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Lori's avatar

Parabéns! I had my appointment in Espinho on August 7th. I, too, had mine set at the time of approval and wondered if having a law firm representing me helped with that. Now, I wait for my card to come in the mail. My lawyer said that it could be as many as 90 days, but that he thought it would be more like 45 or 50. However, I just read that AIMA workers are ready to strike for more workers and higher pay. We shall see. In any event, congratulations! It's so exciting with the pieces start to fall into place and you realize that it's really happening!

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Devyn's avatar

Thanks Lori. ❤️

We're keeping our fingers cross that our temporary residency cards come soon(ish) after our October appointment. It does feel great to see the fruits of all of our hard work coming into being. So much work, but it's all working out.

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Steve W's avatar

That is great news!! Parabens!! My wife and I have been toying with the notion of applying for the D7 and then travelling to Porto to set up life, and then return when they're ready. It's great to hear of a story where that seems to have worked, even with the "trip up's" on the airfare booking. Obrigado for sharing.

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Devyn's avatar

Steve, 👍🏼

Thanks for leaving your thoughts! The only scary part was knowing that our tourist visas would run out by the end of October and if our D7s weren't approved by then, we would have had to act on the yet written about Plan C, temporarily relocating somewhere super inexpensive to wait it out.

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Steve W's avatar

That is a reasonable concern. Fortunately for us, we love Scotland, and we'd take about two seconds to say "hey, lets go to Scotland!" Thanks again.

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Lori's avatar

Sila at Newark seems to always set up the aima (in our case, sef) appointments. You were very lucky to go through Newark!!! Have a great trip!

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Devyn's avatar

She was great. She told us “no guarantee” that we would have our appointments, but we kept our fingers crossed 🤞🏼

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Devyn's avatar

We’ve been seeing mentions of this all over. It looks to apply to overtime and working on holidays. Not to say it won’t slow things down.

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Lila Licea's avatar

Even in Mexico there is a lot of red tape to get things done. I’m happy for both of you going thru this new venture together. Good luck and keep us posted

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Nancy Whiteman's avatar

Well done....almost done.

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Devyn's avatar

Well said 😂😂

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Karen's avatar

Congratulations! So exciting!!!

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EJ Michel's avatar

Yay too bad about the Newark flights but sounds like the last steps towards your new life!!

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John Egan's avatar

Unless something has changed, you do NOT have to enter directly to Portugal with your D7 visa. Two years ago, we connected via AMS, and got our passports stamped there. We kept our boarding passes for all legs of the flight and had those to present for our SEF appointment in December 2022. We had separate appointments, and weren't asked for the boarding passes at either. But, with all things bureaucracy, your mileage may vary. But, I think if you check, it is pretty common to not enter directly with the D7. Coming from the western US, there are very few options to structure a flight that goes through an East Coast city, then direct to Portugal.

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Susan Korthase's avatar

EXACTLY!! I was going to mention the same thing. Where did they get THAT misinformation??

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