I-130 DCF filed @ USCIS Bangkok

[J&M95 2]

Hello VJers! Let me give you a little background of our situation here in Thailand. I am M working here as an English teacher for 10 years now. This is where my relationship with my USC hubby J started and blossomed. We got married here in 2014 and we have a 4 year old son who is already a USC ( we did a report of birth and US passport application also here in Bangkok). We are planning to go to US by March 2017 so after reading some post here low key, just looking at timelines to make sure that our timing will be perfect. after all, we are not in a hurry as I am still under contract. My husband was a former military and he is looking into re-joining and also study again and use his GI bill benefit. We filed for I-130 last Friday, Spet 30 2016. It was a 12 hour bus ride from our place to Bangkok so we started travelling the night before so we can get there around 6am..will still have a little time to stretch and have coffee before we head to the building which is just right across the US Embassy, We arrived 530am..went to the hotel to drop of our big bags and just bring the documents we need.

We went to the USCIS which is not so far from our hotel (thankfully, our hotel has a free tuktuk that took us straight to the building). The building is called Sindhorn Building and the USCIS office is on the 15th floor. We got there quarter before 8am (they open @830am). There was a small area there where they allowed us to wait and that time it was just us and an old Chinese guy with his interpreter. Around 8:15, the guard started the security check and allowed us to enter. It was cozy in the waiting area, there are 2 windows and 2 buzzers with label saying only buzz once if you need them.

One window opened @ exactly 8:30am. They called the chinese guy since he came before us. It was quick. Then it was our turn, at first i didn't know what documents I need to give first because I organized ours in a folder. The lovely matronly Thai lady who can speak fluent English asked for my hubby's passport first to check his visa. I knew we wouldn't have any problem with that because my hubby has been staying with us for 3 years on a Non-O visa(dependent visa)

so she just looked at it for 3 secs and smiled at us saying that were qualified to file. She told me that they don't need the folder so we need to take all the docs out. She didn't ask for the originals, just the photocopies. Everything was looking great until she said that the server in the US embassy is down at the moment so we cannot pay the 420 USD filing fee and told us to come back on Monday. We told her our situation and how far we are from Bangkok, It is also not practical for us to stay there until MOnday, our hotels and bus ride going back are already booked. She told that there is another way and it is to buy a cashiers cheque that can be cleared on Monday. It was 10am that time and they close @ 12 so she told us go to the nearest bangkok bank which is on the first floor of the same building, Unfortunately since its a new branch, they don't do cashiers cheque so we have to go to the main branch located in Siam Station.

My hubby was giving up and just wanted to stay but I told him that we still have time, we can do it! - we managed to get to the bank and purchased a cashiers cheque then returned to USCIS building at 11am. There were 3 more people then we had our chance at 11:30...whew! we gave the cheque and we were the last people there (yeah i know, we were the first and the last)..the thai lady even chatted with us a little bit, gave us an idea on how long the process will take. asked us about our son and the place we are staying at in Phuket.

All in all, it was a good experience. There was just a little stress wth the payment but it was sorted out. We are just considering it as one of our adventures in Bangkok.

We will keep you posted about the approval and the next steps...wish us luck

[J&M95 2]

Ooops by the way, I forgot to say that I am Maddie, the beneficiary and I am a Filipina DCF-ing in Bangkok, Thailand. I haven't seen much cases like ours so I'm posting our experience here for others who will undergo same journey as ours. At first, I thought there would be a problem with us doing DCF here because I am not Thai..I am working here as an English 10 years as I've mentioned in my original posts. I tried to look for same case like me in older posts but I have only seen one case which was a Russian girl and Thai-American hubby.