top_secret

Interview the same day as my wife, plus @raizujukishi too. San Diego isn't bad but Honolulu seems nicer. Congratulations!!!

You can ask the embassy to reopen your DS-260 Go to https://ph.usembassy.gov/visas/immigrant-visa-inquiry-form/ Choose from "Topic of Inquiry (Dropdown):" select "Form DS-260 (Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration) Access" . Fill out the rest of the information and just put a note like "Can you please reopen my DS-260 so I can update it before my scheduled interview.” They would typically reopen your DS-260 and reply in 2 or 3 work days. Or, you also have a chance to ask them to update the DS-260 at the pre-interview document check the day of the interview.

Some people had success by opening the document in Chrome. Then from Chrome's menu select "print" and from Chrome's print menu select destination "Save as PDF". Then try uploading the resulting new pdf. Some others said that worked for them.

In the Philippines it would be a TIN from BIR. If you never worked in the Philippines then most likely you dont have one and are not required to have one. So the answer would be "1." However, aren't you a US Permanent Resident now??? W8BEN generally would not apply to US Permanent Residents so it seems your B of A app might have gone down the wrong path somehow if they are asking for one.

Keep watching the CEAC status. When it changes to "issued" that is the first movement you will see. Most cases go to issued within a day after a successful interview. Some take longer. A week is not uncommon. 4 to 6 weeks happens now and then. It doesn't necessarily mean anything and no one knows why. If they told her everything is good, it probably is. Patience is required. Also, Monday, Columbus Day, is a holiday for the Embassy. Tuesday is most likely you next chance to see movement.

Divorce decree goes under the "CIVIL DOCUMENTS" tab. Under optional documents click add a document and on the list of types they have an option for "PETITIONER'S MARRIAGE TERMINATION DOCUMENTATION"

1: I once wandered into Mexico accidently leaving my wallet in my car parked on the US side and leaving me with absolutely ZERO ID of any type. CBP took it extremely well. The first officer basically played me a game of 40 trivia questions about my life and let me in without even sending me to secondary. YMMV. We have a Mexican-American guy here at work who is of the hard headed personality type who likes picking fights with authorities for his amusement. It's like a game for him. He is a US Citizen but goes down to Tijuana all the time intentionally with nothing more than a "federal limits apply" CA driver's licence just to see if they will challenge him coming back so he can argue with him. They usually dont. I feel fairly confident that if someone belongs in the US, CBP at the land border will vet their story to a reasonable extent and based on experience and judgement let them in fairly drama free once they feel confident they actually belong. It happens all the time. 2: The airline totally could do that if you can get them to. It's totally up to the airline if they will even try and up to the carrier liaison if they would approve it. All you can do is ask.

You can delete and reupload before submitting. After you submit a document you could still upload and submit a new copy but the original copy will remain too. If you are waiting to become documentarily qualified an new submission might reset your wait clock. There is no specific advantage to uploading but not submitting a document you know you might change since NVC doesn't review anything until you submit everything.

10/25 5:00PM is the deadline for online voter registration in Utah and presumably the deadline to be registered in time to receive a mail in ballot. Though you could register in person up until election day. https://secure.utah.gov/voterreg/index.html

I think ours was ~120 pages and fit comfortably in a sturdy USPS Priority Mail flat rate envelope. I just sent the big stack of papers held together by nothing but the envelope. However, a medium size flat rate USPS Priority Mail box is page sized and 6" deep so that does kind of set a goal post to aspire too.😁 As the ads say, "if it fits, it ships".😁

You probably should have started complaining earlier since it seemed to get results.🤣😂

US Embassy Manila has developed quite a backlog of CR/IR cases waiting for interviews. I think the most recent batch of interview letters NVC sent out included cases that were documentarily qualified up to about December 2023. So currently the backlog of CR/IR cases waiting for interviews at US Embassy Manila seems to be about 10 months. Hopefully that might improve going forward, as US Embassy Manila reduced their interview backlog for a number of other categories but guessing what the Embassy will do next is pretty impossible because they have been extremely erratic with scheduling lately.

I feel there is a significant change of mindset for what is best dealing with electronic processing. Tabs and dividers are probably incredibly helpful for USCIS to find what they are looking for with giant stacks of paper in a file on someone's desk. But they aren't much help at all where they have multi-page scanned .tif files on a computer monitor to work with. Probably the table of contents and description of the evidence in the cover letter would be most helpful for easy reviewing. I would also be in the camp of those who recommended reducing the number of pages too. Maybe quarterly bank statements rather than every last one? The risk of submitting to much sheer quantity is that no one will sit there and actually go through all 700 pages in giant .tif files one by one. They would probably chose some random points, look at a page here and there, and formulate their opinion based on what they saw. It would be better if your other quality evidence was highly likely to be what they looked at too rather than being overwhelmed in a sea of repetitive bank statements.

With almost 100% certainty, virtually ALL I-751's filed after Q1 2023 are scanned, receive IOE numbers and are processed electronically. So the USCIS advice for simplifying scanning definitely applies to I-751's.

USCIS has posted updated advice for paper submissions and a lengthy list of things NOT to do. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/recommendations-for-paper-filings-to-avoid-scanning-delays

Times have changed. From some time in early 2023 pretty much all I-751's are scanned and get IOE numbers. They upload some or all of the dingy grey and white scanned pages to your online account so that you can see they did a pretty poor job scanning them.

Keep in mind that whatever packet you send will immediately be disassembled and fed through their giant industrial scanner so it can be given an IOE number for electronic processing. Anything that might jam up an automatic document feeder will have to be removed and discarded. Punched holes are useless but probably not harmful. Clips, binders, fasteners, tabs, etc will all have to be removed by the scanning crew.

I cannot say for sure if a SPA is definitely required for all those things or if a US notarized document would suffice, but as a general rule any SPA executed overseas to be used in the Philippines must be notarized at a Philippine Consulate. If you are in Las Vegas, the honorary consulate there should definitlly be able to handle that. https://losangelespcg.org/philippine-honorary-consulate-in-las-vegas/

Overseas medicals are recorded on form DS7794 or Form DS2054 and are signed by a panel physician rather than a civil surgeon.

CFO will give her a hard time and hassle her if she hasn't filed a ROM. However, they still have to let her leave. If you filed a ROM now you would probably have the consulate certified copy back in 4-6 weeks and that would make CFO happy.

If they have any questions, you have legitimate filed amended returns you can show them. More than likely they wont have questions other than, have you always paid all your taxes. If asked, I assume the answer is "yes".

Unfortunately, this is the second recent occurrence of EXACTLY the same problem from US Embassy Manila. Probably the same consul? @Jason and May are dealing with exactly the same 221g right now. It might be worthwhile to compare notes.

The ROM is merely to satisfy Philippine laws. It doesn't really have any relevance to the US or at the embassy. It sounds like it is late in the game to accomplish any name change before the visa and green card are issued in her maiden name. CFO will give her a hard time and hassle her if there is no ROM filed at all but it's not a showstopper. If you have no objection to filing the ROM, file it now and you would probably have the consulate certified copy in time for CFO and that would be enough to make them happy. Don't spend any time worrying about it as far as the embassy is concerned.

Basically she should have all the docs you submitted to NVC plus the CENOMAR or Advisory on Marriages. If her NBI Clearance expired (over 1 year old) she needs to update that. The NBI Clearance needs to include your surname as either "Husbands Name" OR as an AKA. Your name has to be on the NBI Clearance somehow. Even if she never used your name. Upload any new or updated documents to CEAC. NVC won't review them again but the embassy wants all the documents uploaded.

A ROM is not required at all by the embassy for US Immigration purposes. She doesn't need it. The Philippine government would require one for her to change to your name in her passport but if you are already at the scheduling interview stage then her passport has whatever name it has. It's expensive and time consuming for her to change her name after she gets to the US. Before she leaves the Philippines CFO will give her a hard time and hassle her if she doesn't have a ROM but they still have to let her go.