top_secret

They have now been rather heavily tested and are being accepted by both the US and the Philippines for all purposes. It sounds like you have correct information. it's a very attractive option.

My wife just got hers at the NBI office in Pampanga. Any NBI office could do it, the main branch might be where you can get it fastest. But if you are in Japan I think you have to go through the Philippine Embassy.

The answers to those questions would be very country specific.

ordi Ordinarily I would consider flightaware as reliable but it looks like it is seriously at odds with several other usually reliable flight tracking sites which makes it suspect in this particular case. FlightStats has the actual air traffic control time updates and says that flight is early. https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-details/BR/52?year=2023&month=5&date=12&flightId=1187865998 flightradar24 has independently crowdsourced ADS-B data too and shows that one as early. https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/br52#3042397f I'd say just park wherever you need to park and walk or take whatever transportation you need to take to be waiting right there where she will come out. Time she will spend in immigration could vary widely so it could be a while, her phone probably won't work and you couldn't be 100% confident she work out wifi.

We had originally planned to file K1 based on the notion that it was "faster". While preparing for that, the disadvantages of the K1 process and the advantages of the CR1 process became very obvious and we abandoned the K1 idea, got married, and went all in on the CR1 petition. That was certainly one of the best decisions I ever made. In our case it actually resulted in her getting here at least a year sooner, though that was due to luck and differences in how the embassy was handling cases during rona lockdown silliness. I suspect time frames would be more similar between CR1 and K1 today. In addition to the benefits of CR1 others have mentioned, being married while waiting on the visa process we filed taxes as "married filing jointly" resulting in an increased tax return by over $10,000 vs me filing as single waiting for my fiancée. That would have been at least 2 tax years if our case hadn't moved so fast. With no adjustment of status my wife will be able to naturalize as a US citizen at 3 years from the date she entered and that's it. We are 100% finished with USCIS. Having to go through adjustment of status would extend that time frame substantially so with a K1 visa you signing up to have USCIS involved in your lives for a very long time. She got a Real ID drivers license within a few weeks of entering US. She got a job, bank account and credit cards in her own name. Lastly, USCIS has proposed massive increases in fees that would hit those adjusting status from K1 visas the hardest. They haven’t set a date for the fee increases but it seems very likely that 'soon' the cost of going through the whole k1 and adjustment of status process is set to double. With Utah online marriages being well established as accepted by USCIS, it would be possible for you to marry your Filipina fiancée online almost immediately and prepare, but do not submit, a complete ready to go online I-130 petition with all needed documents. You still would need an in-person meeting after an online marriage but you could literally fly to Manila meet at the airport and click "submit i-130" on your phone thus avoiding possibly months of Philippine government bureaucracy involved in a Philippine marriage and meaning you could at least get to work on a preparing a spousal visa petition right away.

Is the concern that you might need an AKA for your husband's surname even if you have not used his name on any paperwork???? If that is the concern, usually the embassy would still require an AKA or listed as husbands name in that situation, because even though you haven't used your husbands name, it is still a name that you legally could use. They say they want an AKA for any legal name, whether you used it in real life or not. In the case of my wife she had no problem obtaining her NBI Clearance as civil status married and with my name as "husbands name" with just our overseas Costa Rica marriage certificate. At the time she got her NBI Clearance our report of marriage was not yet filed and she had no Philippine documents or ID whatsoever that showed my name. NBI was happy with only the foreign marriage certificate.

CFO is whatever the "counselor" says it is. They absolutely have the authority to make up rules as they go along. First look at what RO_AH mentioned about the difference between minimum requirements and possible additional requirements. Did the counselor actually come back with a secondary request for police clearance after submission of the minimum basic requirements? They certainly could, but it's less common on a visa case. They usually reserve some of their crazier requests for applicants wanting to travel alone to meet sponsors or partners not connected to a visa petition.

I suspect what she has will work just fine. Once she has a US Green Card the entire CFO issue becomes moot. A US Permanent Resident does not require CFO.

As you can tell they tend to change all the rules for everything like every other week in the Philippines. But when my wife went through CFO, her counselor issued the QR Code online certificate almost in real time during an e-mail exchange. There was never any paper anything and the sticker never materialized and was never needed. I would guess whatever certificate worked for your wife last time should still work just as well now. There is also an online process for e-certificate reissuance since the first ones had expiration dates but not 100% certain it can still get it done in a day. https://manila.cfo.gov.ph/Certificate_ReIssuance_And_Sticker_Request/

Our recent package went through similar steps. From "Shipment is en route to local delivery team" to actual delivery was overnight for us so maybe there is hope. What number are you using to track it with or how did you get the tracking number? I think you are the first to report tracking the passport/visa since the switch from 2Go to LBC so it would be good others to know how it actually works for LBC.

I'd get a new one to be safe. They are considered expired after a year. It's cheap and easy to order online.

Yea. She still needs one for the the Embassy. The Embassy wants to see it because it shows no marriages other than what you already told the embassy about. You should be fine though.

CENOMAR/CEMAR is required for pretty much any beneficiary 18 or older if marital status has anything at all to do with their visa category. Under 18 doesn't need one. US Citizen petitioners that are a duel or former Filipino citizens need one if they lived in the Philippines more than a year as an adult. It is very uncommon but their have been a rare handful of cases where a consul asked a foreign petitioner for one usually pertaining to some previous relationship history in the Philippines.

Maybe it's because I have never financed a car, but I sure can't recall ever providing a social security number on any car transaction.

This is a common problem but I see it as a bureaucratic problem rather than a legal problem. The laws of both the Philippines and the US are pretty well defined. According to Philippine law the mother has absolute sole custody if the parents were unmarried. According to American law, the US would accept Philippine law as having jurisdiction and having already legally settled the issue of absolute sole custody long before the child ever even came here. Therefore, since the mother has absolute sole custody according to the Philippines and according to the US, there should be no problem getting a passport for the kid. The problem then becomes bureaucratic. Such as in,,,,, good luck explaining all that to the clerk at the passport office. What Ontarkie suggested is probably the best first approach. Attempt to document and educate the clerk at the passport office what the actual real laws are. You are legally correct and the passport office is legally incorrect. It's worked before. One alternate idea I had, although I have never heard of anyone doing such for this reason, is if mom and the kid are ever visiting the Philippines on vacation, apply for the kids passport at US Embassy Manila. USEM totally understands Philippine custody law and I'm quite certain they wouldn't give an applicant any grief over custody law misunderstandings.

They are usually good for one year. There have been infrequent cases where for some reason USEM asked for one less than 6 months old but it is uncommon.

An interesting experience ticketing just now. We plan to fly our 10 y/o daughter home to grandma unaccompanied this summer when school lets out. I have seen Philippine Airlines handle unaccompanied minors in the cabin many times and I think they do it well. I have no concerns. But EVERYTHING from Philippine Airlines or any other airline was ~$2k this summer. Suspiciously, almost exactly matching dates that US school is out. But I decided to bite the bullet and pay for PAL since they are nonstop and I would trust them with a 10 y/o kid. So I called reservations since you can't book an unaccompanied minor online. Reservations transferred me to "special handling" in Manila. "Special handling" in Manila quoted me a price that was $700 cheaper than anything I found anywhere, which obviously I said book that now. Furthermore, the $150 unaccompanied minor fee fell to $100. I'm convinced the only difference is that "special handling" ticketed from Manila rather than the US. So while in the ol' days it was true you could get better deals ticketing in Asia, it seems, that everything old is new again. Antiquated advice, but definitely make some good ol' fashioned phone calls to Manila ticket offices before booking online.

Some recent reports on CFO is that they will evaluate whatever documents you submit and schedule you accordingly. Those with issued visas and eminent travel plans they will at least make a token effort to accommodate. As of last week there were some people who did not yet have visas saying they were being scheduled in July. A number of people have reported Saint Luke's let them get their physicals early by signing a waiver acknowledging they know it may possibly expire.

The embassy switched from 2Go to LBC sometime last year so like it or not that is the only option. We just used LBC from the US (local LBC office in San Diego) and they were awesome from here. $11 to send some documents from US to Philippines and it took 4 days total with tracking. FedEx, UPS and DHL were quoting like $120 and last time I used UPS Express it took 2 weeks and the mailer arrived opened and damaged. With 2Go you could track the passport with the UID number from the ustraveldocs site as the tracking number. I have no idea if that remains true with LBC though.

Congratulations!!!! The interviewers time estimate is meaningless. It's just a canned response. Keep checking on the CEAC status page for it to become "Issued". Also you can check status here https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ph/ph-niv-passportretrieve.asp When we got ours the courier was still 2Go and at that time you could get detailed delivery tracking. Now the courier is changed to LBC and I assume tracking is still available but maybe someone else with more recent experience could here could give updated info on LBC tracking. Good luck getting the visa on hand quickly.

I think on February 6, pretty much anyone and everyone DQ up until about Jan 23 had already received interview letters or at least had their cases sent to the embassy by then. 3 months later??? Pretty much nothing has changed. Still sitting at that Jan 24 threshold. I have been thinking they would do a new batch 'soon'. But I've been thinking that for a while.

Log back into https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ph/ and check if it still shows as scheduled. At various times in the past other people have received "appointment canceled" e-mail's that turned out to not be valid so it's a known bug in their system. More than likely it's a false message but it would be important to verify that. I would think the Embassy help desk should be able to verify you still have an appointment though.

The only name that matters is the name that is in her Philippine Passport on the day of her interview. The visa, green card, and social security card will all bear that name so it will be very convenient if it is the desired name. Changing her passport is the greatest importance. NVC and the Embassy are really flexible on what name you use on the paperwork as long as you always give ALL names ever used where it asks. She will need your name on her NBI Clearance too.

I think I saw the case you are talking about on the FB group. If it's the same one, that person previously reported having an approved expedite and the cancelation notice is probably just a web site glitch that is known to happen from time to time. The approved expedite is notable since those have been as rare as unicorns lately but it does not represent any kind of ordinary scheduling activity. Of our two VJ Philippines members who recently updated their timelines with June interview dates, one is reporting the interview is scheduled at US Embassy Seoul, not Manila and the other is another approved expedite case, which is unusual for Manila lately. For the last week and a half or so, any time I see a CR/IR-1/2 case self reported as documentarily qualified and currently waiting on an interview at US Embassy Manila I have been adding them to the list. That list rather quickly grew to well over 80 cases which I would think is at least a statistically significant subset of of those waiting. Basically nothing has changed since I last posted here. I still can't find a single ordinary case with scheduling initiated after February. Only 3 IR1/CR1 waiting from before January 24 without any unusual circumstances. Large numbers waiting beginning January 24 onward which means all of them are now a week and a half past the 90 day mark.

Both my wife and stepdaughter got Global Entry without the slightest problem with their 2 year CR-1 and CR-2 green cards. Getting the interviews were pretty ridiculous though.