Edward and Jaycel

You sure can... Jaycel and I did 3 or 4 evidence uploads in the 7 months between when we filed and when we got our interview appointment notice and then one last upload about a week before the interview

That's enough for now.... Keep gathering new evidence and prepare it to upload to the portal about a week before your interview. You will be fine

I would be highly skeptical of this as I have heard from and ISO that I know personally (Not a FO ISO) that the ISOs and SISOs found out about this about the same time as the general public. There was also a fake RFE floating around the internet purported to be based on the memo but the reply by date indicated it was issued about 10 days before the memo was released. Lots of people praying on people's uncertainty over this.

That is my interpretation of the memo and honestly the path for K-1 Visa Holders is codified in the INA which a policy memo can't change. However, this is my interpretation guided by experience and my reading of the INA's pertinent sections and the USCIS Policy Manual. I do not have any concrete information on exactly how USCIS will implement this Policy Memo, and quite frankly no one knows anything for sure yet.

Correct and the K-1 is a true dual-intent non-immigrant visa

I don't think so.... this memo seems to be targeting people that come in on single-intent non-immigrant visas and then decide to adjust status. The K-1 is a dual-intent visa by law and the only pathway for a K-1 entrant to gain their green card is via marriage to their I-129F Petitioner and then adjusting status. It's literally written into the Immigration and Nationality Act. Plus the memo says this: "USCIS acknowledges exceptions including nonimmigrant categories with dual intent and immigrant categories where only adjustment of status provides a pathway to permanent resident status." So I think that USCIS is acknowledging that dual-intent non-immigrant holders (i.e., K-1 Visa Holders) specifically must use AOS as their pathway to LPR status.

Without a doubt. I'm hoping the pool of analysis deepens as we get a bit farther away from the publish date of the PM.

I will defend this part because I have heard reports of some consular officers requesting a CENOMAR from the US Petitioner recently to be sure that they have never been married in the Philippines before

I have been scouring the AILA boards and members postings to see what I can find regarding Immigration Attorney's thoughts on this and I found a post from Mike Watkins, Immigration Attorney and Former Supervisory Immigration Services Officer with USCIS, now founder of Watkins Immigration Law. He said this today: A Nuanced View of the AOS PM from a former USCIS Supervisor that Worked AOS After spending most of the day Friday and some this weekend talking through the new AOS policy memo with my clients, I wanted to post what I hope is a short, honest assessment of what this memo does and does not do based on what I know now, and through the lens of my time working both family and employment based AOS as a USCIS officer and supervisor. This is not legal advice and you should (especially now) consult with a licensed and experienced immigration attorney if considering applying for AOS. Please do not DM any questions but post them in the forum for others. First, as with most policy memos USCIS issues, a lot will come down to how it is implemented and operationalized at the officer level. My understanding is that front line staff were not given a heads-up on this and have not been given any concrete adjudication guidance, which is very common. What happens next will largely depend on how officers are told to implement this policy, and how they actually do this. In my view, this new memo is mostly a scare tactic. It is more of the same public messaging this administration has done since day one: try to get more immigrants not to apply for benefits they are eligible and legally entitled to receive and increase the population they can get to deport (self deport or through proceedings). They have tried this before in trump 1.0 with the public charge rule and this feels very similar in that regards. It is also, by and large, laughably wrong on almost all significant aspects of the history of AOS. The policy manual still contains this section on its 245(a) section for example: “In 1952, Congress made the pre-examination process unnecessary by creating INA 245, which allowed eligible aliens to obtain LPR status through adjustment of status without leaving the United States. Congress indicated that adjustment should be used for purposes of family unity or otherwise be in the public interest.” It’s not a “loophole” or meant to be used only for “extraordinary” cases; that defies clear congressional intent and the Agency’s own guidance. Beyond the primary purpose, this new guidance could lead to a more difficult adjudication environment for AOS for most applicants. I don’t think this means AOS is dead for most people, and I also don’t think everything will continue like it did before, after this memo. I do think USCIS will start to look more closely at all kinds of factors and in some cases, make a discretionary analysis that could lead to denials, the type that it hasn’t routinely done in the past. This could and likely will lead to far more paperwork needed to submit, more legal analysis by attorneys, and longer adjudication time as officers must now conduct a more thorough analysis. For my own cases, I am already strongly looking at how to frame my applicants to fit within the recognized congressional intent explicitly mentioned above: family unity and public interest. Where this heads entirely depends on how far the Agency wants to take it. If it tries to treat this guidance as it portrays it for public consumption (only granting “extraordinary” cases), it will be buried in lawsuits and losses. But, if it starts performing a more nuanced and careful analysis balancing positive and negative factors, it will likely result in slightly more denials, but much, much more time and effort needed for both applicants and the Agency.

Won't cause problems... Jaycel and I took shifts and basically checked every hour, 24/7 from here in the US and there in the Philippines with no trouble and I agree with @appleblossom above.... Fire your "consultant" that just cost you weeks of wasted time with her scheduling screw-up

I hadn't been there with Jaycel for 11 months at the time of her interview and all they asked was, "When was the last time you spoke to your fiancé?" And she said, "We had a video call this morning right before I walked over here to the embassy." and that was it, she was verbally approved on the spot.

While I can understand it's upsetting, Saying people want to pull the ladder up behind them after climbing it is a terrible thing to accuse people of holding in their hearts because they may believe something different than you do. And not to worry Mods... this is the last post I will engage with this member on

That's a big assumption to make of people's motivations and beliefs

Yes this affects marriage based AOS applications and I was following a former USCIS Officer / now Immigration Attorney's AMA post on Reddit earlier and she said that the way the Policy Memo is worded, she suspects that the policy will be in place for any pending and all new applications. Not my words.... and she said she "suspects" so she's not sure either

Yes that schedule of doing it the week before is no problem because for a K-1 visa exam, they hand you the sealed medical results at the end of the 2nd day to hand carry to the embassy anyway. Jaycel completed her medical on a Thursday, got the envelope and had her interview at the embassy the following Tuesday