visa blues

tomorrow is the day that i have to go renew my wife's visa or she would be an illegal alien in this country. i really wish the immigration department would not make things so hard for us genuine people who marries a foreign spouse. there's so much procedures and hardship placed by the department that really makes it very inconvenient. trust me on this, before you even think of having a relationship with someone of a different country, sit down and think whether you are ready to face what the immigration department puts you thru when you finally wanna settle down and get married.

when you finally wanna tie the knot with your foreign spouse, you're gonna have to make sure all the legal documents are in place and translated to english and also get all the necessary certification. after that you would have to go to the registration of marriage department to submit all your documents as well as getting a date for the registration. now i did mine in putrajaya and i have to say the people working there were great. you will not have any problems with the registration department once you have all the relevant documents ready.

now the problem lies with the immigration department. you see my wife entered malaysia using a social visit pass (so does all other foreigners whether they're on business, pleasure or in my wife's case, coming to get married). now her social visit pass allows her to stay for 30 days before leaving the country. ok here comes the tricky part, in order to submit your documents for registration and to get a date, my wife had to be in the country for at least 7 days and when you do get a date for registration it will be at least 3 weeks ahead from the date you submit your documents. as you can see, definitely my wife's 1 month social visit pass isn't gonna enable her to stay in the country long enough to get registered so we would have to extend her visa. I've checked with the foreign affairs ministry of malaysia and they have confirmed with me that vietnamese nationals are allowed to extend their visa for 1 month if there is valid reason. great, so there i go with my wife and the wedding registration confirmation letter to the immigration department.

guess what ? baamm..they refuse me right away at the counter and says that my wife has to leave the country and come back in again. i told them that the foreign affairs ministry has said that my wife who is a vietnamese national can get her social visit pass extended and i have the proof that we're about to get married but again the officer says no. now i was pissed cause i thought the foreign affairs ministry is the one that governs the immigration department but it seems not. now i have a dilemma of spending more money to send my wife back and come down again. but the ironic part of this is that i met a malaysian guy who is getting married to his indonesian wife and guess what, they just got their visa extension and need not leave the country. now i walked back to the counter and asked them why i couldn't get an extension for my wife when others could and i was told that vietnamese and chinese mainlanders are not given visa extensions due to a lot of overstay and also vice activities. now this is degrading as to me, they have just slammed a big assumption that all vietnamese and chinese mainlanders are here in malaysia to either overstay their visas or act in vice activities. now yes i do know of the problem malaysia is facing with the vice problems and overstay of visas but here i am with my wife who legimately wants to get married and we're being brush aside because of all this shit. Now the big question is how many percent of illegal immigrants in malaysia are indonesians ? are they also involved in vice activities ? (i've read about news in the papers that they have in fact caught indonesian girls in vice activities). now don't get me wrong, i have nothing against the indonesians nor any hatred whatsoever but i strongly feel that there is a case of double standard here. maybe Datuk Syed could really look into this matter when he's free as it really tarnishes the name of malaysia to other countries.

well finally our wedding registration went smooth and accordingly once we have our wedding certificate, my wife would be able to get visa extensions until our file is opened with the immigration department so that she can get a multiple entry long term visa. now again that is what i understand from the immigration department. let's just hope the information is real or i'll be in deep shit.

So much for "malaysia boleh" eh ?