On-line tracking system of I-601's submitted in London

[Baileyj96 0]

Oooooooooh Duh!!! I'm a little slow these days.

Oh that's funny I forgot all about it. It's still showing my cow here at work. I'm just getting a jump start on halloween. I found a few last night but nothing that really got me excited.

Vicky

Edited September 27, 2006 by Baileyj96

[beetee4ever 0]

Dang, your computer at work is really slow

[jpkeswim 0]

Just back from the belated honeymoon!!!! Went to Kefalonia...greek Island...very beautiful!!! Anyway I am also still cheering you on! Hopefully you will be cheering me on next summer and this time the results will be good!!!

How's everyone else doing?

[sharky 2]

hey jpkeswim!

I still pop in here from time to time waiting on Vicky's approval. So Kefalonia eh? which part, I've been there too, it's a beautiful island isn't it?

I worked on a turtle project out there a few years ago near Lagana, good memories and fun times!!

Hopefully (fingers crossed) for me I only have a few weeks left and I may get the elusive GC that we are all striving for!!!

just got to be a bit more patient!!!

some chance eh?

[mary&tom 0]

I still check daily for Vicky's approval. I have been back in the UK exactly four weeks today. We will be having a registry office wedding on October 9th. That was the soonest date we could get. I was really surprised to find out how much more complicated it is to marry here. Next will have to file for the limited leave to remain. Then in two years permanent leave to remain. They had better let me stay!!! I am homeless in the USA now.

I am hoping to get my name changed on my passport first but am not sure if that is possible. I still have almost 8 years on that passport and don't really want to carry my ex's name all that time and I am told that once the visa is stuck into that passport it's too costly to have it changed.

Mary

[Baileyj96 0]

Hi everyone,

Still waiting here. This will be starting our 18th week now. They put us under review on the 15th but nothing yet. Friday they completed one case and it had been under review since the beginning of July They seem to be slowing down quite a bit now. They even resorted in taking their "esitmated" time line off the waiver list. It used to say 12 to 15 weeks, then they changed it to say 15 weeks and then they just took it off all together. I'm hanging in there except for a few bald spots and fingernails chewed off. Gosh I never thought this would get to me this hard. I've been though quite a bit in my life but I can honestly say this is the most stressful thing. At least it seems like it right now.

Thanks for checking on me. jpkeswim it sounds like you had a wonderful belated honeymoon. Sounds like you both had a great time. I might take some time off here for a while after we hear something but if we get approved then I'm sure I'll be back checking on all the other things we will be doing. We will be checking in on you.

Hey Paul I hope your GC comes soon. Your used to waiting so this should be a piece of cake for you. Wouldn't it be nice if just once something went quick for you? But thanks again for checking in on us.

Mary, Wow it sounds like it's a piece of cake getting into the UK but similar to the US as far as the rest. They just call it different things. I guess maybe they make it more difficult to marry just to make sure you really want to do that? At least you will be together while you wait and I'm sure they will let you stay. They just want you to work at it a bit. Nothing worth having is easy i guess.

Ok ladies and gents...........i'm off to pull a few more hairs out.

Vicky

[homesick_american 1]

I still check daily for Vicky's approval. I have been back in the UK exactly four weeks today. We will be having a registry office wedding on October 9th. That was the soonest date we could get. I was really surprised to find out how much more complicated it is to marry here. Next will have to file for the limited leave to remain. Then in two years permanent leave to remain. They had better let me stay!!! I am homeless in the USA now.

Have they changed things? I was able to apply for permanent leave to remain one year after my LLR visa was issued. In fact my LLR was good for only one year. I moved here in April 2001, married in June 2001, LLR was issued in August 2001, permanent visa issued in October 2002 (Home Office screwed up app by losing my passport).

It is a bit more complex getting married in the UK. We were incredibly lucky; we'd have had to wait five months for our chosen venue but someone didn't pay their deposit on time and we got their slot. Ha ha ha! Ours was a civil wedding but we had it at a National Trust property. They only loosened up some rules a few years ago; it used to be MUCH more strict.

Oh, and don't worry about getting the visa. It is ridiculously easy to get visas in the UK. You're American, you speak English, I'm assuming you don't have anything dodgy in your past, and you're married to a UK citizen. Your app should fly through the system just like mine did. My co-workers love for me to tell them the story of how I obtained my visas because it feeds into their Sun reader-style paranoia about the UK being overrun by immigrants. Immigrating here IS much easier than immigrating to the US. You don't have anything to worry about, they won't send you home.

I am hoping to get my name changed on my passport first but am not sure if that is possible. I still have almost 8 years on that passport and don't really want to carry my ex's name all that time and I am told that once the visa is stuck into that passport it's too costly to have it changed.

Mary

You don't have to change the name on your passport but be sure to get some kind of photo ID with your married name on it, otherwise people in the UK can get snarky with you in terms of ID. Even now I'm sometimes refused services because the name on my bank account doesn't match the name on my passport. It doesn't happen very often since I live in a small city and most places where I'm a regular know me, but it does still happen occasionally.

Edited September 30, 2006 by homesick_american

[mary&tom 0]

I am hoping to get my name changed on my passport first but am not sure if that is possible. I still have almost 8 years on that passport and don't really want to carry my ex's name all that time and I am told that once the visa is stuck into that passport it's too costly to have it changed.

Mary

You don't have to change the name on your passport but be sure to get some kind of photo ID with your married name on it, otherwise people in the UK can get snarky with you in terms of ID. Even now I'm sometimes refused services because the name on my bank account doesn't match the name on my passport. It doesn't happen very often since I live in a small city and most places where I'm a regular know me, but it does still happen occasionally.

I want to change my name on my passport. I am hoping that is possible to do that before I apply for the limited leave to remain . I will only have 3 months left on my fiance visa when we marry as it took me longer than I had hoped to sell my house and pack things up in the states. I do not want to continue to carry my ex husbands name on my passport for 8 more years! I know you have to carry the marriaga certificate to explain the name change. That is what I have been told.

mary

[homesick_american 1]

I am hoping to get my name changed on my passport first but am not sure if that is possible. I still have almost 8 years on that passport and don't really want to carry my ex's name all that time and I am told that once the visa is stuck into that passport it's too costly to have it changed.

Mary

You don't have to change the name on your passport but be sure to get some kind of photo ID with your married name on it, otherwise people in the UK can get snarky with you in terms of ID. Even now I'm sometimes refused services because the name on my bank account doesn't match the name on my passport. It doesn't happen very often since I live in a small city and most places where I'm a regular know me, but it does still happen occasionally.

I want to change my name on my passport. I am hoping that is possible to do that before I apply for the limited leave to remain . I will only have 3 months left on my fiance visa when we marry as it took me longer than I had hoped to sell my house and pack things up in the states. I do not want to continue to carry my ex husbands name on my passport for 8 more years! I know you have to carry the marriaga certificate to explain the name change. That is what I have been told.

mary

I would contact the US embassy then to see how long it will take to have a passport issued under your married name. I don't know how strict the UK is in terms of immigrants going out-of-status; they seem to be somewhat more flexible here than they are in the US, but please don't take my word as gospel on this. If you can't have your passport changed before you apply for your LLR, you can always get it done later. My name doesn't even appear on my LLR/permanent resident visas; yours probably won't either. If you have a new passport issued then I wouldn't think it would be too much of a fuss to have the Home Office issue a new visa in the new passport and destroy the old one, but I've never done it.

I'd contact both the US embassy and the Home Office if I were you. As far as the US government is concerned, my name is still my maiden name and not my married name since I never changed my name in the US. I don't even know how to go about it. My number one reason for not changing it on my passport was the inconvenience involved.

These are my LLR/permanent resident visas; the mosaic'd parts are ID numbers:

http://static.flickr.com/79/213492510_7193d20dbd_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/63/213492512_73fbccccf7_o.jpg

[mary&tom 0]

I would contact the US embassy then to see how long it will take to have a passport issued under your married name. I don't know how strict the UK is in terms of immigrants going out-of-status; they seem to be somewhat more flexible here than they are in the US, but please don't take my word as gospel on this. If you can't have your passport changed before you apply for your LLR, you can always get it done later. My name doesn't even appear on my LLR/permanent resident visas; yours probably won't either. If you have a new passport issued then I wouldn't think it would be too much of a fuss to have the Home Office issue a new visa in the new passport and destroy the old one, but I've never done it.

I'd contact both the US embassy and the Home Office if I were you. As far as the US government is concerned, my name is still my maiden name and not my married name since I never changed my name in the US. I don't even know how to go about it. My number one reason for not changing it on my passport was the inconvenience involved.

These are my LLR/permanent resident visas; the mosaic'd parts are ID numbers:

http://static.flickr.com/79/213492510_7193d20dbd_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/63/213492512_73fbccccf7_o.jpg

That was interesting to see those. Of course even if the name does not appear on those visa's (it does appear on my fiance one along with my picture.. in fact it looks alot like the original passport photo page) the name IS in the passport itself and thats what I don't like. Someone I know who was at my stage of the process two years ago told me that it is very expensive to have them copy a visa into a new passport. She also said to keep any old passports... especially the one that shows that you entered the country legally.

Did you inform the US embassy that you were getting married? When we registered for the marriage Sept. 21st I was told I must contact my embassy and find out what they require of me. I have not done that yet... I am not even sure how to get ahold of them. I know I couldnt just phone them when we were going through the K1 process unless we wanted to spend a ton of money. The friend I spoke of said that she went to the embassy when she first arrived in the UK to inform them that she was moving here. I don't really want to do that if I don't have to.

mary

[homesick_american 1]

That was interesting to see those. Of course even if the name does not appear on those visa's (it does appear on my fiance one along with my picture.. in fact it looks alot like the original passport photo page) the name IS in the passport itself and thats what I don't like. Someone I know who was at my stage of the process two years ago told me that it is very expensive to have them copy a visa into a new passport. She also said to keep any old passports... especially the one that shows that you entered the country legally.

My UK fiancee visa doesn't have my photo, but it was issued 5.5 years ago, before 9/11. I guess things have changed a little. Here's mine:

http://static.flickr.com/62/213492507_64d7b0d6c1.jpg?v=0

Did you inform the US embassy that you were getting married? When we registered for the marriage Sept. 21st I was told I must contact my embassy and find out what they require of me. I have not done that yet... I am not even sure how to get ahold of them. I know I couldnt just phone them when we were going through the K1 process unless we wanted to spend a ton of money. The friend I spoke of said that she went to the embassy when she first arrived in the UK to inform them that she was moving here. I don't really want to do that if I don't have to.

mary

Nope; I never bothered with it and they don't seem to care. Really all the US government wants you to do is to continue filing tax returns. Americans living abroad were advised to contact their embassies and 'register' after 9/11 but I never bothered with that either. They can't make you do anything when you're here and to be honest, a US citizen's only obligations when living overseas are to continue filing tax returns and servicing debts in the US. You don't HAVE to do anything else. My only contact with the US embassy in London since I have lived here was my presence at my husband's visa interview.

[mary&tom 0]

That was interesting to see those. Of course even if the name does not appear on those visa's (it does appear on my fiance one along with my picture.. in fact it looks alot like the original passport photo page) the name IS in the passport itself and thats what I don't like. Someone I know who was at my stage of the process two years ago told me that it is very expensive to have them copy a visa into a new passport. She also said to keep any old passports... especially the one that shows that you entered the country legally.

My UK fiancee visa doesn't have my photo, but it was issued 5.5 years ago, before 9/11. I guess things have changed a little. Here's mine:

http://static.flickr.com/62/213492507_64d7b0d6c1.jpg?v=0

Did you inform the US embassy that you were getting married? When we registered for the marriage Sept. 21st I was told I must contact my embassy and find out what they require of me. I have not done that yet... I am not even sure how to get ahold of them. I know I couldnt just phone them when we were going through the K1 process unless we wanted to spend a ton of money. The friend I spoke of said that she went to the embassy when she first arrived in the UK to inform them that she was moving here. I don't really want to do that if I don't have to.

mary

Nope; I never bothered with it and they don't seem to care. Really all the US government wants you to do is to continue filing tax returns. Americans living abroad were advised to contact their embassies and 'register' after 9/11 but I never bothered with that either. They can't make you do anything when you're here and to be honest, a US citizen's only obligations when living overseas are to continue filing tax returns and servicing debts in the US. You don't HAVE to do anything else. My only contact with the US embassy in London since I have lived here was my presence at my husband's visa interview.

ah... my fiance visa is similar but it has my photo ( I had to provide one with the application) and it says who I am to marry. When I applied for it I did it by mail and it only took a few days BUT I gave them all the documentation that we had used for the I-129 application plus everything we had provided at the interview plus more relationship stuff -phone records and emails that no one looked at when we were trying to a USA fiance visa for tom. Those were listeded in the requirements so we provided them. We also gave them a copy of our UK tenancy agreement... they wanted proof that I had somewhere to live.. somewhere I was allowed to live. We both provided bank statements and tom had a letter from his employer. So all that is just similar to the USA process. The main differences are that there is no medical and there does not need to be an interview if you send them enough by mail. Oh... and speed of course... 6 days to be approved by the UK vs. 10 months to be denied by the USA. That six days includes mail time. Actually it really only took 3 business days. They received it on a Friday and I received the approval by email on the following Tuesday. My passport (with the visa in it) and my original documents arrived on Wednesday. The main thing was to prove that it was a real relationship with intent to marry and that Tom could provide for me financially.

mary

[homesick_american 1]

ah... my fiance visa is similar but it has my photo ( I had to provide one with the application) and it says who I am to marry.

Oh, mine has my husband's details on it. I just chose not to share those with the rest of the world.

When I applied for it I did it by mail and it only took a few days BUT I gave them all the documentation that we had used for the I-129 application plus everything we had provided at the interview plus more relationship stuff -phone records and emails that no one looked at when we were trying to a USA fiance visa for tom. Those were listeded in the requirements so we provided them. We also gave them a copy of our UK tenancy agreement... they wanted proof that I had somewhere to live.. somewhere I was allowed to live. We both provided bank statements and tom had a letter from his employer. So all that is just similar to the USA process. The main differences are that there is no medical and there does not need to be an interview if you send them enough by mail. Oh... and speed of course... 6 days to be approved by the UK vs. 10 months to be denied by the USA. That six days includes mail time. Actually it really only took 3 business days. They received it on a Friday and I received the approval by email on the following Tuesday. My passport (with the visa in it) and my original documents arrived on Wednesday. The main thing was to prove that it was a real relationship with intent to marry and that Tom could provide for me financially.

That sounds familiar. Yours took longer and needed more documentation than mine did, but like I said before: pre vs post-9/11, different world, etc.

[mary&tom 0]

ah... my fiance visa is similar but it has my photo ( I had to provide one with the application) and it says who I am to marry.

Oh, mine has my husband's details on it. I just chose not to share those with the rest of the world.

When I applied for it I did it by mail and it only took a few days BUT I gave them all the documentation that we had used for the I-129 application plus everything we had provided at the interview plus more relationship stuff -phone records and emails that no one looked at when we were trying to a USA fiance visa for tom. Those were listeded in the requirements so we provided them. We also gave them a copy of our UK tenancy agreement... they wanted proof that I had somewhere to live.. somewhere I was allowed to live. We both provided bank statements and tom had a letter from his employer. So all that is just similar to the USA process. The main differences are that there is no medical and there does not need to be an interview if you send them enough by mail. Oh... and speed of course... 6 days to be approved by the UK vs. 10 months to be denied by the USA. That six days includes mail time. Actually it really only took 3 business days. They received it on a Friday and I received the approval by email on the following Tuesday. My passport (with the visa in it) and my original documents arrived on Wednesday. The main thing was to prove that it was a real relationship with intent to marry and that Tom could provide for me financially.

That sounds familiar. Yours took longer and needed more documentation than mine did, but like I said before: pre vs post-9/11, different world, etc.

Wow... how could yours take less than six days? I thought mine was super fast.

Unless you were confused by what i said about the ten months... if you look at our timeline you will see that we really wanted to live in the usa and went through the whole process and were denied in the end. That wasted ten months of our time... time we could have put to better use.

mary

[homesick_american 1]

Wow... how could yours take less than six days? I thought mine was super fast.

I don't know. I sent my app off to LA on a Thursday. I received a call from them on the Friday; they asked me a few questions about my fiance (now my husband)...how did we meet, how long had we known each other, etc. She remarked that she had never seen such an 'organized' and 'well put-together' application and said she 'wished they were all like that'. (I'm sort of #######-retentive and had paper-clipped all relevant items together, put different colored tabs on them indicating what they were, and put everything in the precise order recommended by the instructions.) She told me over the phone that they were going to approve the visa and it arrived by Fed Ex a couple of days later. Again, this was in pre-9/11 days and I'm guessing security checks probably take longer now than they used to.

Visa processing takes longer here in the UK than it does at UK embassies/consulates...did you put in your application here or in the United States? That could explain some of the difference in processing time.

Unless you were confused by what i said about the ten months... if you look at our timeline you will see that we really wanted to live in the usa and went through the whole process and were denied in the end. That wasted ten months of our time... time we could have put to better use.

mary

Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about...ten months?

I read your timeline and I read some other posts where you outlined you and your husband's story. That's really unfortunate. I had a neighbor here who wanted to move to the US but was denied a visa because he had a simple marijuana possession conviction in his background. I felt bad for the guy; I understand the need to keep out serious drug users/pushers, but it sounds like you and your husband got a very raw deal. It's just another consequence of the unwinnable 'war on drugs'.