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Hi,
I am a natural US citizen, my wife is Japanese. We married and moved to the states in 1999 and my wife obtained her permanent GC around 2003-ish.
My company moved me to Japan in 2010 for originally a 2 yr. stint - thinking it would only be 2 years, we did not get a re-entry permit. We went back to the states for a short visit in 2011 and had no issues at Immigration.
Now my company has extended my sojourn for at least another year, and thinking we needed to make a trip back to the US, we took a quick vacation to Guam. It had been about 14-15 mos. since her last entry to the US and we got stopped at the airport. Long story short, they let us through after filing a I-193 (Waiver of Passport and/or Visa).
Now, we would like to plan another short visit for the holidays, but would like to avoid any hassle at the airport.
Contacting the embassy in Tokyo, they suggested my wife file for an I-407 and then file the ETSA and travel under the VWP.
Eventually (most liekly next year) we will return to the US and take up perm. residences again (we have a house in both our names, have continued to file and pay taxes etc.) and so I was hoping to go the SB-1 route when the time came. I'd really like to avoid abandoning her GC and starting over from scratch. Maybe just a psychological problem ...
What I'd like advice on from any of the members here is whether we can file for the ETSA and travel without filing the I-407. Does anyone know if this is possible? If we get stopped, say we knew here status was expired, thus we filed the ETSA, but play dumb on the I-407.
I am a natural US citizen, my wife is Japanese. We married and moved to the states in 1999 and my wife obtained her permanent GC around 2003-ish.
My company moved me to Japan in 2010 for originally a 2 yr. stint - thinking it would only be 2 years, we did not get a re-entry permit. We went back to the states for a short visit in 2011 and had no issues at Immigration.
Now my company has extended my sojourn for at least another year, and thinking we needed to make a trip back to the US, we took a quick vacation to Guam. It had been about 14-15 mos. since her last entry to the US and we got stopped at the airport. Long story short, they let us through after filing a I-193 (Waiver of Passport and/or Visa).
Now, we would like to plan another short visit for the holidays, but would like to avoid any hassle at the airport.
Contacting the embassy in Tokyo, they suggested my wife file for an I-407 and then file the ETSA and travel under the VWP.
Eventually (most liekly next year) we will return to the US and take up perm. residences again (we have a house in both our names, have continued to file and pay taxes etc.) and so I was hoping to go the SB-1 route when the time came. I'd really like to avoid abandoning her GC and starting over from scratch. Maybe just a psychological problem ...
What I'd like advice on from any of the members here is whether we can file for the ETSA and travel without filing the I-407. Does anyone know if this is possible? If we get stopped, say we knew here status was expired, thus we filed the ETSA, but play dumb on the I-407.
