top_secret

Congratulations. Having an upcoming PCS may be grounds for an expedited interview. USCIS has a military helpline that is supposed to offer just that type of assistance for military families. 877-CIS-4MIL (877-247-4645) https://www.uscis.gov/military/military-help-line It would probably at least be worth a call to see if they could help getting the date moved up a bit.

The whole "step" thing must be new but the day my wife was actually scheduled her (meaningless) estimated time INCREASED a few months. Have you checked the documents tab for any pdf scheduling notice???

It's not uncommon to have a few weeks delay issuing a visa. Different embassies and different cases have different timetables. Plus you have holiday in that time. There's no cause for concern just yet. Hopefully it will be "Issued" soon.

For "Metro Manila" put "NCR" as the province. (National Capital Region). Put the actual city, IE Pasig City. There is a 4 digit zip code. You may have to Google that. All addresses should include a barangay. Beyond that, freestyle rules apply and it is a very inexact science. There might or might not be a subdivision, purok, street, block, corner, sito, prominent building or landmark house number, etc. If it is just for informative purposes on a visa application then the format is probably not that critical. If you actually expect a real delivery of something at that address ask what if anything was ever successfully delivered there before and what address worked. IE, have they ever ordered stuff from Lazada before? The most critical part of any address used for actual delivery is that they have a good, complete, reachable cell phone number that would really be answered. Since probably half of Philippine deliveries come down to the delivery guy getting to the general area and calling or texting to ask for directions. Delivery guy in the Philippines has to be one of the most challenging occupations on the planet.

I think the latest round of NVC scheduling included DQ dates up until April 2024. It's also notable that they actually made some progress reducing the backlog.

My wife got a same day oath. Which as far I can tell is fairly typical for San Diego As far as arrival times my wife arrived about 30 minutes before her scheduled interview. We were all let in immediately and security was fast. Check-in at the third floor was quite slow. Maybe almost an hour. Interview on the 4th floor was maybe 30 minutes all in and oath on the 5th floor took maybe an hour.

It was very easy for us. Online appointments are here. https://passportappointment.travel.state.gov/ You can log in and browse appointment availability without making any commitment or giving any identifying information other than an e-mail address and phone number for multifactor authentication. You dont need to give a name or anything else to just browse appointments. Just pick a travel date is the next two weeks. For San Diego they were pretty much wide open. I checked a few other cities and found generally good availability the places I looked. We did make an anticipatory appointment well in advance of the actual naturalization interview though.

You will have to file an I-90 for a corrected green card. It's free of charge because it is a USCIS error. File the I-90 online and submit a copy of your marriage certificate, entry stamp and the mistakenly issued CR1 green card. It says to submit the actual defective green card but I would just submit a copy and hold on the original for now so you still have proof of lawful presence. Whenever they are ready to start moving on correcting their error they would issue a RFE for return of the defective card.

What they want is a PSA certified copy of the ROM. It sounds like you have the stamped copy the consulate returned when you filed. The PSA version is exactly the same except it is photocopied onto PSA security paper and with the PSA seal and certification on it. $20 per copy and $100 for DHL sounds about right ordering it sent to America. If you want to save a few bucks you can order one online with a credit card and have it delivered to relatives in the Philippines for P330 and they could send it to you by PhlPost EMS with tracking for P1600, so like $33 all in that way. Online you order from here https://www.psaserbilis.com.ph/ Request a Marriage Certificate and if a ROM exists that is what you will receive.

In FY 2023, nationals of Brazil had an 11.94% refusal rate for US B1/B2 visas. In the same timeframe, nationals of Germany had 10.84% refusal rate for US B1/B2 visas. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/RefusalRates/FY23.pdf So by just raw statistics a random German B2 visa applicant has about 1% better odds than a random Brazilian B2 visa applicant. Of course, in reality it is all about the individual applicant so generic statistics don't really apply. But it does seem that Germans don't just automatically get approved.

Just to be thorough, because the original question lacks important details. There IS a circumstance where a same sex spouse might be treated differently regarding onward ticket requirements in the Philippines. Ordinarily, if a foreign spouse arrives in the Philippines traveling with there Filipino citizen spouse then they can avail Balikbayan privilege and would receive a one year entry stamp and would be exempt from onward ticket requirements. However, since the Philippines does not recognize same sex marriage, presumably a same sex foreign spouse CANNOT avail Balikbayan privilege and therefore would not be exempt from onward ticket requirements. In reality it is the airline that would settle that though, not Philippine immigration. The airlines tend to be rather strict about onward or return tickets. Philippine Immigration never checks.

More specifically, about 11 days before the scheduled naturalization interview we "planned a trip" for 3 days after the naturalization interview. Then we scheduled a Passport Agency appointment online for the morning after the naturalization interview. We reckoned that if for any reason there wasn't a same day oath, well, passport agency appointments and travel plans are easily cancelled. And since there was a same day oath. Passports were immediate.

The verification consisted of me holding up my phone to the agents window whereby he confirmed there was some sort of random itinerary that departed to Cancun in two days and asked me to scroll down to the time of departure. They say that even hotel reservations in Mexico or Canada would surface if it was a planned ground trip. In our own case, some stuff has come up and I'm not sure we will be able to make the trip after all, but the airline reservation I casually flashed on my phone was legit at the time that I flashed it. Last year there was some sort of crisis about passport appointment capacity that made headlines. Today that is very much not the case and there was obvious blatant overcapacity. Check passport agency appointments here to see how crowded it may be in a passport agency near you. https://passportappointment.travel.state.gov/ (if you had some kind of plan for travel in 14 days) There is a good chance it is not crowded.

Actual physical passports are now on hand for wife and stepdaughter. Original naturalization certificate was returned by hand today, along with and all other original documents. The passport agency expedited process seems HUGELY beneficial to those who are able to use it. All it requires is access to a Passport Agency and literally any type original travel plans within the next two weeks. I just held up my phone to the glass window showing a trip to Cancun in the next couple of days. That and pay $60 extra which is well worth it. Passports %100 done.

That sounds like almost a quote of what the agent at the Passport Agency said. 🤣 We already planned to file N-600 and I have one filled out online already. I'll be finalizing a few details and submitting it in the next few days. Although we had fairly minimal problems getting our daughters passport, none the less they did ask for more evidence than the fairly good evidence what we had brought in the first place. Yesterday it was just a quick chat with the very nice attendance clerk at her school and we had the extra records the Passport Agency wanted. But I could see that if it was 40 years from now and any question came up renewing a passport then, reproducing the evidence we submitted yesterday at some time far in the future could be problematic.

Passports completed with expedited appointments at the passport agency this morning. Both wife and daughters passport applications now show completed online with will call pickup of the actual passports scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. They did give us a little more hassle than we expected on proving actual custody of my wife's daughter for her derivative citizenship. They were fine with her Philippine birth certificate showing only one parent as proof of sole legal custody. But while we had insurance documents, state ID and several other proof of her living with us at our address, they still insisted on us getting additional school records for her. But, they let us drop by her school and then e-mail attendance and enrolment records so it still all got sorted today. Tomorrow afternoon they should have actual US Passports on hand. Generally we'd give a really positive review for the San Diego Passport Agency too. They seemed friendly and efficient.

Just being an authorized user DOES create a credit score and immediately starts building credit so it is definitely a good thing (so long as it is authorized user on a good account). My wife had a 750+ credit score before she ever arrived or even had a Social Security number. Where it becomes more important is getting that new Social Security number imputed into one's credit file so a good score can be put to use. Once you have a credit score and it is good you need some creditor to input the Social Security number into the file for it to be of much use. We found Capital One does that if you input an Social Security number and upgrade an authorized user to "account administrator". Discover 'might'. Not sure.

Extension letters are supposed to be the original copy. CBP would be unlikely to give you any grief about a copy but airlines may be more strict.

We just clicked "next", the warning popped up, we decided it doesn't apply to us since there are no children who live apart from us, ignored the warning, clicked next again and went on. My wife was approved earlier today with no questions on the subject at all other than that her daughter is living here with us.

I probably follow some of the same FB groups and I have seen several very real recent cases where people weren't outright rejected, but did get 221g's that they struggled to answer in very similar circumstances. Enough cases to say it is a pattern and a problem at US Embassy Manila. But in my opinion, the underlying common thread to all of those cases is that they had been supporting themselves with assets while living with their spouses in the Philippines for protracted periods of time. It seems US Embassy Manila definitely does not like that particular profile. But for those who overcame the 221g it seemed the way forward was to provide extremely detailed plans of the minutia about how they intend to resume life and fully support themselves in the US. I feel the best proactive approach would be to go in strong in the first place with a case that they are fully maintaining a life and are already easily supporting themselves in the US. The assets should be seen as actively providing their means of their support in the US rather than just a balance in a bank.

Well Success!!!! kind of. My wife is now a US Citizen!!!!! However when it came to the name change they easily talked her out of it. She has been trying to change her name since she got here. Social Security previously denied a name change telling her USCIS must sign off on it first due to a Costa Rica Marriage Certificate. I had extensively coached her to argue her name is already changed due to the marriage but even if they wouldn't accept that just go with a judicial name change but.... The interviewing office suggested it's 'simpler' not to change her name and all that went out the window and she agreed not to change her name during naturalization. So now she is a US Citizen, with her maiden name and a 4 year old Costa Rica Marriage Certificate that has already been rejected as a name change document by Social Security. Tomorrow morning we have an expedited appointment at the Passport Agency. We'll try the name change there but I'm not optimistic. California DMV is quite specific that they require Social Security to change a name before they will. Court name changes in California cost like $600 and take months. It seems like she is stuck with her maiden name at this point. But otherwise the naturalization went extremely easily.

It's better than what we submitted and we got approved. I'd throw in car insurance and if you have joint car registration or titles.

I would rephrase that just slightly because it seems like you totally live in the US and are just temporarily visiting the Philippines??? On the bright side, the latest batch of interview letters that just went out included April 2024 DQ dates so it seems they are finally making some progress reducing the interview backlog at US Embassy Manila.

Technically they should probably carry the extension letter but in reality even an expired green card would generally suffice. If they really wanted to get serious they could and would confirm status based on 'any' green card. We live in Southern CA and hit interior checkpoints out in the desert with some regularity and they never gave us any grief.

People are still getting approved but you are correct that they sometimes run into issues. You should build a strong case for domicile in the US. It is not so much the assets that US Embassy Manila is challenging, rather it is the domicile issue. In similar cases some people have found themselves scrambling to answer a 221g after an interview about EXACTLY how they intend to re-establish domicile in the US after a protracted visit to the Philippines.