intend to send her much to support our relationship at this time, because I was counting on her to show them that book, and I figured that would be sufficient to convince any skeptic about our relationship, along with what I sent with the I-129F. That was just a few pix of us over the years, receipts etc. from a recent trip to see her, copies of the birthday cards I mentioned before, and a few financial documents. Even though we lived together for so long I have surprisingly little to show as evidence of it other than the pics. There were only a couple of leases and bills that had both our names on them because most things were in my name. I sent copies of those with the I-129F, and now I guess I will send her the originals.

But now I'm reading things here and worrying I need to send more.

BLAH BLAH BLAH long story short, am I worrying too much? Do you think I need to send more evidence (e.g. phone bills, Skype transcripts, emails)? Also do you recommend an "essay" describing our relationship as mentioned on some other websites? And do I really need to send the originals of these sentimental items which are precious to me?

[JlovesH 0]

tl;dr??? LOL. I hope someone can reply to this. I was hoping to mail the package tomorrow.