diamondeve21

My husband had an interview on July 11th for a missing Singapore police certificate. We submitted it on Aug 21st and our case has been in AP since then. At first, they said it was not recieved. I guess they finally viewed it after a month and it was finally posted. Since then, our case has been in AP. I really don't know what is causing the hold up either. My only guess is due to my husband's criminal background. He commited a misdemeanor when he was 18. He got into a street fight and was sentenced to probation w/no jail time. Also, he has a relatively common name so I am assuming its taking a while to do a background search. USCs have SSN... so a common name should not be an issue. Hopefully the next issue is not that they drag this out and then say you need another chinese police certificate (they expire after a year). Is he of Asian descent? Oh no... the issue is he is Chinese and his name in China is fairly common. He doesn't have a SSN yet. I'm the USC.

Thanks! I really hope so. I even contacted Eunice (Marc Ellis's assistant) and she said 6 month is a long time for AP. It is outside of the normal time frame.

My husband had an interview on July 11th for a missing Singapore police certificate. We submitted it on Aug 21st and our case has been in AP since then. At first, they said it was not recieved. I guess they finally viewed it after a month and it was finally posted. Since then, our case has been in AP. I really don't know what is causing the hold up either. My only guess is due to my husband's criminal background. He commited a misdemeanor when he was 18. He got into a street fight and was sentenced to probation w/no jail time. Also, he has a relatively common name so I am assuming its taking a while to do a background search.

I tried that. They told the senator the same thing. I tried every possible way you can think of.. but not much luck...

Tried that too! Didn't receive much more information....

Unfortunately, I found out about this after I got here... Since I still have till the end of the day, I thought I think I will just make one more trip up there to see if I can get lucky and run into an officer.

Just out of curiosity, anyone still waiting for their visa to arrive? - We still are... waiting for AP to be over after the blue slip on July 12th.

Hi, Has anyone appeared at the Guangzhou US Consulate in person and inquired about your spouse's immigration case? If so, how did u do so? I made an appointment for American Citizen Services but when I got there, the Chinese officer at the window turned me away in less than a minute. They said they only do passport services which are totally separate from the immigration unit. I asked to see an immigration officer but they said there is no such thing and I would have to send all inquiries by email. I read it on VJ that sometimes, American Citizens are able to obtain some useful information when they appear in person at the Consulate. I would appreciate it if someone can tell me where should I go and who should I speak with. We been waiting for this AP for 6 month. Thank you very much!

This won't help you at this late date, but for anyone else - check the Visa reciprocity tables for information about any needed certificates from a particular country - http://travel.state.gov/visa/fees/fees_3272.html The page for Singapore discusses this information http://travel.state.gov/visa/fees/fees_5455.html?cid=9732 Yea... But what threw me off was that I contacted Guangzhou embassy in December and received an email saying the statue of declaration would be sufficient!!! I knew they wanted the COC but since the embassy said the statue of declaration was acceptable, I thought it was fine¡­ I even read some of other posts on Visa Journey and some embassies (ex. Manila) were fine with the statue of declaration. If I knew this would have been a problem, I would have solved it before the interview¡­

HI, just read your post. Hope your husband already received visa!! Got blue for missing papers... But I think we will figure things out. Thanks!

Sorry for the late reply.. Thanks!

That changes everything for my opinion on the case... and I am generally alone on this. So just do your best. Good luck. Thanks David! The interview was short but there was problems with the paper work.

Hi, Yes! Beachey is right! I did post on visa journey and did not do an update here. So what happened was my husband received a blue slip for not having the correct Singapore police certificate (certificate of clearance aka COC). The reason we did not have this is because Singapore stopped issuing COC to none Singapore citizens in October of 2010. Instead, they offer a statue of declaration for none Singapore citizens. At that time, I did contact the Guangzhou embassy and they replied via email saying the statue of declaration would be acceptable. So my husband obtained that, we turned it into the NVC and the NVC was fine with it. When it came to the interview, apparently Guangzhou now has a new regulation and the VO said he absolutely needs the COC. Therefore, he received a blue slip. I then contacted the NVC and spoke to a supervisor. He directed me to the Visa Services Center in Washington DC and I spoke to a supervisor regarding this issue. In the meantime, I contacted the Singapore embassy in China as well as the US embassy in Singapore. They both said the COC would be acceptable!!! So it¡¯s fine with everywhere else except Guangzhou! So a few days later, the Visa Services Center in DC got back to me and told me that the Singapore police does issue a COC for none Singapore citizens if we do an appeal. So I contacted the Singapore police and after a couple of days emailing them (they refused at first), we finally received some information on how to do the appeal and that they would only issue the COC if we received an OFFICIAL LETTER from the requesting agency saying the Statue of Declaration is UNACEPTABLE! I then contacted Guangzhou embassy and it took them two and a half weeks to send out that letter. My husband just received the letter from Guangzhou two days ago so he will be submitting the application as well as the appeal to the Singapore police soon. However, Singapore police requires a set of finger prints from China police so he had to go get those done. After he got those done, I scanned fingerprints and e-mailed Singapore police and they said the finger prints were acceptable BUT, it needs to be translated to English. So tomorrow, he will look for a translator and have them translate the finger print set. I¡¯m not sure how are they doing to do this because it is just a piece of paper with boxes that has his finger prints in it and its labeled ¡°left hand, right hand.¡± So this is where we are at now¡­. As far as the time frame goes, Singapore will require 3 weeks to process the appeal and the application. They will mail the COC directly to Guangzhou so I am assuming that will take another 3-4 weeks for Guangzhou to process that? So we are looking at September visa¡­ Aye, what a headache!

Thanks for the reply guys! Sorry I am laggy on my status...I will let everyone know what is going on!

Hi, I have a quick question. You mentioned that you needed to pay some fees? I was wondering what additional fees are there? Are you talking about the visa fee? If I already paid the visa fee and the security fee with the I130, do we need to pay anymore fees inside the embassy?