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Post by 290811 on Apr 3, 2014 1:08:20 GMT
I'm wondering if anyone has experience or know of people who have had this experience: I'm hoping to arrive in this next wave after visa les are released. I'm on family status but my wife is not with me in the US. We were recently married abroad in her home country, and were waiting for her papers/visa to immigrate to US. Then the Aramco opportunity happened. And now I am going to KSA and she will join me there after I get my iqama, as I understand. But it has to be handled from KSA because ASC in Houston can't process anyone if they don't have a greencard.
Questions: anybody ever been in this situation, bringing spouse from a third country different from your own to KSA? What was the process like? How long did it take? How much of a problem is it if my wife's country does not have diplomatic relations with KSA (no embassy)? ASC assures me HR in Dhahran knows exactly how to handle this and they have done this many times before. I'm a bit nervous this is going to be a bureaucratic nightmare.
Thank you for any advice.
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Wutz
Senior Member
Posts: 143
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Post by Wutz on Apr 3, 2014 2:36:44 GMT
Well, you certainly have an unusual situation. But as ASC is assuring you, the Dhahran folks have dealt with a lot of unusual situations before, and we are a very international organization, so it's likely they have dealt with something quite similar to your situation.
It's good you've been hired family status - so you will be put into married housing when you get here, and can make the house ready before she arrives (I arrived six weeks before my wife and daughter, all coming from the States, and there were some advantages in that I could tell her what to buy to bring in). When couples come from the States, they tend to get visas at the same time. Folks from other countries often have to apply for spouse visas after they arrive (something like 3 months after arrival I think). Your situation may fall into the latter case, but I don't know that for sure (hopefully someone with more insight will chime in).
Also, you should bone up on the rules for green card holders that live overseas. There are rules about how long and how often they can be outside the States and maintain their green card status. Again, I don't know the exact rules, but I have friends here that have U.S. green cards and do have issues keeping their status.
Finally, I think you're probably right that it will be a bureaucratic mess (but hopefully not a nightmare). After we arrived, we imported a dog from a country that also did not have a KSA embassy (not that unusual - Croatians use the Saudi embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and Saudis use the Croatian embassy in Cairo). The biggest issues were around finding exactly what we needed to do - in the end, it was relatively simple, but finding out what was needed was very, very hard. In your case, the visa people in Dhahran will be helping get your wife in, and I'm sure they will be very helpful. Patience will be a good virtue to cultivate for this and many other situations related to Aramco. Good luck.
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Post by vpainter on Apr 9, 2014 20:45:43 GMT
There are two processes for a wife's visa that has to be applied for once you arrive.
One group can arrive and receive their resident visa and their iqama and then immediately apply for their wife's/family's visa(s).
The other group has to complete their 90 day probation period prior to applying for their wife's/family's visa(s). One person told me it was his home country's rules he was having to follow, not Aramco's.
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