Getting Immigrant Visa For Thai Kids To Usa

[sun_sailor]

I am an American Citizen happily married to a Thai women,

and we wish to bring her 2 children to live with us in the USA.

My wife, a Thai citizen, has a USA Permanent Resident card, we live

in Santa Cruz CA, USA. Where we own a home, and have jobs.

She came to the USA over 2 1/2 years ago on a K1 Visa, we were married in the

US. We just passed the 2 year mark, and sent in the packet of info and

application to "Remove Conditional Status" This was accepted, and Jeerarat

was give a "one year extention of Conditional Status" after going to an appointment

on Jan 9 2008 for Biometrics.

We are confident that the 10 year Permenent status may be sent to us soon,

or perhaps a request for more information. We know the California USCIS

system is somewhat backlogged, though expect no problem.

We wish to bring her two children, Apple 14, and Mix 10 ,

to live with us and go to school in San Jose CA.

These children were listed, in the I-129 f "Petition for Alien Fiance" which we filed

with all the papers to obtain the K1 Visa in 2004.

Jeerarat has sole custody of the children, and they have been living with her

family here in Phuket while we have been the the US for the past 2 1/2 years.

Both children; have current Thai Passports.

Another fact is that whenMy wife divorced her husband; the childrens father in 2003,

she was granted full custody of the children by the Thai government office that issued the

divorce. She took those sole custody documents with them when she applied for Thai

passports for the children.

We would like to get their Visas as soon as possible, we are only over

here in Thailand for 3 months, and want to do whatever is expediant.

My first thought is to sponsor them, applying with the 1-130 Petition for alien relative.

Can anyone you kindly tell us how to proceed, what are best options may be in your opinion?

We would like to get their Visas as soon as possible, we are only over

here for 3 months, ...we heard the process was easy, now I hear otherwise. 6-12 months?

some say to apply at the Us Embassy BKK, but since we are US residents, perhaps

we should apply to the USA...any advice would be tremendously appreciated,

Thanks

[jstumbo]

If you had the children on the 129f application why did they not recieve K2 visas at the same time?

If you did not follow through on that, they have probably been abandoned by now. There is a time frame for them to come to the US, which I am pretty sure 2.5 years is too long.

I don't believe you can sponsor them because you are not related to them. If you adopted them, then you could, but until then you are not related.

Your wife would have to apply for a greencard for them under the Limited Family Based quota system. And this is not something that is going to take 3 months.

LIMITED FAMILY-BASED

Family First Preference (F1): Unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, and their children, if any. (23,400)

Family Second Preference (F2): Spouses, minor children, and unmarried sons and daughters (over age 20) of lawful permanent residents. (114,200) At least seventy-seven percent of all visas available for this category will go to the spouses and children; the remainder will be allocated to unmarried sons and daughters

[jstumbo]

Actually you can apply on the basis of step child. I would suggest you pursue this on a more US visa specific website such as visajourney.com

[thaihome]

I don't think you are going to be able to walk into the consulate and get immigrant visas for the kids. You probably should have consulated an immigration attorney before you left for your Thailand trip. You might try contacting one in Bangkok to find out what your options are at this point.

The advice to post on visajourey is spot on. you might also try the Thai-Falang board on Delphi as I belive the moderator brought his step son to US some time after bringing his wife on K1.

TH