Birds of a feather flock together

I can not express how angry I am. It all started on Sunday night up until then myself and my boyfriend had been satisfied with our solicitor. We had our list to get through to complete the application. We were happy we had set aside time to complete our two relationship history segments.

 

Sunday night all this had gone our the window. One of his "friends" I use the term friend really loosely as i don't really see eye to eye with this guy. Rang my boyfriend and told him that another friend who was applying for a visa here was successful, It was a completely different situation than ours. I won't bore you all with the details.

Then my boyfriend got it into his head that our solicitor was no good and we have to go and see that one because he had won a case. I explained that all solicitors win cases on a regular basis. Just because he won one slightly similar to ours doesn't mean he's going to win every case and besides most solicitor firms have at least 4 solicitors working for them so the chances of us getting the same one as the friend of a friend is rather unlikely would he listen? No of course not stubborn as a mule.

He went frantic trying to get the number for that solicitor... tried every friend he knew, except for the one right beside us. Then without asking me booked an appointment for 3'oc without asking what time my class is at? or thinking will we have time for lunch?

Before we went to bed last night he said we should leave for the city centre at 12 tomorrow. Sure enough i woke up at 11 and told him its 11 then i went back to sleep woke up at 12.30 told him, he wouldn't move then finally 1.30 he got up slowly brushed his teeth washed rushed me out of the house then we missed one bus. Then he started panicking oh were going to be late blah blah. I said thrust me solicitors always run behind schedule. Would he listen no! of course not ringing them up please hold our spot blah blah and then all the complaining that we got off at the wrong spot... No we didn't then he didn't get proper directions then ringing his friend oh what a mess. By 3.10 I was getting really pissed off and had no mood to help him. I wanted to go into the meeting and say nothing.

But of course not I had to answer all the questions explain all the situation while he sat like a mute. Then we came out of there with a new list of 16 things we must include with the application and approximately 13 of them we don't have. So wow a very productive day! The rest of the stuff we got for the application we might as well throw in the bin.

So naturally after we finished in the solicitors my spirits had completely dropped. I wanted something to distract me, my class couldn't do that. Then when I was waiting for the bus to go home, I rang my former classmate, because he always has something funny to say but I rang him and he didn't pick up... Then I felt guilty.. I only ever call on him when I'm down or lonely or bored. But once things are going well i forget about him...

The I word

The I word- Illegal cropped up yesterday, I don't know why but Ireland and Irish people are absolutely obsessed with labels, Everyone has to fit into some nice little category. Why can't someone just be a person and not labeled by the various stamps they have attained?

 

Yesterday I was in the sitting room and my Mom suddenly said "There seems to be a lot of Chinese men around the town these days, I take it he (My boyfriend) is Illegal?" It wasn't a question it was a statement. Anyway I quickly explained in fact he isn't illegal, Which in fact is not entirely true... I like to say he is in the Limbo position He is neither illegal or Legal a such he is just here. My Mom just doesn't get it, Immigration is complicated stuff. 

Our A word the Application requires a lot of tedious work. We keep coming across blockages on the way. Currently we are looking for a snooker club for him to join and there is none in Bray so we had to give that up. Our next option is a badminton club, which also isn't looking good. As my dad is in a badminton club and my boyfriend doesn't want to join the same one as him. So that requires more research. Another option is a basketball club, if we can't find one of them then we will have to widen the search again.

Another aspect of the application is the money transfer from China which proves my boyfriend is being supported by his family. Everything requires some sort of proof.

It's a really good thing that i am such a good secret keeper!

The applicationn

We first commenced on our well Li Huang's visa application process at the end of October, 2010. At the beginning we were incredibly naive and thought it would be reasonably simple! boy were we mistaken BIG TIME!!! I did some research on the internet and found a list of requirements.

1. Details of your immigration history in this State
2. Your current legal status
3. Your original marriage certificate
4. Detailed information regarding your relationship history and the context in which your marriage took place
5. Evidence of your current address of your joint habitual residence
6. Your original Passport and Birth certificate
7. Your Irish national spouse’s original passport and birth certificate
8. Other supporting documentation – Photographs
9. Accommodation details: Rent Book, Joint Tenancy Agreement/ Proof of Home Ownership, Utility Bills, Financial Statements, letter from Community Welfare Officer/Social Worker or Tax Credit form from the Revenue Commissioner

After i completed this research we reassessed the situation and realized in hindsight... its not going to be as easy as we thought and it was definitely going to take more time... the website suggested half a year minimum! this absolutely horrified us and also another requirement was that Michael must not work!? and i am in full time college and not working... We didn't know how we would be able to continue living together... resulting in us being unable to apply at all..

So our next step was to visit MRCI Migrant Rights Information Centre. We spent a long and quite stressful day in Dublin trying to get a meeting with them. We thought they may be able to help us... but unfortunately they cater more towards... People with a working visa as opposed to ex students... and our meeting there left us feeling rather shell shocked and more discouraged than we already were... we started to feel so anxious and almost decided to abandon the whole application. According to the person we met we need some sort of sponsor for Li Huang, who could financially support him during the application! who could we ask to do that?? and no Irish social service could support us... basically we don't exist.

Anyway as a result of the meeting we were strongly encouraged to hire a good solicitor. Which we believe we have... so a day later we met the solicitor. Which resulted in us getting yet another list of requirements we need for our application. These were even more difficult than the ones i found before! Altogether there was 11 but some of them had sub parts or included getting numerous items.... We are still struggling through this list.. i don't have the list handy but this is a basic outline. i think I'm forgetting something....

1. Relationship account from both parties.
   
2. Copy of wifes passport
3. Copy of wifes birth certificate
4. copy of marriage certificate
5. A job offer
6. Letter of reference from past landlords
7. Photos
   
8. Character references from friends
9. Character references from people in the community
10. Your passport
11. Your birth certificate
12. Financial statements, utility bills.

The paler green ones are the ones we are still in the process of doing the darker ones are ones we have almost completed... for me the application is like a project or a thesis its slow and takes time.

At the moment were currently working on the financial statement and utility bills. Believe it or not the apartment doesn't have the internet yet and we don't get ESB bills so we actually have no bills so we thought the internet is the best way.. hopefully we will get that organized by the end of January that's our aim. We have a joint account set up so we are going to use that to pay the bill.

Were also busy compiling all our photos and printing them out most of them are on the computer. ultimately the application is just time consuming and expensive.