top_secret

I've been using Google Voice as my primary phone number since 2006 when it was Grand Central before Google bought it out. It works for calls and text for "almost" everything. You can send and receive SMS messages from your phone or online at voice.google.com. Basically, anywhere in the world and have 3g or better data or WIFI, my US phone number works. If you miss a call it takes a voicemail, and transcribes it to an e-mail. Every once and a while I will run into some application that will not accept anything but a true US cellular number but those are fairly rare. It works fine with 'most' banks including Schwab and Chase. You do need an actual US phone number to verify while creating the Google Voice account.

In our case in 2021 it was more like 6 months. It is definitely not fast. But in our case it quite literally resulted in an over $10,000 greater return filing MFJ vs MFS so it was quite worth the wait. Of course everyone's tax situation will be unique so run the numbers both ways and see what the difference is.

https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-redesigns-green-card-and-employment-authorization-document

The self scheduling is for cases that have been expedited by the Embassy. Recently there have been a number of CR/IR cases at USEM that were notified they were expedited even though they had not ask for expedites. Self scheduling is also used for cases that have missed interviews and need to reschedule. F2A probably has its own wait list and as far as I know is still scheduled by NVC. What is your CEAC status? Is it "At NVC" or is it "Ready"? If it is "At NVC" you are still waiting for NVC to schedule the interview. If it is "Ready" and you haven't heard from NVC or the Embassy you might want to contact the Embassy and ask about scheduling. If your case is already documentarily qualified there is certainly no harm in requesting an expedite. USEM has been giving out expedites lately on CR/IR cases for some pretty flimsy reasons or no reason at all. I don't know if the same applies to F2A though.

Long before we were married, my wife applied for a US tourist visa in Manila. She already had a multiple entry Schengen tourist visa for Europe, 5 year multiple entry tourist visas for Japan and Korea, and perfect travel history to those and well over a dozen other countries. Owned a business, money in the bank, owned a condo etc. She went in for her interview, .......... three question and denied. Being an ornery strong willed woman she went out and put down another $160 and went back for round two a couple months later. That time she said she got a much more comprehensive interview and felt that she got her points across. She thought the interview was going well and then..... DENIED the second time. As much as I hate to say it, that is probably the outcome for most in the Philippines who go back a second time. Visas are not easy when one has a Filipino passport. I used to joke with my wife that she probably only married me so she could get a visa to go sightseeing in California for two weeks. However I do personally know an American living with his wife in the Philippines who just wanted to take her back to the US on vacation and to meet his family, but they were both quite permanently settled in the Philippines. She was twice denied a tourist visa but finally approved on a third attempt so it can happen, but that is probably an exception.

I'm saying that in my opinion Ecuador is an unsafe place to drop off a loved one who does not speak the language and does not have a support base to look out for them. Politics are strange in the Caucasus. "Shia Moslem" Azerbaijan enjoys good political relations with Israel and is a client for Israeli weapons. "Christian" Armenia has a working political relationship with Iran based on some common border interests. I would guess Iranians have a place in Armenia. In Ecuador I think they would probably want to lay low and hide out.

I've been to Ecuador. Like anywhere it depends where you go and Equador has some great places, but my trip to Ecuador was maybe one of the sketchier trips I ever made and I've been to allot of sketchy places. I wouldn't drop off a loved one there unless I had a very high level of understanding of the local neighborhood security situation was. As destinations go, I would say Equador requires a higher level of situational awareness than allot of places. I totally get wanting to get someone out of Iran but Ecuador would be way low on the list. (Apologies to any Ecuadorians here, I really did enjoy visiting your beautiful country). The Armenia idea seems better. Yeah the have problems now but it's not everywhere and there is an Iranian community there.

Some girls pay the kid at the internet café a few pesos to jump through whatever silly hoops they have to in order to create fake Facebook accounts. The kid at the internet café is clever about such things.😂 You can buy a ready to go fake FB account for cheap if you ask around the Philippines. No need to disclose any personal information.

That looks like your interview letter. Albeit incomplete and missing the most important detail. The interview. If NVC or the Embassy had already scheduled you an interview date it would typically be mentioned in the first sentence after "Congratulations!". Since it is not, and yours is one of those unrequested USEM expedite cases, 'probably' somewhere within "You should follow all the interview preparation instructions located on the Embassy’s website. Please scan the QR code below for more information." or elsewhere in the e-mail are instructions to go on the https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ph/ as self schedule your interview. You probably should clarify that with the embassy if it is not clear from the missing part of the e-mail but most likely you can now schedule your interview at your convivence whenever you would like in the next year. The rest is the standard interview letter. IE, get your physical at Saint Luke's, and get all your documents together for the interview.

Even Filipino passports with no visa can freely transit ICN so long as they don't have to clear immigration. For US Visa or Green Card holders who are specifically flying to or from the US transiting Korea to or from a third nation, there is the added benefit that they may clear Korean Immigration without a Korean visa for up to 30 days in transit. So if a US Green Card holder with a Filipino passport wants to, they could book an extended stopover and go sightseeing in Korea without a visa, on their trip to or from US and the Philippines.

9 months is no cushion at all with USCIS. It is very ordinary to find different people's processing times varying by many months if not years, often for no apparent reason at all. It's up to chance and a guessing game at best.

Yea, we had to get NBI AKA as well. It didn't help that my wife kind of randomly switched back and forth between names throughout her life so there are all kinds of important paperwork in randomly differing names.

The biological father of my stepdaughter refused to sign her birth certificate and is not listed on her birth certificate. She has two names listed under "first name", no "middle name", and my wife's "last name". On her Philippine passport she has two "given names", no "middle name" and her mom's "surname". It's actually convenient he wouldn't sign because although USCIS or USEM wouldn't care if he signed or not, when mom naturalizes, US Passport offices and various other agencies have been know to make a fuss about other parents consent. With no fathers name on the birth certificate that is forever a non issue. However, on my wife's birth certificate her parents were kind of common law married but not legally married when they registered her birth, but her father did sign an affidavit of acknowledgement of paternity at the same time they filed the birth certificate and he is fully listed on her original birth certificate. Although it was all late registered when she was already 5 years old so maybe they missed the cutoff date, but it was all filed the same day. None the less, my wife's birth certificate only lists her first name and her mothers maiden last name. Even though her father is fully listed, acknowledged, signed and everything, it says "DATE AND PLACE OF MARRIAGE OF PARENTS, NOT MARRIED. So no fathers last name and no middle name for her either. Her parents registered their marriage shortly after that, and years later, as an adult my wife filed to have her birth certificate legitimized since her parents married so now it is annotated to list her first name, her mother maiden name as her middle name and her fathers last name but it took the legitimization to do that.

Since about the beginning of this year there have been a number of anecdotal reports, here and elsewhere, of couples receiving unsolicited expedites from USEM for CR/IR interviews. Presumably, this also opens the door to these couples self scheduling their own interviews on https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ph/ . Logging in there shows wide open availability for IV interviews in the immediate future so it seems USEM is not operating with any type of backlog whatsoever of available CR/IR interview slots.

Yea, you are correct. After I posted that I was thinking I should have qualified that statement better. Criminal history of the USC petitioner is usually irrelevant for a CR-1 case except in extreme cases involving crimes against children or terrorism etc. There is no requirement that the petitioner disclose their criminal history as any part of a CR1 case. Adam Walsh Act. issues are more commonly associated with K visa petitions. In the case of the OP where the US spouse had a "misdemeanor expunged at the state level", there is no requirement for the petitioner to disclose it and without more information, I would say that is pretty unlikely to come up in a CR-1 case. Only if or when it came up somehow would anyone need to consider getting a lawyer involved.

Have you even been scheduled yet? No need to worry about rescheduling unless you have a scheduled date that will not work. With all these unrequested expedites being issued by USEM lately, it is beginning to look like just about everyone will be self-scheduling in which case they could just hold off self-scheduling until they want to up to a year from when the Embassy receives the case.

Even though our cases are long finished, I can still log in ustraveldocs.com/ph on the account I made for my stepdaughter, and start a dummy CR-2 booking. CR/IR schedule dates have wide open availability from Jan 30 on. It's very clear that at this time USEM has no backlog whatsoever for CR/IR interviews. Maybe that's why "everyone" is getting expedited lately(???)

Criminal history of the USC petitioner is irrelevant for a CR-1 case. USCIS, NVC and the Embassy never even ask about criminal records of the petitioner.

The service center designated by receipt number of the I-129F for a K3 is an indication of which service center 'might' have the associated I-130 at that moment in time. They are often put together. But any case can change centers at any time without notice. You can try "Ask Emma" live agent to ask for confirmation where your case is now.

If you are logged into the USTravelDocs portal does it show you the option of available self-scheduled dates?

Sputum testing is required for applicants that "fail" their chest x-ray looking for TB during their physical at SLEC. If Saint Luke's crack team of x-ray analyzers somewhat dubiously thinks they see a spot or something the applicant gets tagged for sputum testing which wastes allot of time and which more often than not turns out to be nothing. While it certainly is a very real possibility that impacts a significant percentage of applicants, 'most' will make make it through without sputum testing.

In accordance with strict USCIS protocols the processing times will be wildly randomized for different applicants without any rhyme or reason.

I work with a woman who arrived as a refugee way back back in the 1980's and still hasn't naturalized to this day. When I asked her why, she said because her old and very well worn Green Card from back in the 1980's doesn't have an expiration date. That was her reason. I have a couple of guys working for me who do have Green Cards but they are apparently hanging by a thread after their last of several visits to the Immigration Judge over some criminal type issues in their youth. They for sure wont be naturalizing. I know and work with quite a few people that arrived as refugees at young ages and grew up quite Americanized but many of them really just don't spend much time thinking about immigration topics. Their situation is stable, they don't have any concerns that immigration status could change against them, everything is fine as is, naturalization costs money and is a hassle. Why bother. Some people just don't spend as much time thinking about it as average VJ members do.

So I guess extension letters are going up to 48 months now. Retroactively for existing pending I-751 petitions with new extension letters being sent out to all. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-extends-green-card-validity-for-conditional-permanent-residents-with-a-pending-form-i-751-or

We had no problem at all enrolling our daughter with her Philippine "baby book" which is not any kind of formal document. It was mixed English and Tagalog language but an English reader could figure it out. Most of the vaccines were designated by three letter abbreviations that seem standardized by WHO. For Thailand I suppose it might be an issue if the name and dates needed translated, but I think they would have accepted an informal translation. I really had the impression the school was quite flexible. They just want to see any type of record they could figure out. Later, when we took her in to a doctors appointment at a Kaiser clinic, a nurse there very meticulously went over her Philippine records and immigration records and inputted it all into the California state immunization registry. So now there is an all inclusive formal record.