My Immigration to the UK and Spousal Visa Process

Timing Summary

STANDARD PROCESS (NOT PRIORITY)

2019-Jan-9  - Application submitted
2019-Jan-15 - Biometrics appointment
2019-Jan-22 - Documents arrived (passport + doc copies) VFS Global NYC
2019-Mar-27 - "Decision Made" email arrived
2019-Mar-29 - Passport with visa arrived at my home 

66 calendar days
48 working days (UK)

I'll note as well that they requested my wife's divorce papers on March 18th which we neglected to include and then gave us the wrong email address (for which they apologized) which ate up about a week. I delivered the additional requested documents to the correct email address on March 26th. 

More Details

Yesterday, on April 5, 2019, I immigrated to Scotland from the United States. It was a stressful and, at times, confusing process. I thought I would document our experiences in case they help anyone else. I'll note that all of our experiences reflect a specific moment in time therefore circumstances, rules, and services may have changed.

At a high level, the process for me entailed:

1. Creating and submitting an application for the visa on the UK visa website. Also, paying the application and NHS fees. (submitted 2019-Jan-9)
2. Making an appointment and getting biometrics (photo and fingerprints) captured at an approved office. (appointment 2019-Jan-15)
3. Sending my original passport as well as sending or uploading copies of the required documents to the New York City offices of the private company VFS Global that supports the UK in its visa operations. (delivered 2019-Jan-22)
4. Waiting until I heard back from the UK government office with a "decision made" email. (arrived morning of 2019-Mar-27)
5. Accepting my passport and documents (if any) from UPS. (arrived morning of 2019-Mar-29)
6. The visa itself is in the form of an image printed onto a page of your passport - it looks like an image of an ID card. It is good for entry for 30 days from the specified date.
7. I used the visa to enter the UK from the US on April 4th, 2019. I picked up my residence card at a post office in the UK on April 6th. The preferred post office was specified during the application process.

In terms of timing for your application, as long as you have a specific date in mind I'm unaware of any reason to wait - you should probably apply as soon as possible. Here are some lessons I gleaned from my process.

Online Application Submission

• You SUBMIT your application at the same time you make your biometrics appointment and make the big payments - can't remember the exact dollar amounts now.
• Once you SUBMIT your application, you cannot change the "travel date". Learned this the hard way.
• Once you SUBMIT your application, keep in mind that you cannot view it or print for some period of time, I think until after the biometrics appointment.
• Above two bullets were because I wanted to change my travel date after I submitted it, but that would have entailed creating and submitting a new application and I would have had to track down all of the info (dates of travel, etc) I put into the original because I could not view the previously submitted application. Also, a new application requires paying again and waiting until your first application expires and they refund the fee.
• You can choose PRIORITY for additional fee (I think it was $800) that will speed your processing up a bit. I regretted going STANDARD and not paying for PRIORITY - an oversight on my part - but it ended up fine in the end and saved us money, just more stressful!
• PREMIUM is different from PRIORITY. I didn't consider PREMIUM (offered by the third party company VFS Global) because everyone said it was worse than useless.
• Apparently, if the travel date you specify is in the future when they finish processing, the visa will reflect it. For mine, the travel date was in the past by the time they were processing it. They put my travel date for 5 days after I received the passport and visa back from UPS (received March 29, visa entry good for 30 days starting April 3.)

Documents Submission

• A company called VFS Global handles the visa process on the US side of things. As of this writing, it is fair to say that VFS Global does not have a great reputation among those of us going through this process. The UK government office makes the actual decisions.
• Aside from your passport, send only copies, not originals.
• The VFS Global document upload feature may be fixed now, but I would encourage you to be prepared to print and UPS overnight your documents. If you send printed documents, don't send originals (except for your passport of course). The upload function on the VFS Global website did not work for me at all and I ended up rushing like crazy to get everything printed and shipped. Hopefully, the upload option is now reliably working, but you never know.
• It may be fixed now, but I would recommend buying your UPS shipping labels (shipment and return) from a local UPS store rather than from VFS Global. I bought the labels online through VFS Global's system and they auto-generated almost 20 different labels for my one shipment creating a ton of confusion and stress with tracking. Also, the UPS shops are better able to track and verify labels that they produce in-house.
•  My circumstances were different from many - my wife and I have been married for over 20 years. We've jointly owned our house of 17 years. We have savings in joint accounts that exceed the requirements. She had a documented job offer ready. I would say we were a "slam dunk" so keep that in mind. Our documents consisted of:
• My birth certificate
• Our marriage certificate
• My wife's divorce papers (We forgot to include this and it was requested later)
• A year's worth of statements from our joint savings accounts
• My expired passport - every page
• My active passport - every page
• Main page of my wife' active passport
• Last two mortgage statements
• Mortgage statement from my brother-in-law and his wife (who live in the UK) proving that he and his wife own their flat
• Letter from my brother-in-law and his wife stating that we have permission to live in their flat and attesting that it has adequate space for us to live with them and will not violate the overcrowding definition in the relevant housing act..
• Sponsor letter by my wife explaining our relationship history and reasons for moving to UK.
• Letter by me explaining why I want to move to the UK and my history with my sponsor (my wife.)
• Letter from my wife's employer attesting that she has employment ready upon arrival.
• I'll note that we did not provide any photos, emails, facebook exchanges, whatsapp chats, or anything else of that variety but our relationship was pretty well established by the history I described earlier.

Biometrics

My appointment was at an immigration office in Detroit, Michigan. I was scheduled for an 11am appointment on a Tuesday and arrived, as requested, 15 minutes early at 10:45. As far as I can tell, I was the only person there for that particular process. I was done and out before my scheduled time. It took, in total, about 11 minutes. Biometrics included photo and fingerprints.

The Island of Angry, Scary, Misfit Toys

It is interesting that Mitt has veered so strongly back to the political middle, starting with his startling performance in last week's debate. All along, I thought he was a better and more pragmatic leader than he was "forced" to campaign as during the Republican presidential primary campaign.

Obviously, it's very unlikely that I would vote GOP for president, but even if I were more independent and thought Romney was a good choice, I would never vote for him because of the crazy nut-case Tea Party wing of the GOP.  The thought that they would have any influence whatsoever with the president is a non-starter.

The GOP primary was, to any level-headed person, an ominous, depressing freak show.  Contrast the roster of candidates to the last couple of Democratic presidential primary seasons: Donald Trump (never officially I know, but he did lead in the early polls and threatened to enter the race), Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney.  I have helpfully listed these in descending order from scariest and nuttiest.

About as nutty as it gets for the Dems in 2008 is Dennis Kucinich (sorry to break it to you, Dennis, but we have a "Department of Peace" - it's called the State Department.)

In case I can persuade anyone reading this that we don't want Tea Partiers calling any shots, I thought it would be good to review the top 10 scary and/or nutty events of the 2012 Republican presidential primary season.

• Michelle Bachmann's anecdotal evidence that vaccines cause mental retardation. 

• Herman Cain endorses a lethal, electrified fence on the US-Mexico border to discourage illegal border crossings.  He backpedals, and then appears to re-endorse the proposal because it is such a crowd-pleaser.

• Newt Gingrich envisions a permanent moon base by "his second term."

• Supporters at one debate yell "yeah!" when Ron Paul answers whether uninsured poor people with life-threatening illnesses should be allowed to die.  No one chooses to condemn or address the outburst.  Paul answers that local churches and friends/family should foot the bill.

• The crowd at a primary debate boos a gay soldier respectfully asking a question via remote video.  No candidate condemns or responds to the booing during the debate.

• The crowd at a primary debate strongly applauds the fact that Rick Perry has presided over more death row executions than any governor in history.  No one addresses the crowd's reaction.

1. Mitt Romney shows what he has to say in order to build good relationships and raise money with his ultra-wealthy donors: 47% of Americans (including all those who accept any government assistance) view themselves as victims, robotically vote for democrats, and think they are entitled to "food, housing, whatever".

• At one debate, every single candidate indicated that he or she would "walk away" from any deficit reduction deal that involved revenue increases of any kind, including a deal that would involve a 10 to 1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases.

• Rick Santorum addresses a Tea Party crowd and calls President Obama "a snob" for wanting people to go to college.  He indicates that this must be so that young people can be remade in the president's image.  (for the record, Obama has said he wants all young people to get post-high school education of some sort: college or technical training, etc.)

There are many more, but I've purposely tried to focus on events that illustrate the extremism of the current Republican party, hijacked by the "Tea Party", and the kinds of candidates and pandering that they've generated.  The GOP has gone off the rails.  I sympathize with level-headed conservatives (there are quite a few of them).  Ronald Reagan himself would be considered far too liberal, practical, and bi-partisan for today's GOP.  And remember - that socialist firebrand Richard Nixon created the EPA.

I've also left out many of the slipups that I don't consider core issues (Mitt's $10k bet, Perry's brain freeze are not really relevant to their policies.)

It is time to move the country back to a more pragmatic and practical political leadership.  Yes, that could be called "moving to the left" by some.  At one point I might have thought Mitt an effective leader in that vein, but no longer after his long season in bed with the crowd that thinks taxes are much, much too high when they are at their lowest levels since the 1950's, the crowd that thinks a Republican-inspired health care plan is a socialist extremist government takeover of health care, the crowd that thinks climate change is a hoax created by liberal egghead scientists,  and the crowd that thinks fact-checkers are liberally-biased.  He may have moved to the middle, but he's still on a leash.

Disintermediation

Sometimes I think I should write a book about failing companies.  Having been at Tower Records and Borders, I feel like I've seen enough to fill dozens of business school case studies.  However, I'm not really sure I'm the one to spin it into something interesting or marketable.  I'm also a bit of a fatalist, probably to a fault - something that is not particularly helpful at times.  I actually think Borders' fate was probably sealed almost a decade ago.  The same people hailed as geniuses at Tower Records in the 80's and early 90's were vilified as failing to respond to a changing market.  Were these people suddenly completely incompetent?

When viewed from that perspective, I find myself thinking that much of success or failure is based on greater forces and circumstances than can be manipulated by a few good managers or executives.  If Borders' was already doomed in 2001 because of its real estate strategy, product strategy, lack of operational/systems investment during its heyday, and failure to credibly engage in internet retailing, then everything afterward was just an elaborate stage play leading to a foregone conclusion: executives promising results they couldn't deliver, finger-pointing, ass-covering, short-term decisions, reorganization after reorganization, delusional group-think, naked emperors.  By and large, all of these depressing and unpleasant behaviors are more a result of the declining results, not a cause of them.  When times are good, the aggressive forecast gets hit sometimes and the executive gets the credit.  Mistakes are covered by the rising tide.  Almost every decision seems like a good one.

To state the obvious: it is better to be at a growing company than a shrinking company, and a lot (not all) of what determines whether a company is succeeding is outside its control.

A New Day, with podcast recommendations

Listening to Diane Rhem's Friday news roundup right now.  She is awesome!  Seriously!  As an aside, I've discovered that because of my dry sense of humor, people sometimes can't tell if I'm being serious or not.  I sympathize, 'cause I do veer from ironic to wildly sincerely.  In this case, I'm completely sincere.  She is awesome.

If you haven't checked out her show, and especially her Friday News roundup, you totally should.  It is available via podcast.

Also, if you're a moderate or liberal, you may like the Slate Political Gabfest.  I listen to this every week and I highly recommend it.

There's Something About Joe the Plumber...

I don't know what it is, but there's something about Joe the Plumber. (I assume the "P" in "plumber" is capitalized.) I don't know if it is his handle bar mustache; his neatly trimmed silvery hair; the monocle he's frequently polishing and replacing; the small hairless dog he holds lovingly in one hand or the cane he clutches in the other. He's clearly never fixed a leak - his crisp all-white suit, his turquoise bolo tie, his warm southern drawl betray his very name. Is he a Bond villain or a master purveyor of eleven herbs and spices? One thing is very clear: he's no plumber.

I really intended to write about how to get ahead in larger business environments. It's really quite easy if you can stomach it:

1) Always sound like you know what you're doing. If a question comes up in the meeting, have an answer and say it convincingly. It doesn't matter so much if the answer is right, but that a group of people have repeated glimpses of you seeming to be in full, confident command.

2) Kiss your boss' ass like there is no tomorrow. Most people are insecure. They like to be liked; they like to have their insecurities assuaged with the cheap balm of flattery. They want to believe they have good ideas, good judgment, and a good nature (and they very well may.)

3) This overlaps with 1 and 2, but by far the most important skill in getting ahead in larger organizations is the ability to talk well, talk confidently, talk a lot.

I'm sure there's a lot more to it, but that' s my two cents.

Unemployment - Ideas Part 1

So, I resigned from my job on Friday and that's really the first time I've ever done that when I wasn't going straight into another job. My boss and I "didn't see eye to eye" as they say, so I felt it was time to move on. The good news for you is that there may be more blog postings than my usual 1 every other year. Of course that doesn't count the Congo Letters blog I did, which was quite a lot of output actually, and had 160 views in the last month (who are these people?).

For the past several days, I've been thinking of what I'll do next and taking a mental inventory of my opportunities and assets.

Last night, while I was shaving my feet, I realized that I have 440 followers on Twitter. That's right - 440! If I could get each of these "followers" to send me $1, I'd have $440 - not really a life-changing amount but almost enough for a fun night out. The real trick would be to get each follower to send me $1,000 - $440,000 is some real money - that's what you really call "monetizing your social media." The key question: how could I persuade these people to send me that kind of money? Ultimately, I think that even if I were able to crack that nut, I'd feel bad 'cause there's really nothing I could do to really earn it from them. I wouldn't feel right about it.

I'll leave it on the list with "High" difficulty and "High" opportunity.

25 Random Facts About Me

OK – I know this is the big fad right now and, *whew*, pretty tough to come up with all of that (lol!)  Mark

1) I was born at 5:20 p.m. on May 17 at Pasadena Bayshore Hospital in Pasadena, Texas. A partially developed conjoined twin was embedded in my right buttock. I have since named him Mark2 and keep him in a shoe box under by side of the bed. To this day, every May 17 I pull him out and drink a toast to him. I laugh and cry and tell Mark2 what’s happened to me over the previous year and I imagine what he would say to me. As I imagine it, he’s kind of a sharp tongued bastard.

2) Pasadena, Texas really stinks (literally) and I have always wondered if I did something to cause that. My mother would always tell me that it used to smell better than average before I was born.

3) As I think back on it, Preschool was just fine, Elementary School was splendid, Junior High was orgasmic, and High School was nirvana. Since graduation, life has been a series of progressively bigger disappointments.

4) When I was growing up, my mother was always pretty open and clear that I was not her favorite, yet I am an only child.

5) I played the jug in a progressive rock band in college. Our one album, never released, was titled “A world on a speck of dust that’s part of a cell in the fingernail of God.”

6) At Star Trek parties, I always play the part of Spock. I always want to play the part of Chekov. Deep inside, I secretly feel like Sulu.

7) For some reason on Saturday nights, I frequently find myself balled up in the corner of my basement shrieking to myself. It’s my precious “me” time – my way of unwinding.

8) My favorite book of all time is the 1972 edition of The Farmers’ Almanac. A great read in an even greater typeface. Check out the footnotes!

9) I’ve been told by several people on different occasions that I have very bad breath, but I’ve decided it’s just “sour grapes” on their part.

10) Sometimes I fantasize that I’m Jack Bauer on 24. A baby has accidentally swallowed the location of a nuclear device that is set to go off within minutes, killing hundreds of thousands of people. ‘Cause I’m so tough-minded, I do what I must, tearing the baby open (I have no knife!) and killing it in order to save everyone.

11) I simply can’t tell you this one. I wish I could, but I just can’t. You would never think of me the same way again. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

12) Sometimes when I making lists like this, I think 25 random facts is a lot to know about one person. In times like that, I often think 10 higher quality random facts would be lot fucking better.

13) Like lots of people, I have my morning rituals. Unlike most, mine involve bloodletting and animal sacrifice (and of course, my coffee!!)

14) My favorite film is The Adventures of Pluto Nash. At least once a week, I pop in the DVD, open a bottle of wine, sit back in my favorite chair and just cry. For all of us.

15) I’m a chess nut. I used to like to hang out in a local coffee house and try to join in on the chess matches. I don’t really know how to play, but I can say things like “Of course that’s a legal move, genius!”, “Have you even READ the rules?!” and “So are you forfeiting?” until I’m asked to leave. In my book, a forfeit is a legitimate win.

16) At heart, I’m a shy and insecure person. For instance, at parties I sometimes try to curry favor with others by intentionally losing at Jenga on my first move.

17) I grew up in Texas, where it is true that everything’s bigger - including boils and abscesses, in my experience. While I will always love Texas, I was happy to have moved away for a variety of reasons. And – to be fair – perhaps it was all just a coincidence.

18) I always try to nurture my inner child, but sometimes I get drunk and my inner child does things to make me mad (pushes my buttons, y’know?) I do bad things, things I later regret - but I really love my inner child and I always beg him to forgive me. I’m working on my problem and I hope to soon regain custody.

19) I love music, but I have no innate musical talent. My mother forced cello lessons on me, but I had no sense of the instrument whatsoever (At first, I tried to blow into it like a horn.) I later became very close to my cello and my mom, worried, took it away from me.

20) I love to cook. Frozen pizzas, mainly. Sometimes I improvise and add extra toppings that weren’t originally supposed to be on the pizza. I consider myself quite a “foodie” – I mean, I really eat a lot of it every day. I’m also quite a “beerie” and a “vodka-ie” (is that what you call them – seems awkward?)

21) My butt hurts! I mean ALL the time! Dumb doctor says it is “stress.” What kind of stress does my butt have?! The doctor never has an answer for that!

22) I’m a very angry person deep down. People can’t tell. Yet. I bet they figure it out.

23) I went through a phase in high school where I thought Robert McNamara was the “rad-est” thing since sliced bread. I dressed like Robert McNamara, I talked like Robert McNamara, did my hair like “McNam”. I would talk about the Cuban missile crisis as if I was there and acted like I had actual opinions about it (I wasn’t born yet!) I can’t believe I’m telling you all this, but I’ll bet my high school friends reading this are like “oh, wow, a lot of things make a lot more sense now!”

24) My very earliest memory is watching “Midnight Cowboy” with my brother and mother. I must’ve been, oh – 2 ½ or so. I didn’t really fully understand and appreciate it until I watched it again when I was about 7.

25) Whew – having trouble thinking of a last one… they do this one in magazines sometimes: What are my “turn ons?” Sexual intercourse (me doing), naked ladies, vaginas, oral sex (me receiving), My “turn offs?” Rotting flesh/gangrene, anything infected, puss, dog feces (really any feces), boils/sores/pimples/etc, etc.