This is the last post I get to write to you as a upstanding, law abiding citizen. For tomorrow I am a criminal. So is Thalia and Keir. Rod has managed to stay on the right side of the law - it is just his family who are villains. And our crime? Our visas run out today. From midnight the kids and I are illegally staying in the country. Now you'd think we would have made efforts to stay within the law, after all, we were brought up to do the right thing. Well, we have made efforts, but an old friend (?) is making things difficult for us...
Rod has an employment visa, and the kids and I have X visas. X visas used to be called Dependents visas, and they allow us to stay for the duration of Rod's employment visa. When he went to Britain over the summer he got his new employment visa. He could have got our new X visas sorted in the UK, but for that he would have needed our passports. But as we needed our passports to get into Australia, that wasn't going to work. So I tried to get the visas sorted in Perth. That wasn't going to work either, because the lovely Sikh man at the Indian Visa Service there told me that for the children's visas, in addition to the standard forms and Australian passports, I'd need:
1) a letter from both parents stating that we were happy for the visa to be issued. This letter had to be witnessed by a Doctor, Police Officer or Justice of the Peace.
2) Full Birth Certificates for both kids, and our Marriage Certificate (if applicable)
3) Both Rod and I had to sign the Visa Application forms, preferably in front of the lovely Sikh man at the Indian Visa Service.
This I explained to him was hard, because:
1) Rod was in Britain, not Australia, and was not really expecting to be in Australia before June 2010, quite some time after we needed our visas.
2) The kids didn't have Australian passports, they had British ones, because they were British citizens, born in Britain, like their father, and
3) Rather than trying to take the children away from their dad, I was trying to get them back to him!
The lovely Sikh man looked at our passports and declared our current visas were fine. I explained we were due to land on the 16th of July, and the visas expired on the 30th. Would we have difficulty in getting in? No he said, they will just point out you do not have much time left and will need to sort your visas promptly. Dhanyavad (thankyou) we said , and left.
The Immigration Officer at Passport Control at Indira Gandhi International Airport did not point out we had only a little time left on our visas. If he had not smiled at the changes in Keir's appearance in his passport (in the passport he's 4, with a number 3 cut. Now he's 8, with hair to his shoulderblades) I would almost have believed he didn't look at them at all.
But we heeded the lovely Sikh man's advice, and last Wednesday, as soon as the jetlag had cleared, headed to the Foreigners Registration Office in Delhi. We got there early, because we thought there might be a queue. Unfortunately for us, the Foreigners Registration Office in Delhi opens at 9.30, half an hour earlier than it's counterpart in the Mini Secretariat in Haryana, where we had been registered before. We joined the queue for the reception desk, two rooms away. I won't say it took a long time for the queue to move, but Rod left an important paper at home, went back for it and returned to us just as we moved into the room that housed the reception desk. God bless Nintendo DS and Ipod! When we eventually reached the receptionist we discovered we could not have our visas extended, because our RP (Residence Permit papers) were still at the Mini Secretariat in Haryana, even though we had attended the Foreigners Registration Office in Delhi requesting their transfer in May. We were told to wait. Three and a bit hours after we had arrived, the Incharge told us we would need to go to Haryana to ask for the papers. We pointed out our visas did not have much time left on them, but the Incharge said she was not able to process them until our Residence Permits arrived at her office.
So Thursday morning Rod drove to the Mini Secretariat, and gave our old friend Mini Secretariat guy the letter from the Incharge requesting our RP papers. Mini Secretariat guy says the papers will be sent tomorrow, and gives Rod his phone number so he can call to check. On Friday Rod calls. He's told the papers will be in Delhi on Monday. On Tuesday he goes to see the Incharge in Delhi - the papers are not there. On Wednesday he goes to see the Incharge in Delhi - the papers are not there. The Incharge looks a little embarrassed, she says come back on Monday, bring the whole family. Rod points out our visas only have one day left on them. She gives a look Rod hopes means, "don't worry, we'll sort it". So guess what we're doing on Monday?
2 comments:
I feel for you. I struggled with the US immigration dept just to get my address right. I moved and you would have thought someone would change my address. I wrote, I went online and filled out forms, and I phoned. So after sending my paperwork to my old address and having it returned, someone would print a sticker with my new address and the papers would find their way to me. But it meant that I got my appt notice on Thursday, and the appointment was on Friday at noon, in another state! Good luck!
Thanks for the luck. I'd really like to get this done(FINALLY!), so we might need it :-). I'm assuming because you're writing this they didn't throw you out!
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