Usa Tourist Visa Advice Please!

[aussiestyle1983]

I am an Australian citizen an my wife is Thai. I also have US perminant residence (Green Card) which is valid untill 2014 but I havent been in the USA for about 3 years now, so im not sure if Ive lost my US PR or what, but either way, we would like to go to the USA for 2 months in June/ July 2007 for a holiday to visit my mother and the rest of my family who live there. After leaving the USA, we will move to live in Australia (my wife just had her migration visa for Australia approved so now we are doing this process to visit the USA first)

We have lived together in BKK for about 16 months and we have a joint bank account. My wife has no money in her bank because we only really use the joint account. I have a bank account in my name in the USA with afew thousand dollars in it and a bank account in Australia with about 30,000 Dollars in it. After reading that information, is there any advice you can give on what to do or what we need to provide that could result in a successful application?

We are just worried about not having enough proof to return to Thailand, as we wont be, after our trip, we will come back here for afew weeks then move perminantly to Australia.

If she shows our joint account plus copies of my bank accounts as she is my wife, can that be used to proove she has funds to support her during our stay? My Mother wrote us a letter because we will be staying in her house free, will this help? Do you think by showing her Australian migration visa this will be enough reason to proove that she will leave the USA? If we want to arrive in the US in the begining of June, when should we apply?

I dont want to apply to early in case the visa gets approved quickly but has to be used quickly. Any advice someone could give would be apprieciated. Afetr reading the US Embassy website it looks like a complicated procedure, buying PIN numbers and all this type of BS. So any advice would be apprieciated.

Thank you.

[aussiestyle1983]

Also, on the application form, there is a question where she has to answer about weather or not her husband (myself) is a US citizen or perminant resident. Since I have a green card (like I said before its valid untill 2014, but ive been out of the USA for 3 years now) I dont know if ive automatically lost my PR. I also dont reside in the USA. But I guess for this question she will have to select that I hold US PR, correct? Thanks.

[thaihome]

I also assume you have not been filing US Income tax returns for the 3 years? Without looking it up, is sounds to me you are not a permanent resident of the US, even though you hold a unexpired green card. My guess is when you arrive in the US, they will cancel it and give you the visa exempt entry you are entitled to.

For your wife, put all the documents together showing her ties to you, marriage certificate, bank accounts, etc. Include her new Aussie visa and a letter explaining your plans and the dates, approximate if you aren't sure yet. Do you have job in Thailand, do you have one waiting for you in australia?

Not sure how they will react, it is somewhat unique. Apply early, waiting time for interview can be several months. If approved, she will likely get a 10 year multi entry visa.

TH

[aussiestyle1983]

I also assume you have not been filing US Income tax returns for the 3 years? Without looking it up, is sounds to me you are not a permanent resident of the US, even though you hold a unexpired green card. My guess is when you arrive in the US, they will cancel it and give you the visa exempt entry you are entitled to.

For your wife, put all the documents together showing her ties to you, marriage certificate, bank accounts, etc. Include her new Aussie visa and a letter explaining your plans and the dates, approximate if you aren't sure yet. Do you have job in Thailand, do you have one waiting for you in australia?

Not sure how they will react, it is somewhat unique. Apply early, waiting time for interview can be several months. If approved, she will likely get a 10 year multi entry visa.

TH

Yes, I have never filed a US income tax return because I have never worked in the US. I lived there for 7 years as a teenager and then moved back to Australia. Afew years ago I was thinking about moving there to live and work so I got a new greed card (from a friend of a friend who has a high position in an immigration office in the US) but since then, I have only visited the US, once and that was in 2004. I am not worried about loosing the green card because of my visa exempt entry option, all I would like is for my wife to get her tourist visa. We are only waiting in Thailand for these plans to the USA, if we can not get her visa, we will go straight back to Australia now.

I have letters from my 2 employers here in LOS and we both have job offer letters (from a family owened company which I also work part time for now here in LOS)

We are both in our 20's and our relationship is compltely genuine. I will also give copies of my mothers greed card as we will be lstaying with her, and all the doccuments as you said plus other things that may help. We just dont want to have to go there before june as my mothers has 2 months holidays in june/ july, thats all.

Applying for these visas can be a real headache, we were surprised the her spouse visa to Australia only took 1 day to be approved, we just hope this process will go a smooth.

Also, this will be her first time to apply for a visa to the usa and she has never had a visa to another country rejected, I dont know if this will help.

Can this visa be obtained from the USA or does it have to be applied for abroad? (I could mail her passport to my family who would then take it to the lady we know who works in immigration, but im not sure if she would be able to do anything to help as the passport/ applicant is still abroad)

Any other suggestions and thanks for the help.

[Aussietraveller]

spouse visa to Australia only took 1 day to be approved

Aussiestyle1983,

I know this is not the topic of your post, but i am interested that your spouse Visa for Australia only took 1 day.

Can you possibly give me some information regarding your application?

Where was it lodged?

How much supporting documentation was submitted witht the application?

Where were your medicals done?

Any other information you can post regarding this would be much appreciated.

My Situation is similar in many ways, and i will be submitting an application for Asutralian Spouse Visa for my Thai wife in the next couple of months.

The one delay we will have in our application is that she is 3 months pregnant.

We will need to wait until after the baby is born to get xrays done, and this should then finalise the application.

Any information you have that may assist is appreciated.

Regards

[LaReina]

Afew years ago I was thinking about moving there to live and work so I got a new greed card (from a friend of a friend who has a high position in an immigration office in the US) but since then, I have only visited the US, once and that was in 2004.

I am dying to know.. just how, you got a high ranking immigration official, to get you a new green card. Or perhaps you mean to say that someone helped you fill out the paper work for your green card.

As for your wifes visa, I would "assume" you need to obtain a visa to "enter" a country while "outside" of the country in question. Why don't you just go to the US embassy and have a qualified person answer all your questions?

[aussiestyle1983]

Afew years ago I was thinking about moving there to live and work so I got a new greed card (from a friend of a friend who has a high position in an immigration office in the US) but since then, I have only visited the US, once and that was in 2004.

I am dying to know.. just how, you got a high ranking immigration official, to get you a new green card. Or perhaps you mean to say that someone helped you fill out the paper work for your green card.

As for your wifes visa, I would "assume" you need to obtain a visa to "enter" a country while "outside" of the country in question. Why don't you just go to the US embassy and have a qualified person answer all your questions?

I told one of my family freinds that I wanted a new green card because my previous one had expired 5 years earlier when I moved back to Australia and they got it for me. I did have to attend a recorded interview which was done by her, but she said not to worry, it was standard policy and my green card will be comming soon. I had to wait about 3 months for the card to arrive but I was given some sort of reciept or piece of paper to use untill the card arrived. The total cost was about $300-$400 USD at the time. This was done at an immigration office in Texas where you will usually see thousands of Mexicans trying to sort out their problems.

And to get questions answered by the US Embassy here (you would know this if you read their website, that is why I have used this site to obtain information) you first need to pay the visa fee at a post office. Then you can purschase a pin number or some bull shit which gives you I think 2 phonecalls to the Embassy's help line where they can answer questions. The whole process seems rather electronic and time wasting, that is why I have decided to ask for information from this forum.

[aussiestyle1983]

spouse visa to Australia only took 1 day to be approved

Aussiestyle1983,

I know this is not the topic of your post, but i am interested that your spouse Visa for Australia only took 1 day.

Can you possibly give me some information regarding your application?

Where was it lodged?

How much supporting documentation was submitted witht the application?

Where were your medicals done?

Any other information you can post regarding this would be much appreciated.

My Situation is similar in many ways, and i will be submitting an application for Asutralian Spouse Visa for my Thai wife in the next couple of months.

The one delay we will have in our application is that she is 3 months pregnant.

We will need to wait until after the baby is born to get xrays done, and this should then finalise the application.

Any information you have that may assist is appreciated.

Regards

Without giving to many details, I will tell you the following to help give you an understanding of how we got my wifes spouse visa approved so quickly and easily. We are both in our early 20's, my wife has a university degree and we did not meet in a bar. We have been living together for the past 12 months and have been married for only 2 months. My wife was the only person included in the application and we both had no past relationships to disclose. Having read that, I will give you the following advice based on my experience and opinions:

1- Lodge your application at the Embassy, not at the VFS center in the Thai CC Tower. By lodging at the embassy you will be able to meet your case officer face to face and sh/he will be able to see how you and your wife act together and so on. If you lodge at the VFS, they will send your application to the Embassy and then you will need to wait for further instructions, by lodging at the embassy, you will be able to talk directly with you case officer and you will be able to get information from your case officer in person.

2- Only lodge a COMPLETE application. If you lodge a complete and a good application it will be approved without an interview, so do it correctly the first time. Do your police checks and medical check before you lodge your application so your case office will have all the info they need to make a decision. If you dont have all the doccuments, you application will be moved down to the bottom of the stack untill all your doccuments are ready. Your case officer will apprieciate it and most likely make a decision sooner if they have everything they need.

3- The more people included in your application, the longer it will take. More paper work to go through, possibly more further doccuments required, possible checks made to third parties, etc. So if you have alot of children or family included, be prepaired to wait alot longer.

4- Past migration history- If you have sponsored someone before, be prepaired to wait while they look into that.

5- Evidence of Relationship- If you have lots of photos and other things like letters, include it all. You can never give to many things, if you do, they will see you have put alot of effort into the application and may tell you they do not need everything. This part of the application is very important, because looking for proof that the relationship is genuine, I feel, is what they will base their decision on. This is another reason to lodge at the embassy, meet you case officer face to face so they can see you two together.

6- Presentation- Present everything nicely and easily to read through. We put everything in plastic sleves in large A4 folders. Our entire application including evidence of relationship consisted of 3 large 3" thick A4 folders. 1 photo album containing about 180 Photos. We took 5 other photo albums to show, but our case officer said they would not need to see them.

As for supporting doccuments, its obvious, included everything that is required which can be found in the partner migration handbook and include anything else you feel may help. Because we met our case officer face to face, we had a feeling that it would be approved. She told us that no interview would be necessary. The next day we got a call and the visa was ready to be collected. The case officer was very professional and polite and the whole experience, while expensive, was quite plesant.

If you need any more info, let me know.

[aussiestyle1983]

Bump...............

we just changed my wifes surname to my christian surname, will this make a difference when we apply for her visa?

like i mentioned before, we will only go to the USA to visit family before migrating to australia, so will her migration visa to australia be enough proof to show that we will leave the USA?

and how long after the visa is granted does it need to be use by, we just dont want to apply to early as we dont intend on going there before June.