I-130 and I-864 question. Please help me; I'm new here.

[Ryan H 3,812]

Hi Mike,

Here's my 2 cents.

First of all, I congratulate you and Cherry on your engagement and upcoming marriage!

I'll say a few things about the K1. It may be possible for you two to have a church wedding and still not be married in the legal sense. In some places, for a marriage to be legal, it must be registered with the civil authorities. In other places, a simple meeting of family members constitutes a legal marriage. I do not know what the laws in the Philippines on this are; perhaps it's something you can find out. A word of caution, if you were to have a wedding but not make it official, you would not want to use terms like wedding, husband, or wife when dealing with USCIS or the Embassy because they will think you are married and tell you that you do not qualify for a K1. Furthermore, if you were denied a K1 visa by the Embassy in Manila, the petition would then be returned to USCIS. USCIS would have the option of reaffirming the petition or send you a notice that they intend to revoke it. In the meantime, you could get legally married and file for the CR-1. Still, you would still have to pay close attention to the K1 petition because one of two things will happen. One thing is the USCIS could send you a notification of intent to revoke the petition. You would absolutely have to respond to that notice. Failure to do so (even if you had gotten married in the meantime) would result in a mark of misrepresentation being placed in the file. You do not want that because the penalty is a 10-year entry ban. The other thing that the USCIS could do is simply reaffirm the petition and send it back to the Embassy for another interview (or the Embassy won't bother with another interview and simply issue the visa). If you were to marry before the petition was reaffirmed, then you would have to withdraw on the basis that you are now legally married and a K1 is no longer applicable.

As for the CR-1, it takes longer to process than the K1 because after USCIS approval, the NVC will receive the petition and there are processing steps at the NVC for a CR-1 that are not done for a K1. I personally think the CR-1 is a better route and you will notice in my signature timeline that there was a course switch to the CR-1; my fiancée and I are planning to get married in February! You mentioned that it does limit your options in the event of a visa denial, however, my opinion is that a relationship that develops over time and culminates in a marriage will make a better case come interview time. While I cannot predict the outcome of your case, I will tell you to gather all your evidence and include it with your petition when you send it to USCIS (whichever one you ultimately decide on). Front-loading is always a good thing.

Finally, you are doing all the right things so far. Asking questions, doing research, and important most of all, talking things over with your fiancée. Ultimately, you will do what feels best for you.

Good luck and best wishes to you both!!

Edited October 30, 2010 by Ryan H

[Mike&Cherry 45]

Thank you very much Ryan. And congradulations on your wedding also; I'm sure you are both really excited. All of the clarifications of the concerns I had were extremely well explained by you. These were the answers Cherry and I were looking for to help us make the right decision. Ultimately it would be nice to get married in the Philippines with her family present, but we can also go back at later time to have a Filipina wedding. We just want to make sure we choose the proper process that will bring us together soon, but most of all to have a back up plan if any issues arise. And thanks for describing in detail what can be done if there are any problems with being denied. I'm pretty sure that we won't have any problems, but you never know when your dealing with such a meticulous process. I want to do as much research as possible to make sure that we both make the best informed decision and minumize the risks of having any issues. If worse came to worse I would definately move to the Philippines to be with Cherry. Nothing can keep us apart.

When you say front loading, what do you mean? Thanks again for all of your help, It really means a lot. And good luck on your journey.

Mike

[Ryan H 3,812]

Hi Mike, thanks for your well-wishes!!

When you say front loading, what do you mean? Thanks again for all of your help, It really means a lot. And good luck on your journey.

Front loading is sending additional evidence of your relationship along with your petition. Examples are, emails, phone records, letters, hotel receipts, copies of airline boarding passes, copies of entry and exit stamps in you passport, chat logs, pictures, and anything else that you feel shows USCIS adjudicators and visa officials your relationship is genuine. The list I gave is by no means exhaustive.

By no means would you send every email, just select a small number (2, 3 tops) from each month. I would suggest placing all emails in a folder and doing a print screen of the folder. To illustrate what I speak of, the print screen would show who the message was from and the date.

[Mike&Cherry 45]

Hi Mike, thanks for your well-wishes!!

Front loading is sending additional evidence of your relationship along with your petition. Examples are, emails, phone records, letters, hotel receipts, copies of airline boarding passes, copies of entry and exit stamps in you passport, chat logs, pictures, and anything else that you feel shows USCIS adjudicators and visa officials your relationship is genuine. The list I gave is by no means exhaustive.

By no means would you send every email, just select a small number (2, 3 tops) from each month. I would suggest placing all emails in a folder and doing a print screen of the folder. To illustrate what I speak of, the print screen would show who the message was from and the date.

This is all good stuff to know so that we get everything right the first time around to avoid any RFE's. Well we already have plenty of evidence and more to come. Thanks again Ryan for your help. I'll talk to you later. and good luck in February.

Mike

[jeff & liezel 0]

hello everyone.. do i need to wait for the NSO marriage certificate? or can we just submit the civil registry marriage certificate?

[pushbrk 12,883]

hello everyone.. do i need to wait for the NSO marriage certificate? or can we just submit the civil registry marriage certificate?

The NSO certificate is not needed until the NVC stage. You can file the petition with the civil registry marriage certificate.