Well, I met with an immigration officer in Columbus Thursday morning and it went really well. the guy was super nice and it was refreshing to talk to someone that if nothing else, pretended he cared.
Up to this point I have known very little about immigration, visas and citizenship. I feel much more informed now. Here's what I learned.
1. Annie came home on an IR4 visa (because both parents did not visit) which means she was not a citizen when we hit ground in Houston. She was a permanent resident, but she has to be readopted here in the states to get her citizenship. Annie does get a green card and we expect that in the mail in 2 or 3 weeks.
2. A visa is not just a little stamp in her (lost) passport, the good ol' US of A actually has record of her visa in a little thing called a computer. This may seen like a no brainer, but two governments had been unable to answer this up unto this point.
3. Annie's green card is her visa. Once we have that we are good to go on the US side.
So, Annie does still have a visa, just no proof of that to travel. We are anticipating getting her green card before we go back to Guatemala, but if not, the immigration officer made me a temporary green card that should be fine.
So, here's the plan. When we know we are really close to traveling we will go to Chicago to get travel papers that will get Annie into Guatemala. I hope to be able to get her an actual passport, but I don't know if that is possible at this point. The travel documents will be turned in to an actual passport once in Guatemala. So, she will have a passport to come home on. That along with Annie's temporary or permanent green card will appease both governments. Now, we just have to figure out what the airlines will be ok with. I will have obviously have everything figured out before we go.
As for actual travel I am unsure about when we will go. We are at least making progress right now. I bet it will be 2 1/2 to 3 weeks until we are submitted to the Embassy to get our pink slip. My tenative (very tenative right now) plan is to start looking to travel as soon as I know we've been submittted. It will take me a few days to organize tickets and get us down to Guatemala. I would plan to stay in Guatemala for 2 to 3 weeks. My plan would be to find someone to go with me for 7 to 10 days and then have Ryan come down and finish off the time. We will se though how things go.
Julie
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1 comment:
I would love to go with you. I real try real hard not to get tired and keep up with you.
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