top_secret

They could get their physical out of the way like 3 months before a predicted interview. Then if they did get flagged, they could get the 3 month delay started concurrently with waiting for the interview date. The only potential downside is the physical expires in 6 months so if their guesstimate on when they might get an interview was wrong or there was any other unexpected delay traveling then the physical would need repeated.

Not a chance. Saint Luke's Extension Clinic only takes their own x-rays. Even if you had a fresh TB-free diagnosis from Saint Luke's Global City Hospital across town, Saint Luke's Extension Clinic would still take and evaluate their own x-rays. If a Filipino adult wants an immigrant visa, they pretty much have to play a round with Saint Luke's x-ray machine.

Something like 1 out of 7 Filipino visa applicants get flagged for "sputum testing" for TB when Saint Luke's crack team of x-ray checkers somewhat dubiously think they see a spot or a smudge or something. That automatically leads to a 3 month delay for sputum testing which almost always turns out to NOT be TB. But on the bright side 1 out of 7 odds with Saint Luke's x-ray machine is slightly better than Russian Roulette odds.

US Embassy Manilla won't let people in early so it's no use arriving early. They let in groups by appointment time at 10 or 15 minutes intervals. Arriving a half hour early is as good as it gets. However, the wildcard is that in the Philippines if someone says they will be arriving at 4:30AM, they might actually arrive at 7:30AM western time.😉

That no longer needs to be notarized by the Embassy. ANY notary in the Philippines can notarize it. The relevant Philippine rule is here. https://psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/MC NO. 2021-04 Local or Philippine Notarization of Affidavits in lieu of Certificates of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriages.pdf It covers all nationalities but it includes a US Citizen specific example on page 3.

Costa Rica is great for Filipino travelers. We got married there. For visa free transit she can go the long way through Europe, on mideast airlines, or the ANA or AeroMexico flight NRT-MEX connecting to SJO. Though visa free transit of Mexico is possible for Filipinos but a little more complicated than visa free transit in Europe. My wife flew Turkish Airlines Manila-Istanbul-Panama connecting to Copa airlines Panama to Costa Rica. I know first hand one situation somewhat similar to yours with a unmarried Filipina-American couple trying to get a B2 visa just to visit the parents and go sightseeing in the US but they were both quite permanently settled in the Philippines. In their case the woman was twice denied but approved on a third attempt where rather she very directly highlighted her American partner's permanent ties to the Philippines. He had a permanent residence visa for the Philippines and other factors which apparently convinced the counsel he was staying put in the Philippines and that she was inclined to stick with him. It's a long shot but and maybe she just got lucky and caught the counsel on a good day but they are one couple I know of where it worked.

NVC has been blazingly fast lately (by their historical standards). If you do everything correctly as soon as NVC will allow you to, it is very reasonable to assume you could be documentarily qualified in less than a month. USEM has been kind of unpredictable with interview dates for CR/IR cases lately. As recently as January there were examples of people getting interview dates 2 or 3 weeks after their cases were documentarily qualified and people were getting expedited for trivial reasons or no reason at all. But there seems to be a noticeable shift since February towards longer wait times for interviews and denials of most expedite requests. It seems they are taking about 2 to 3 months to receive documentarily qualified cases from NVC and then allowing self-scheduling on https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ph/ with reasonable availability of scheduling dates in the near future. Saint Luke's will 'usually' try to accommodate any actual scheduled interview date. If trying to get through as quickly as possible it kind of makes sense to get one's physical out of the way sometime after becoming documentarily qualified but before they actually have an interview date. This runs a risk that an unexpected delay could drag things out 6 months so the physical would expire and need repeated, but the other ever-present risk at Saint Luke’s is getting tagged for sputum testing which is a three-month delay. By getting the physical done early one can either breathe a sigh of relief it's out of the way OR get the three-month delay started sooner rather than later if they are unfortunate and get tagged for sputum testing. A week is typical to actually receive the visa after a successful interview though delays certainly do happen and people do regularly get asked for updated or additional documents etc. CFO is unpredictable as well. We had someone here recently who got CFO completed the day before their flight. Some have been successful is getting CFO completed before the visa is even issued though CFO will generally give someone a hard time about that. It seems that CFO may delay people and string them along for a while but usually comes through last minute before a flight is actually going to be missed.