Received call in letter finally!

[hugazebra]

Argh, why does everything having to do with US immigration visa borderline insane...

 

So our callback letter has an expiration date for our medical report in mid-January, but we want to travel after Chinese New Year in early February. The Guangdong Intl Travel Health Care center said that unless the medical report had expired, they would not be willing to do another medical exam unless the consulate issued a new letter expressly requesting a new medical report.

 

Still trying to get the skinny from other hospitals about this, but so far the answer has been we're not sure, talk to our person in charge, unfortunately he's not available right now.

[Randy W]

Argh, why does everything having to do with US immigration visa borderline insane...

 

So our callback letter has an expiration date for our medical report in mid-January, but we want to travel after Chinese New Year in early February. The Guangdong Intl Travel Health Care center said that unless the medical report had expired, they would not be willing to do another medical exam unless the consulate issued a new letter expressly requesting a new medical report.

 

Still trying to get the skinny from other hospitals about this, but so far the answer has been we're not sure, talk to our person in charge, unfortunately he's not available right now.

 

 

The Health Center does things according to the directives established by the consulate. Why would you want to do things differently?

 

No one at the POE will be able to accept it - everything must be in the sealed envelope given to you by the consulate.

[hugazebra]

Argh, why does everything having to do with US immigration visa borderline insane...

 

So our callback letter has an expiration date for our medical report in mid-January, but we want to travel after Chinese New Year in early February. The Guangdong Intl Travel Health Care center said that unless the medical report had expired, they would not be willing to do another medical exam unless the consulate issued a new letter expressly requesting a new medical report.

 

Still trying to get the skinny from other hospitals about this, but so far the answer has been we're not sure, talk to our person in charge, unfortunately he's not available right now.

 

 

The Health Center does things according to the directives established by the consulate. Why would you want to do things differently?

 

No one at the POE will be able to accept it - everything must be in the sealed envelope given to you by the consulate.

 

Well, the idea is that since we haven't gone back in to actually get the visa and have not received the sealed envelope yet, that we can submit a new health exam prior to executing the callback visit. Then they can just dump the new health exam in the sealed envelope for the POE, and issue a visa with longer validity.

 

May have to just solve the problem by waiting until last month of medical report validity to force the consulate to issue a new letter requiring updated health exam and then do health exam and revisit consulate a day later to submit results. Don't like cutting it that close, but oh well.

 

It would be nice if we could just frontload things like you can with the NVC step.

[Randy W]

Argh, why does everything having to do with US immigration visa borderline insane...

 

So our callback letter has an expiration date for our medical report in mid-January, but we want to travel after Chinese New Year in early February. The Guangdong Intl Travel Health Care center said that unless the medical report had expired, they would not be willing to do another medical exam unless the consulate issued a new letter expressly requesting a new medical report.

 

Still trying to get the skinny from other hospitals about this, but so far the answer has been we're not sure, talk to our person in charge, unfortunately he's not available right now.

 

 

The Health Center does things according to the directives established by the consulate. Why would you want to do things differently?

 

No one at the POE will be able to accept it - everything must be in the sealed envelope given to you by the consulate.

 

Well, the idea is that since we haven't gone back in to actually get the visa and have not received the sealed envelope yet, that we can submit a new health exam prior to executing the callback visit. Then they can just dump the new health exam in the sealed envelope for the POE, and issue a visa with longer validity.

 

May have to just solve the problem by waiting until last month of medical report validity to force the consulate to issue a new letter requiring updated health exam and then do health exam and revisit consulate a day later to submit results. Don't like cutting it that close, but oh well.

 

It would be nice if we could just frontload things like you can with the NVC step.

 

 

You may be mis-interpreting something - the thing to do will be to look at the visa. The visa will have the expiration date printed on it. The blue slip does not. You are unlikely to be allowed to change the date.

 

It will most likely have a six month validity, unless her passport expires before then.

[Lee VD]

No worries... med exam is good for one year. The expiration on the call back letter is the date you need to get your visa by (6 months from med exam) and they want you in one month before that to make sure there is time to process the visa so they can put in the full 6 months. I suggest going ASAP and gettingt he visa which will get the full 6 months as of now, plenty of time to bridge CNY.

 

Same with the background check. That is the date that you need to get the visa by. Unless, like in our likely situation, travel to the U.S. occurred since last background check and it needs to be redone.

[hugazebra]

No worries... med exam is good for one year. The expiration on the call back letter is the date you need to get your visa by (6 months from med exam) and they want you in one month before that to make sure there is time to process the visa so they can put in the full 6 months. I suggest going ASAP and gettingt he visa which will get the full 6 months as of now, plenty of time to bridge CNY.

 

Same with the background check. That is the date that you need to get the visa by. Unless, like in our likely situation, travel to the U.S. occurred since last background check and it needs to be redone.

 

Thanks, that sounds like a sensible explanation. Of course, the proof is in the pudding, so I am eagerly waiting to see what your wife's visa expiration date will be. I am very thankful to have found a "visa buddy" on this forum with such a similar situation and interview date.

 

Fortunately, I've banked up a few frequent flier miles over the years, so if she gets a close-in expiration visa, worst case is to bring her to US for a weekend in early Jan...

[smalltoe]

China domestic airfare from Shanghai to Guangzhou is pretty close to rock bottom for next few weeks, so not sure how busy Guangzhou really is during these Asian Games. I've never heard of the Asian Games before, but then again, I never really heard of World Expos before, and yet 70 million people were willing to queue for hours on end.

 

Plus, this is low season for travel, so at least you don't have to compete with all the students and summer vacationers.

 

Of course, to and from Beijing, there is no such thing as a cheap airplane ticket anymore...

Hey Hugazebra, you signature says "2010-10-14 GUZ callback letter, received a week later". What did you receive a week later? Visa? I am so worried after I learned that Lee has not received visa 18 days after pink slip.

[hugazebra]

1 week is just the time between when consulate sent the call-in letter and when EMS actually got it into my wife's hands.

 

She hasn't made the trip back to the consulate to turn in passport yet, so hopefully next update in a few weeks will be pink slip.

[smalltoe]

1 week is just the time between when consulate sent the call-in letter and when EMS actually got it into my wife's hands.

 

She hasn't made the trip back to the consulate to turn in passport yet, so hopefully next update in a few weeks will be pink slip.

I see. Do you know how many days does it usually take to get the visa after required documents are turned in?

[smalltoe]

I am confused aobut the above discussion of 6-mo expiration date. My parents brought my son to redo med this morning and were told The med report redo is not necessary because only X-ray expires in 6 months. The med examiner would not redo an exam which is not expired. They would only do the X-ray and necessary vaccines and issue a new report with the old date. This is what they learned from bj when my parents took my son to redo the med.

The examiner said this is a fairly new policy regarding immigration. Before that, they would redo a new exam. I'm not comfortable with this explanation. Does anybody know this?

[warpedbored]

I have a hunch that since your son will have 6 months to use the visa and by then the med exam would be expired is why they asked for a new one. GZ can ask for what ever they like whether it is required or not. If I were you i would go to China, take my son to have an exam in GZ and accompany him to the interview. My opinion is this would be the most sure way to make sure there are no problems.

[smalltoe]

What bxxxshxt! When my father took my son to guz consulate they were told the consulate is takingthe whole week off! Many people were at the gate and protesting.

[hugazebra]

!^$@^%$#%(!#$^&!)#!*!$#@*!@)%@%#@

 

I'm ready to fly to Guangzhou and start throwing bricks at the 5th floor window. My wife blew USD $200 on airplane tix to Guangzhou and took days off from work and then found out they decided to do renovations this week.

 

And of course, the website shows they JUST posted this last Wednesday, well after travel plans had been made... Weeklong renovations just don't happen on a dime. A lot of planning goes into renovations of any US consulate, so this is just sheer incompetence on the part of Guangzhou management.

 

This is no longer borderline insane, this is just pure lunacy. Too bad immigration and border security are pretty much unaccountable to nigh anyone.

 

On the plus side, at least the health clinic at Shamian island let my wife get a new medical exam done even though the old one wasn't expired. Just another case of ask enough times and you will get the answer you want...

[Lee VD]

Huh? They didn't WANT you to spend more money on another exam?

 

About the closing, that IS just total BS! They have GOT to get their communication act together. They treat everyone coming there as common scum and its an indirect treatment of US citizens. Our issue was that the call-in letter didn't state that 3 days in GUZ is required and that was an unexpected additional cost.

 

I feel for smalltoe who went all the way down to find this out!! hugazebra, lucky you did find this out ahead of time! I am also so lucky we did get our visa before this week or this would have caused us to have to reschedule our wedding as well.

 

My heart goes out to you all!

[hugazebra]

Nope, didn't find out about this ahead of time... wife physically went to Guangzhou and came back today. That's two people on this board screwed over on the same day.