Hello everyone,
I had some family-related emergency circumstances come up here at home in the U.S. I have my visa and COE and I’m getting ready to fly to Japan next week January 11th to start my new job in Tokyo.
My wife and daughter went through an immigration lawyer back in November to get their dependent / family stay visas (they’re also from the USA) because my company said they won’t sponsor them, and we were told the latest they’d get the visas (per the lawyer) would be end of January or beginning of February. The plan was that I would head over to Japan first, get everything set up and ready for them to arrive, and then they would come after staying with family for the time being (possibly a few weeks or a month).
However, the relatives that were supposed to house my wife and daughter had some of their own issues recently and said that they can’t accommodate at this time. My wife just reached out to other family and friends and they can’t or won’t help either.
I suggested something akin to this: we all go to Japan together (I would purchase 2 additional seats on my flight or another): they as tourists and me with my VISA and COE. After we leave the airport and get that situated, I figure we may have 2 options:
**Option 1**: go through our immigration lawyer to try and get my dependents their visas once they receive their COE digitally and while in the country (lawyer said this may be possible and has been done before, though sparingly). I can’t afford to send them back to the USA (with no where to stay), wait 1-2 weeks for them to receive their visas in the mail, and then return to Japan.
**Option 2**: once their COE has been granted, we mail their passports back to the U.S. quickly to my mother-in-law and have her mail the passports + application and documents to the embassy nearest to our hometown, have them sent back to MIL’s and then she mails them back to us in Japan. Lawyer hasn’t gotten back to us about whether this is feasible or not as well.
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Is there anyone who has done either of these things or something similar when trying to bring family over with them? I definitely don’t want to do anything illegal or that would jeopardize my family getting their COEs and visas approved. I’m just looking for serious advice only please. I don’t have much time to adjust to the situation we now face and my wife and I are stressing out really bad. Our thanks in advance.