Travel to India on advance parole, pending AOS

[cchhat01 14]

Coupe of questions as we gear up for our upcoming travel.

1. We just had my wife's passport reissued (change of name from maiden to married). We booked the ticket in the Married name so all is good. Even the EAD/AP card show her Married name. We plan on carrying both passports, along with supporting docs which show that our AOS is still under process (NOA and notice from CSC that shows it was transferred). Of course we will also carry the EAD/AP combo card. Now the question: We are flying with Emirates and there is some passenger information which needs to be filled pre-flight. Basically "Country of issue" is a question. Should this be "United States" or "India"? The newly issued passport was Issued by the Indian Consulate General based in New York. On the passport it shows "Place of Issue: NEW YORK". Im inclined to put down United States.

2. If anyone has traveled through emirates while their AOS was pending, please help with the following: their website claims that unless you're a permanent resident of USA (which my wife is technically not since her AOS is pending adjudiction), we cannot list "United States" as "country of residence". There is a separate radio button asking if you're a permanent resident, and then automatically selects USA as country of residence. I'm trying to reach them to understand if i can give them certain information about our circumstance but im not sure if this will lead anywhere. if anyone has any info, please help.

thanks,

chigs

[Little_My 464]

If the "country of issue" is referring to the passport, then it is India. It is not an American passport, even though it was issued through the NYC based consulate - her passport is for India, not the US. Place of issue might have been New York, but if you list "country of issue" as United States, it would basically mean she holds a US passport, which is not true.

Regarding the country of residence issue, I am not sure what would be the best response to that. The airlines often don't necessarily always understand the details of all immigration processes, and the pre-flight questionnaires often don't offer all the correct responses for people who are in the midst of AOS or becoming permanent residents. I guess officially, until she has her greencard, her country of residence remains whatever it was before filing for AOS, so possibly India. I was in the US prior to AOS on an F-1 visa, and I would list country of residence as US, and home country as Finland. Whenever "permanent address" was asked, I would use the Finnish address, as F-1 holders do not hold permanent addresses in the US.

[Hypnos 6,578]

I disagree with the above and would enter the country of issuance as the United States, provided that the form also allows you to state your country of citizenship under a separate question.

If it has a separate question then, Country of Citizenship = India, Country of Issuance = United States. If there is only one question then that would seem to indicate it should be Country of Issuance = India.

It is an ambiguous question, since it could be interpreted as (1) which government issued the passport, or (2) which country was the passport issued in.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Hypnos

[cchhat01 14]

I disagree with the above and would enter the country of issuance as the United States, provided that the form also allows you to state your country of citizenship under a separate question.

If it has a separate question then, Country of Citizenship = India, Country of Issuance = United States. If there is only one question then that would seem to indicate it should be Country of Issuance = India.

It is an ambiguous question, since it could be interpreted as (1) which government issued the passport, or (2) which country was the passport issued in.

that is exactly how i read it as well... an ambiguous question... then i re-read everything on the website, it also asked for the nationality which was correctly declared as "INDIA" hence, we indicated the "Country of Issue" as "United States"

As for the 2nd part of my question, I was able to get through to an Emirates representative on the phone and he was kind enough to take down the passport info for my wife. The other info, although it is indicated as mandatory on the website, can be bypassed on the backed by the rep. So all the permanent resident info, country of residence, etc was extraneous and not required to fly.

So I think we are ok.

Apart from all this, is there anything that we can/should bring with us:

so far we have the following (for my AOSing wife):

orig passport, new passport, EAD/AP combo card, original i-94 record, copies of AOS receipt and AOS transfer letter to CSC...

Anything else?

thanks

Chigs

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

An Indian consulate is actually Indian soil in the US, so the country of issue is India. Where it was actually printed is not the concern, but what authority printed it. How do you know that it wasn't made in India and then sent to the US for you to pick up? You don't. And furthermore, they won't care how you got it, they want to know, "passport number," then they ask "country of issuance" and it is INDIA. It is an Indian passport...

[TBoneTX 45,976]

orig passport, new passport, EAD/AP combo card, original i-94 record, copies of AOS receipt and AOS transfer letter to CSC... Anything else?

Your marriage certificate -- a must, until your staggeringly beautiful wife (no understatement) gets her green card.