Leahs Cafe

We have waited four months (And, that’s an expedited processing! Many people waited longer and for some complicated cases, for years) for a piece of paper that gives green light to apply for an immigrant visa.

As we were waving goodbye to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and getting ready to say hello to National Visa Center(NVC), discovered USCIS gave us a goodbye gift – they never amend the mistake on my name though multiple service requests were filed to amend it and we were told it will be amended during adjudication.

The nightmare has turned into reality – the mistake has propagated to NVC now. Great!!

It’s very important to have the right name because the visa is going to be issued in that name! Have to send another request to amend the mistake! Hopefully people who work at NVC are more competent than those jokers at USCIS! They do seem like they are more efficient because within a week, they have already assigned a case number and have a person called “Supervisor Sue” whom we know is processing the expedite request!

Though the I-130 petition has been approved for more than a week and we have received a hard copy of the approval notice, the online system still shows the case as “pending”! Doesn’t that make you wonder how much they still rely on manual work? If they want to be an efficient organization, employing the right IT solution is a necessity. They need to re-evaluate their IT management or hire an IT consulting firm among the NY IT Services to do a major revamp!

One of the civil documents that needed for the immigrant visa application is the “Certificate of Good Conduct”. It’s a background check or police clearance required to show no criminal record. You can get the certificate from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, either in person or by mail.

They took about 2-3 months to produce the certificate previously. It was mainly required by people who were migrating. But, in recent years, many countries like Australia and US have requested this for people who applied for student visas too. That means they are a lot more people who apply for this certificate now. So, they changed the procedure, we just have to do a statutory declaration and have some big shot or class A government servants signed the forms, they can produce the certificate based on the declaration and it can be done on the same day!

Have already done the statutory declaration and have one of my teachers signed the paper in May. But I waited for the I-130 petition to get approved before getting it because the certificate has a validity date and it can expire.

The Ministry of Foreign Affair is at the Wisma Putra in Putrajaya. I decided to drive up there today. This is my first time to the new administrative capital, don’t have any idea how Wisma Putra looks like, armed with an address that says it’s at Precinct 2, Putrajaya, I drove there by myself!

After much ado about nothing, left my parents’ house at 9.15 a.m. Exit the North South highway at Kajang and reached Putrajaya township at about 11.00 a.m. The Wisma Putra is not too far off, but I missed the sign behind some trees and drove into a maze of office buildings. (are you surprised? Malaysian poor road signs and my sense of direction aare not very good combination!!) Gosh, I have no idea there are hundreds of office buildings that have the same color tone and all look the same (at least to me) !

I stopped and asked two Malay girls, they pointed to a hill and said “Tu, yang bangunan putih dengan bumbung hijau atas bukit tu” (There, the white buildings with green roofs that sit on that hill) Can you see?

By the time I reached the Wisma Putra and found the consular office, it was nearly 11.45 a.m. Though my queue number was called within 5 minutes for document submission, have to wait for them to produce the “Certificate of Good Conduct” after that. They were quite a lot of youngsters who looked like students and a few adults were waiting for the same.

By 12.00 p.m, they were still about 10 people ahead of me who were waiting in line. I knew I would have to go back there to collect the certificate after lunch hour. Didn’t realize the consular office is closed from 12.30 – 2.00 p.m. (The office hours are 8.30-12.30 p.m and 2.30 -4.00 p.m, they only works 5 1/2 hours!!)

How to kill the 2 hours? decided to call a friend who works about 25 minutes away, we went out for lunch and catch up.

Went back to Wisma Putra at 2.45 p.m and got this certificate:

RM60 for gasoline, RMRM27.80 for toll, RM6 fee for statutory declaration and RM20 for the certificate, all for the pleasure of getting a certificate that says “The Government of Malaysia finds her to be a person of Good Conduct“! Got to go all length to show Uncle Sam that I am a good girl ! :-)

The I-130 petition was filed in March, after three months of staying in the dark hole. The big boy filed an expedite request for the I-130 processing on 5 June, hope to speed things up a bit.

Five weeks after filing an expedite request, the petition for an immigrant visa is finally approved today! Does that mean I can buy an air ticket and get on a plane now? No way! The I-130 petition basically is an initial filing to determine eligibility of the petitioner to file an immigrant visa for an  immediate relative, which is spouse in our case.

The approved I-130 is now being forwarded to National Visa Center (NVC) for further processing. We are filing another expedite request so that NVC will forward the file to KL immediately.

Meanwhile, the big boy has to pay more fees, submit more documents and sign a contract with Uncle Sam that he is going to be financially responsible for me. The contract is called an affidavit of support (AOS). It means if I ever become a public charge i.e. claim unemployment or any mean tested benefits, Uncle Sam can recover the payments from the big boy!

When the file is forwarded to KL, I have to submit an application form and some civil documents i.e birth certificate, marriage certificate and police clearance. This step is going to be fast as I already have all the documents, ready to go out. Then, I would need to go for a medical check up and take some vaccinations. The last one will be the interview.

My conservative estimation- all this will take at least another one and half months! It may take longer if the big boy does not submit the AOS documents in time!!