Coming to America

I Have been behind on updating the blog entries, but I will begin by summarizing our 9-day stay in the States.

11th (Wed.):
The flight arrived JFK on time, 15 minutes before the departure time of the same day, and it is our first time to enter the States together through the American Citizen/Permanent Resident lane. As always, nervousness does not go away until finishing the procedure; possibly due to my previous traumatizing experience. After handing in documents, finger prints, and answers, we are escorted to the room in the back where they run further search on our background. Although this is a common procedure for me, Sahe does not seem at ease. After 15 minutes later, we were out of the room and I have become the permanent resident of the United States... well, with conditions for now.
 

12th(Thur) - 14th(Sat):
We begin preparing for our new life in a new town, and start opening various accounts in between naps and seeing old friends. Sahe has a tendency to break down and catch cold when she returns home, and it was no exception this time. Maybe it is her way of giving her mother a chance to feel motherly again.

15th(Sun) -16th(Mon):
With Sahe's brother who is in town for a few days, we drove down to DC, which for me is the first visit to the capital since in a grade school. Visits to great museums such as the Natural History, the Air and Space, and the National Gallery, ground me back memories of 23 years ago, and was once again mesmerized by their scale of collections and size of exhibition halls. After dinner we took a beautiful and warm 3-mile stroll from the Washington Monument to Lincoln Memorial. Sahe and I also spent the next day sightseeing, and left her brother with a car and took Amtrak back to New York.



 




18th(Wed):
An old friend made his way down from Boston, and we spent a full day walking around the city. It has been a year and a half, so more than 100 blocks of walking was necessary to catch up with each others lives. Whether in Boston, Amsterdam, or Yokohama, we have always exchanged thoughts during our aimless walks. The rain in Central Park added a bit more excitement. We ended up with few more guys and had a few things to drink.

We spent rest of days packing and prepping for the journey, and ended up running around everywhere. It was certainly more relaxing than when we were leaving Japan, but we were not packed until an hour before the departure...

Step 2 (cont'd): Which Way to America?

Japanese version posted on April 15th

22 months after the initial discussion with a lawyer, all procedure has been completed for the permanent resident application. At the end of the interview at the embassy, they handed me a letter stating, “You have completed the interview portion of your application and you visa has been approved”, but this still does not put me at ease, as they still have my passport for the next 1 – 2 weeks. Anyway, following numbers are what it took for us to apply for the “green card”.

2            number of visit to the lawyer’s office

55          emails sent to and received from the lawyer

44          pages of documents prepared for the application

42          corrections on documents we requested to the lawyer

3            corrections the interviewer had pointed out to us

2            number of visit to the embassy

823        total of application fees in US dollars (lawyer fee not included)

7-8         number of questions asked to Sahe during the first interview

7-8         number of questions asked to Yoshi during the final interview

7            days took to receive my passport back from the embasy

2            years I will be considered as a conditional resident

45          minutes took to pass the customs at JFK without a green card

15          minutes likely to take to pass the customs at JFK with a green card

Upon completing the second step, we are finally able to move onto the final stage, which is to enter the US. The limit for the entry is within 6 months of physical examination, which gives us until mid-August. We wanted to make sure that this final procedure is taken care of before taking off for the journey, and so it will likely be after the “golden-week” holidays in mid-May. That gives us about 3 weeks before the departure, and we still have so much to take care of. Packing, applications to remove ourselves from the residency, pension and healthcare, choose the shipping agent, apply for visas for the countries to visit, vaccines...

Step 2: The Immigrant Song

The next step for the permanent residency application is the examination of the beneficiary’s status. Along with various documents, the applicant will need to submit the health examination record and a police record.

Health examination record can be obtained at designated clinics, located in Tokyo, Kobe, and Okinawa. The procedure includes blood test, x-ray test, and the reviewing of vaccination records, and took about 50 minutes all together.

Police record, on the other hand, appears to be far more serious than the medical check-up. Also known as the criminal record, the document, which can be obtained at the police headquarters of your local prefecture, will be handed over to the applicant sealed. Although I am sure that I have no such record, what if my childhood pranks, such as climbing the stationed train, or trying to smuggle back VHS porn for my buddies when I was 16, were considered radical…

I was all concerned, but the whole procedure took about 5 minutes, which basically was to hand in the application form and have them take fingerprint scans.

After all documents are ready, the final interview session at the embassy can be booked.

Step 1: Born in the U.S.A.

Green Card; issued by a friend 12 years ago

When applying for a permanent residency status through your American family, there are roughly 3 steps.

The first is to check the eligibility of the petitioner, to see if he/she is qualified to financially sponsor the applicant. Along with various application forms, 1040 copies and balance records were also submitted. A small interview also took place, as mentioned in the previous log, but it was nothing like what we were expecting; simple and non-threatening. After the interview, we were told that the processing would take about 3 weeks.

17 days after our first visit to the Embassy, we received a white letter-sized envelope. There were 2 pages of documents; one congratulating us that Sahe is responsible enough and therefore eligible as a petitioner. The other is the instruction for the next step. Now it is my turn to gather necessary documents, including police records, and prepare for the interview.

90 minutes of American soil

Our agenda yesterday was to visit the US Embassy to apply for my permanent residency. Dressed up in a suit for the first time since the wedding, we first visited our lawyer’s office to pick up the documents. We bathroom-hop our ways to Akasaka, and arrive at the gate of the embassy at 14:15. There were about 20 people lined up for the entry, but with our appointment ticket, we are immediately at the top of the line. Going through the security much tighter than Narita Airport, we go inside and were given a number.

The first step of this application is to submit necessary documents, and answer a few questions regarding our marital status. The stress level kept rising when we were told us to sit and to arrange all documents in exact order listed on a piece of paper until the number is called. Shuffling through 40 pages of letter-sized paper, our number 047 was called.

So it was our turn. We are here to apply for, so called “green card”. As our lawyer did not elaborate on what the interview was going to be like and what kind of question will be asked, our only reference was the 1990 Peter Weir film. We know we have been married for 15 months, and hopefully forever. We just have to prove that to the government. So, we rented and watched it again, and then, we prepared a set of likely questions to be asked, 3 pages long, and we quizzed each other. That’s how prepared we wanted to be.

We go up to the booth 3, which reminds me of a bank teller ‘s counter. Shoving documents through the narrow slot, we answer a few non-threatening questions and were told to be seated and wait to be called again. Taking a deep breath and finally got my eye sight back. I looked around to find other couples, some searching for documents in their backpack, and others explaining the situation to the officer loudly with arm-throwing gestures, while their Japanese wife quietly standing next to this performance.  Seeing these reminded me how prepared we were; it definitely was worth spending a couple months reviewing documents with our lawyer.

We sat and waited for 45 years, hoping that our interviewer will not question us. No. 047 was called, and we are told that today’s interview will mostly directed to the petitioner. Sahe’s facial expression disappears and her voice becomes tone-less. She comfortably answers the first question, “when and where did you get married?”, but the interviewer questions her reply. He pointed out our document stated the year of marriage as 2010 instead of 2009. Here goes our few months of preparation down the drain. Luckily he was able to amend the date and the rest of the interview was fine, but of all things we could have written wrong, it was one date that we swore on. 

At the end of the interview, he congratulated us on passing the first part of the process, explained the next procedure, and we were back in Japan. A pint of Kilkenny and a shandygaff definitely helped us to wash down all worries, and never tasted better.