Divorce decree Manila consulate (Merged)

[hobie1115 0]

The 221g notice that is given to the beneficiary has a block which says original, but that's for electronic document processing, which doesn't apply to us. In my case, I've been married twice and had to provide a death certificate for my second wife, which was a copy, not original. All other documents I had to submit to my beneficiary was a copy, so I'm fairly confident that's fine for Manila. I guess it's possible someone might ask for the original, but for now, we have submitted a copy which includes the first page of the decree that has the certified stamp. The entire document is legible and shouldn't be a problem. I am going to get the original version just in case, but I don't expect to need it.
 

[GinoNiña 182]

The filipino embassy staff not the american consul asked her about my original wet divorce  decree. my fiancee insisted that she has just  the copy and it was good enough to the embassy staff. this is our case, it might be different from others. 

 

[W199 333]

7 hours ago, GinoNiña said:

The filipino embassy staff not the american consul asked her about my original wet divorce  decree. my fiancee insisted that she has just  the copy and it was good enough to the embassy staff. this is our case, it might be different from others. 

 

The policy of the USEM has always been to accept copies of everything from the petitioner unless there is some issue with the document (cropped, back copy, etc. etc..)

 

But there appears to be a new employee, someone said maybe Korean background, not sure, who went rogue and started asking for originals/certified copies.   But it appears they are reigning her in and making her get with the program.  But the details of this are not clear if she is still forcing you to get certified copies or not.  Has anyone within the last few weeks got a 221g in Manila because they had perfect scanned copies, just not certified?. 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by W199

[W199 333]

My fiancee just had her interview at USEM, just 60 days after the NOA2.  

 

She said they did NOT ask for the original/certified/wet ink copy of my divorce certificates. A copy was fine. She did't see or hear of anyone else needing to submit certified copies either.  She didn't even give the "decree", she just gave a copy of the single printed page printed by the court that was a certificate of the divorce, saying it was final and on file at the court in lieu of the decree.

 

In fact, they didn't even ask for my I-134, or any supporting documents like the tax transcripts, or even a copy of court papers.

However, the 1st screener spent a long time to ask her many many trivial questions like what is your mother's name, etc..  why did you

wait so long to get engaged, ..

 

Out of her group of 25, only one got 221g for an "expired" NBI 

 

Like others said .. do not overthink it . like we did ..

 

Approved.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by W199

[IWander 589]

5 minutes ago, W199 said:

My fiancee just had her interview at USEM, just 60 days after the NOA2.  

 

She said they did NOT ask for the original/certified/wet ink copy of my divorce certificates. A copy was fine. She did't see or hear of anyone else needing to submit certified copies either.  She didn't even give the "decree", she just gave a copy of the single printed page printed by the court that was a certificate of the divorce, saying it was final and on file at the court in lieu of the decree.

 

In fact, they didn't even ask for my I-134, or any supporting documents like the tax transcripts, or even a copy of court papers.

However, the 1st screener spent a long time to ask her many many trivial questions like what is your mother's name, etc..  why did you

wait so long to get engaged, ..

 

Out of her group of 25, only one got 221g for an "expired" NBI 

 

Like others said .. do not overthink it . like we did ..

 

Approved.

 

 

The not requesting of the I134 has been something the consulate has been doing for many years.  It seems like they only request it about 10% of the time (my wife was asked so we were in the 10%) so it your experience was very typical.

[hobie1115 0]

Well...update on my situation. The embassy received the copy of the divorce decree and still kept the visa in refusal status. They called my fiance in the Philippines and told her they need the original. The copy was very legible, so it seems they want a certified/original document. We obtained an original and mailed it to them. Hope this will be the end of this process and we can get the Visa.

[J.M. 230]

I'll add one more thing to this (applies to Manila only)...

 

Interview was 12/19/23.  I provided fiancée with certified divorce decree, so I can't weigh in on that debate, but I can assure you they did KEEP the divorce decree.  I have seen several say that it is just glanced at and returned.  In my case it was not returned.

[W199 333]

On 12/26/2023 at 10:08 PM, J.M. said:

I'll add one more thing to this (applies to Manila only)...

 

Interview was 12/19/23.  I provided fiancée with certified divorce decree, so I can't weigh in on that debate, but I can assure you they did KEEP the divorce decree.  I have seen several say that it is just glanced at and returned.  In my case it was not returned.

My fiancee’s interview at the Manila Embassy was about 2 months ago. The 1st screener also collected the divorce certificates without returning them too. But we didn’t care since we didn’t give them the originals. One was just a scanned photocopy that was even on the wrong size paper (original was A4 size from Thailand). 

 

There was a new rogue officer that was indeee asking for originals/certified copies, but they have appeared to get her with the program that certified or originals are not needed and never have been except in cases where something is suspicious or its a really bad copy or who knows what else.
 

They also didn’t waste anytime asking for the I-134 since they know my job, etc