O-A Visa And A Vietnamese Wife

[aeolion]

I am a 67-year-old American with Korean permanent residency who four months ago married a 22-year-old Vietnamese outside Vietnam. I could write a book on our dealings with both the Korean and Vietnamese bureaucracies, but I will just say that each time we thought we had found a country to live in, the officials parried, and my wife and I lost.

Heading on into Plan D, we were told by the Thai consulate in Saigon that if I were to get a Thai O-A visa in Seoul, my wife would automatically qualify for a year-long O visa. I got the O-A in Seoul and turned in the paperwork for my wife at the Thai consulate in Saigon. The clerk took the paperwork to the consul and returned to say the consul would only give my wife a 60-day visa extendable for 30 days. With practiced humility I showed her the paper she had given me earlier about an automatic year, and she said 60 days was all we were getting, and that was that.

But first, if I may be a bit defensive so as to cut short the sniping, my wife is cool. I seriously cook, and she fits right in with that. I bought her a $12 bikini, a selfish act if there ever was one, and she yelled about the price. Here in Thailand she insists a pair of used bicycles is fine -- no need for a motorbike. And she is Vietnamese and can do wheellies, for crissakes. The only jewelry she wanted was the wedding band, and that was mostly due to it being required for a wedding ceremony in Singapore. She has a stake in our future finances.

My Korean wife of 16 years succumbed to alcoholism and an intense desire to sit on the couch, completing the circle of Asian Princess to Tomb Raider Extraordinaire to 38-year-old aging Asian Princess.

My new wife does not drink (a first in my life), her energy is boundless, and her favorite time of day is the three hours each afternoon we do English together. Plus she shows promise as a partner for seriously maxing out the weights a few times a week. If I could just get her to relinquish the idea that we are supposed to share household chores equally, an idea she holds deeply. But I now know her well enough to know that she will win out.

Back on topic. There seems to be a trend among embassy officials.

Two questions:

1. What are we going to be up against with Thai Immigration as we try for a long-term visa? I am not looking for acceptance. I have no regrets. I am just looking for something that might give us an edge in the upcoming visa chess game.

2. If I want to head back to the States with my wife, buy a few acres in the Arkansas Ozarks so we can plant a garden, have fruit trees, and fly fish, what are we to expect from the US immigration? I know that to file for her to immigrate, I am required to live uninterruptedly for six months in a country where I am a "resident," not a tourist. Korea won't let her in, and Vietnam doesn't even recognize that we are married -- they told me I could stay there on tourist visas and quarterly visa runs.

I emailed the Bangkok US embassy and asked if living in Thailand on an O-A visa for six months would allow me to file for my wife's immigration. The answer was:

"USCIS Bangkok considers a series of facts before allowing a U.S. citizen to file a Form I-130 overseas. O-2 visa and six months do not guarantee that your Form I-130 will be accepted. The Duty Officer at the time of your attempted filing will consider all factors before making the decision, including other evidence of actual residence in Thailand."

I think this can be distilled to: "Maybe, but we are not going to tell you how we make the decision."

Does anybody know what the "series of facts," "all facts," and "other evidence" are? Buying a car? Buying a condo? Joining a church? Getting into the Thai stock market? Marrying a Thai? Learning Thai? Wearing a red shirt?

There seems to be a Catch 22-ishness about the process. If a Duty Officer were inclined to reject my application for my wife, he could base his decision on the fact that if I were a true resident here, I would not be trying to move to the States with my wife. That is, applying to take her to the States automatically disqualifies me from being a Thai resident. But if I do not apply to take her to the States, I am obviously a resident.

aeolion

[jazzbo]

Does anybody know what the "series of facts," "all facts," and "other evidence" are? ... maybe 45 Year age disparity?

[Lite Beer]

In Thailand you can apply for 12 month extensions of stay based on retirement if you qualify financially.

If you are legally married and Thailand recognises it, your Wife can apply for 12 month extensions of stay as your dependant.

Rules for retirement.

(1) The alien has obtained a temporary visa (NON-IM);

(2) The applicant is 50 years of age or over;

(3) Proof of income of not less than Baht 65,000 per month; or

(4) Account deposit with a bank in Thailand of not less than

800,000 Baht as shown in the bank account for the past 3 months at the filing date of the application. For the first year, the applicant should have that amount in his bank account for not less than 60 days or

(5) Annual income plus bank account deposit totaling not less

than Baht 800,000 as of the filing date of application

Rules for Dependant

(1) The alien has obtained a temporary visa (NON-IM);

(2) Proof of family relationship;

(3) In the case of a spouse, the marital relationship shall be de

jure (legitimate) and de facto;

[lopburi3]

1. You do not seem to be married under the laws of Vietnam so the Thai Consulate likely will not issue a visa based on marriage for that reason.

2. All your wife would need is a single entry non immigrant O visa for conversion to one year extension of stay (to match yours).

3. Your marriage must be accepted by Thailand to qualify for any marriage based visa/extension of stay.

4. If accepted as married she should be able to obtain a non immigrant O visa in Vientiane or Malaysia with copy of your passport having the one year entry for retirement stamp. Once that obtained be able to extend to match.

5. The I-130 can be filed in US at the office covering the area you will live. Believe Bangkok wants one year of living here to process at local office and not sure about third country national requirements.

[aeolion]

lopburi3,

All your wife would need is a single entry non immigrant O visa for conversion to one year extension of stay (to match yours).

and Lite Beer,

(Rules for dependent) The alien has obtained a temporary visa NON-IM)

We appreciate your help.

It seems that I have failed to supply the important information that we arrived in Thailand four days ago. My wife in fact was given a short-term single entry non immigrant O visa by the Saigon Thai consulate, along with the instructions to do a visa run (or rather visa flight) every three months. I was of the opinion that a single-entry short term O visa for my wife would allow her to convert to a long-term dependent O, but the Saigon embassy was adament that she would have to do visa runs.

My recent experience has shown me, however, that information varies among embassy officials, as I am sure most of you on this forum know. Maybe we are closer to a long-term O for her than we thought.

Is it the case that we just visit Thai Immigration with our marriage certificate and ask for a long-term O visa for her? If so, when should we begin the process? I know that asking for an extension too soon will clip valuable days off the total possibility of 360 days, but waiting too long, by definition, is too long.

aeolion

[Lite Beer]

Have you got a 12 Month Extension from Immigration in Thailand?

You need that before you can do anything.

Providing your Marriage is legal and recognised in Thailand your Wife could then apply as your dependant.

Your Marriage Certificate needs to be registered in Thailand and also translated into Thai.

(Others can give more advise than me on this)

12 Month Extensions can be applied for within the last 30 days of any stay.

Go and have a chat with your local Immigration Office. They will know what is to be done.

This is the Police Order that deals with Extensions of Stay. 2.22 for you. 2.20 for your Wife.

Police Order 2008.pdf

[lopburi3]

You said a 60 day visa in your OP which is not a non immigrant visa. Now you say single entry non immigrant which would be the normal issue.

So you were stamped into Thailand for one year and she was stamped in for 90 days? An O-A visa would provide a one year stamp on entry.

[Lite Beer]

A lot of if's and but's here.

If you do have an O-A Visa she would not be eligible for a 12 month extension as your dependant.

You need to to be on an extension from Immigration yourself for this to be possible.

[lopburi3]

Once entry is made into Thailand it may be treated as a normal one year extension of stay - but have not seen any reports directly addressing how it might be treated in this context. The definition of this O-A was originally stated as non immigrant O entry (O) with pre-approved extension of stay (A). I believe dependent can extend on such an entry.

[Lite Beer]

Only Immigration will know for sure.

[aeolion]

lopburi3 and Lite Beer;

Sorry about the confusion about my wife's visa, which is due to my confusion about my wife's visa. Things are getting clearer, thanks to you guys.

I have an O-A. I was stamped in for one year. The only thing I know I need to do is visit Thai Immigration every 90 days.

My wife has a "Non-Immigrant O Single Entry" visa, which I was clearly told at the Thai consulate in Saigon is a 60-day visa, which seems to be one notch above the 30-days-upon-arrival. I was also told her visa was renewable for 30 additional days, making it good for 90 days. However, a closer examination shows she was stamped in for 90 days.

Further, it was issued to her after I submitted to the Saigon Thai consulate my O-A visa and a letter inviting my wife to accompany me to Thailand. I had requested a year O for her, which the Thai embassy would not give her.

Anyway, a 90-day non-imm O visa does seem to be convertible to a longer O visa, at least under certain (so far to me unknown) conditions.

However, Lite Beer writes that I must be on a 12-month extension to get my wife an extension. I am stamped in for a year and will not need an extension till Sept 2011. In which case it is a series of visa flights for my wife, if in fact they allow such a series for her.

If not, it is out of here and on to Plan D. We holed up in Ninh Binh for a month on an unbelievably small expenditure. Her English really took off. There is always India for six months. And hel_l, they sort of speak English there.

As Emmylou sings, "The road goes on forever."

aeolion

[jazzbo]

If a (USA) Duty Officer were inclined to reject my application for my wife, he could base his decision (on) ... A USA Duty Officer does not have to have any specific reason to base his/her decision but is allotted full discretion and has no requirement FOI (Freedom of Information Act) or otherwise to tell you the basis of such decision ... However age disparity and 4 months of wedded-bliss is ample cannon fodder.

[aeolion]

Lite and lopburi,

You responded as I was writing. Yes, only Immigration knows for sure, which is because only they are sure of what they do. However, I have seen in the past that backwoods Korean immigration is open to gentle re-education if I knew the rules before I went in. But there is a limit.

So my question on this is: If I visit Immigration, what are the probabilities that I will get a standard knowledge-based answer rather than a personal interpretation?

aeolion

[Lite Beer]

However, Lite Beer writes that I must be on a 12-month extension to get my wife an extension. I am stamped in for a year and will not need an extension till Sept 2011. In which case it is a series of visa flights for my wife, if in fact they allow such a series for her.

"

aeolion

As Lopburi3 says , it may well be possible with your O-A Visa. We have seen no reports of this being done so it is all a bit guess work.

Go and see what Immigration have to say. They don't bite and are usually helpful if you are polite.

If the worst comes to the worse there are other options available to enable your Wife to stay for a year.

Tourist Visas. More Imm O Visas.

[aeolion]

OK, in a few days we will be off to see the troops at immigration. I am indebted to you.

aeolion

[Lite Beer]

OK, in a few days we will be off to see the troops at immigration. I am indebted to you.

aeolion

Please let us know how you get on.

[jackspratt]

I admire your forbearance aeolion, both in the face of the bureaucratic brickwall you seemed to have hit in several places, and the 2 crass responses you have received from the same poster on this thread.

Good luck in your endeavors.

Edited September 9, 2010 by jackspratt

[lekatai]

Well,it's interesting to read your story,I thought I was the only retiree in Thailand married to a Vietnamese girl.I was in a very similar situation to yourself,except for two points.a)Although I did originally have a Non Imm O "A" when I first came to Thailand,after the first 2 years I changed to a yearly extension for the purposes of retirement. and b)I got married in Vietnam.After the marriage,we went to the Thai Consulate in Saigon,my wife got a 90 day single entry Non Imm O (all the paperwork we needed was the marriage certificate).Then,when I renewed my visa in Pattaya,at the same time she applied for and was given a 12 month extension as my dependant.All I needed was a copy of our marriage certificate,a translation into English(not Thai) certified by the British Embassy(actually the Pattaya Hon Consul)and that was it.No hassle anywhere just a routine application.The other thing you could consider doing,is living in Vietnam,I moved here a few months ago from Thailand.If you are married to a Vietnamese citizen,you get a 5 year visa exemption certificate,which basically means you can live here for 5 years,the only proviso is the every 90 days you either have to leave Vietnam,or get a 90 day extension which costs 10USD.It's much cheaper and easier than living in Thailand.The only thing I don't know is if your marriage outside Vietnam would be recognised by the authorities here

[aeolion]

OK, this is what we have. At the very least, it is challenging, and at the worst it will send us on our way. The source is a pleasant young Chiang Mai immigration official who sat beside the number dispenser in the waiting room. His job seemed to be to ask a few questions to decide which sort of number we needed, but he gave us the info we needed, so we got no number. I told him that I came in on a year’s O-A from Korea, but the Thai consulate in Saigon would not give my Vietnamese wife more than a 90-day O.

He looked at our passports and told us my wife was not connected to my visa at all. Therefore we have two choices: She can get a new 90-day O at any Thai embassy (that is, do a visa run), or she can get a year’s O based on a brand new O-A and our marriage. That is, I will have to abandon my O-A nine months early and start a new one, which includes topping my bank balance back up to 800,000 baht.

My first thought upon getting this information was “Can I please have a second opinion?” Is it really true that I must just throw away an O-A with nine months left on it? Read on and you will understand my mistrust of all things immigratory and embassorial.

First, the new O-A. I have my finances set up in Korea such that I can easily refurbish my bank account in time for renewing my O-A next year. Doing it at the end of October is far from easy. It would entail a round trip to Korea and undoing some time deposits. Which will unfortunately reset the clock on the year I need to stay in Thailand continuously and uninterruptedly to submit papers for my wife’s possible immigration to the States. And with the travel expenses and bank charges, it’s one helluva financial hit.

PLUS, it is by no means assured that my going to Korea for the funds to start a new O-A will result in a year’s O for my wife. I followed the printed instructions for getting my wife a year’s O, instructions given to me and explained by a pleasant and helpful clerk at the tiny Thai consulate in Saigon. However, when I returned to Saigon from Korea and the Thai consul got a look at our passports for the first time, the clerk returned to tell me curtly that my wife would only get a 90-day O, and that was that. I politely showed her the instructions I had followed for a year’s O for my wife, but she said that if the Thai immigration officials in Thailand saw fit to extend my wife’s visa or issue her a longer one, that was up to them, and she walked away.

When the Korean consulate in Saigon had a similar change of heart about my wife going to Korea with me, I submitted an “e-petition” to the Korean Ministry of Justice (in charge of immigration), explaining the reluctance of the Saigon Korean consulate to allow me to bring my wife back home with me. The official answer, written and signed by a fairly-high-ranking official, said that because we had married in Singapore, we should fly to the Korean Embassy in Singapore, which would issue my wife a long-term Korean visa, no problem. But at the Singapore Korean embassy, where there was a single clerk and no waiting line, we were told in about 15 seconds that they were not the place. My wife was Vietnamese and could only get a long-term Korean visa by having our marriage registered in Vietnam.

I explained our situation and asked the clerk to please check it with the consul. She said of course, she understood, she hoped she was wrong. She almost cried when she returned and saw my wife standing by me, holding my arm, tears in her eyes. This was a few months ago. My wife is tougher now. She has seen enough to know that we are together.

According to the official Vietnamese Ministry of Justice Website, the registration of a foreign marriage is a simple process that can be initiated by mail and finalized with a single visit to the local Justice Ministry office associated with the wife’s family book. However, the local officials explained it was an extremely difficult document, and could require a weekly visit to their office for possibly many months, and even then, nothing was guaranteed. Still, we decided to give it a go. But we gave up after three full days zipping back and forth between four widely-spaced jurisdictions, mostly on motorbikes, but including a four-hour round-trip taxi ride back to Saigon and a night’s hotel because the notarized copies we presented did not “look nice” to the countryside official. My brother-in-law checked it out and said $3000US would get us registered in a day. No way. We jettisoned the paperwork that had seemed to be expanding at an exponential rate.

I might have paid the $3000 if it had included a nice Korean visa for my wife. However, recall that our trip to Singapore resulted in nothing more than entry and exit stamps in our passports. I had the feeling that a Vietnamese registration of our marriage might merely end up on a wall somewhere, if it were suitable for framing.

OK, restarting my O-A will require a major financial hit, it will restart the clock on my residing in Thailand continuously and uninterruptedly for a year, and not a damned thing is guaranteed if I do get a new O-A. That is, some official’s sensibilities can be offended by our marriage anywhere along the line, and all bets are off.

As for my wife going on a visa run, again, even if we go through the process, nothing is guaranteed. After all, she has a Vietnamese passport, which in the world of travel seems to be akin to having third-stage leprosy. Plus no one seems to want to recognize our marriage. I envision my wife at the Thai embassy in Kuala being told no way in hel_l were they going to give her a visa. (I gave a letter of invitation for my wife to the Saigon Thai embassy, and I have no idea what part that played in getting her a 90-day O. What is the Thai visa policy for Vietnamese nationals? We talk of visa runs, but how many times have you heard of Vietnamese making a run?)

My wife was an Asian Princess, and she is on her way to becoming a Tomb Raider. But she ain’t there yet. She has never traveled alone. I am doing my best on the crash course, having her book flights and trains, deal with the taxi Mafia, and check us in and out of hotels. But there are limits. I am not the type to worry, but Mama Lonely Planet says she does not approve of attractive young women of little experience traveling alone in SE Asia.

And again, to perhaps cut down on sniping, I am not unfamiliar with disapproval of my choice of women. When at 49 I married a Korean woman of 23, I wrote and sent pictures to my three older sisters and my mother back in Georgia. Three of the four never acknowledged my wife, and the sister who did wrote, “Brother, you may be free, white, and 21, but your wife is from a dictatorship, is of the yellow persuasion, and my gawd, she just barely qualifies for adulthood.”

It seems to be irrelevant to my sister that our marriage lasted 16 years, longer than any of her ample number of marriages. And the first 14 years were among the happiest of my life. Over the years my wife became an accomplished fly fisherman, an excellent cook, and a connoisseur of film, and went from being without English to being a successful private English teacher. The author of “Catch 22” was asked in an interview during his 60s to talk about his “recently-failed marriage.” He lost it. “Our marriage was a success for the first 34 of its 35 years. How can you call that a failed marriage?”

My wife and I make sense as a couple visually, at times eliciting smiles of approval. But there is something about the details of our passports that seem to cause negative feelings to boil up. I suppose it is similar to the old days when a black man passed for white and married a white woman. Everything was fine until someone got a glance of his birth certificate, and the outrageousness of the marriage frothed forth.

Please forgive the length of this. And as for putting it all into perspective, it is but an annoyance, albeit a large one. We have come to greet visa news with, “We are alive and we are together! What’s for dinner?”

However, I do want to approach the givers of visas a bit more warily than I have in the past. Can anybody offer anything on this?

aeolion

PS. I always assumed that a man of reasonable intelligence could make his way through the visa regulation maze on his

[aeolion]

jacksprat

Thanks. As for the bureaucrats, I had an experience at the Chiang Mai US Consulate recently. I read their Web page on starting direct payment of social security, and I did the first step at the bank. The second step was to get a certified copy of my passport at the consulate and then get together all the required documents and have the consulate send them to Manilla.

But the clerk did not understand it well. She kept repeating that they did not have to help me, but they would. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, to say. Gee, thanks?

She went away to talk to the SS expert and returned to say that the only thing I needed to do was go to the bank, which I had done. I was through.

Everything on the Webpage had been wrong.

No harm was done, other than uselessly killing a Thursday morning heading up to the consulate. But what about things with more floating on them than a Thursday morning?

Why will I be surprised if my SS payments start?

Second opinion? hel_l, give me a third!

aeolion

[aeolion]

lekatai,

Well, there are two of us married to VN women. But there are a few differences.

One is that you got married in Vietnam, and I did not. It is ironic that my wife, if you will for a moment allow me to use that questionable term, and I are concidered to be absolutely unmarried in VN, but we were told by one official that we could not start over again and get married in VN because we are already married.

Yet another difference is that we may (about 50-50 at this time) want to go to the States. She knows that the States would be tight financially, which flavors her thought, but she has said that the thought of never again passing through a Vietnamese customs gate brings a smile to her face. Thailand is awfully nice for both of us so far.

A major by-product in heading to the States would be to eventually replace her ghastly green VN passport with a lovely blue USA one. I have not been to the States since 1990, so I am a certified citizen of the world. But geez, traveling with her limits us to places like The Congo and Paraguay, with Thailand as a marginal candidate. I am in the process of checking out if India would have us.

Anyway, to get a blue passport for her would have to begin with me hanging out in Thailand for a year, continuously and uninterruptedly. VN on a tourist visa will not cut it, and that would be all I could get. Korea would have qualified us in six months, but...

Now looking at the details of your wife's year-long visa: What you say syncs with what the Chiang Mai immigration official told us. Your wife was given a year's O coming off a 90-day O at the same time you renewed your O-A. For me to duplicate your situation, I would have to start a new O-A nine months early. Which as I wrote would be hard to do, especially the finances, because I set up the finances in Korea for a renewal in a year.

Thanks for the info. As I said, it matches that given to me by a Thai official, info that I had questioned.

aeolion