Kawika & Michelle

My fiancé is from a province outside of Cebu. She is from the Don Juan Climaco Sr. (Upper Magdugo) barangay near the Toledo City area.

Hi Everyone, Been here awhile but just stumbled upon this forum. My fiancé & I been together since June of 2020 and are now a few weeks away from her K1 Fiance VISA interview at the Manila embassy (May 4th). If everything falls into place, we hope to have her travel to the US (Texas) the following Friday (May 12th)…if not…shortly thereafter. We are making plans for our wedding in Hawai’i so that my parents & the rest of my family can take part in it… Take care & good luck everyone! Kawika

schedule cfo session before visa interview - Philippines - VisaJourney

Unless my fiance's counselor was mistaken & unless things have changed since 2021, the actual paper copy of the CFO Guidance & Counseling certificate has no expiration date on it. We were issued a temporary PDF certificate for our situation since we needed it for our trip before the paper copy could be delivered & that temporary certificate did have an expiration date for roughly a year after it was issued. As far as we were told by her counselor, the certificate is valid for only the country & the partner with whom the "counseling" session was completed for. A lot of that included a lot of background information on me as well as a lot of personal information specific to my situation (i.e., divorce decree, etc.)...so it makes sense that the issued certificate would only be valid for that specific partner. As far as getting it taken care of before the VISA is issued...we did ours before we even applied for the K1 VISA as we were told we needed it for my fiancé to travel to meet me in Costa Rica back in 2021. With that in mind, I don't see why you can't start the process now. If it is still anything like our process, you will need to acquire a lot of documents on yourself that may take some time to get. Several of them needed to be apostatized which can take a few days to weeks to complete depending on your state. I also needed to request an FBI background check as part of the process. This also took some time to acquire.

Yep. I gave her the IMBRA for her to read (also available in Tagalog). And she woke up & we have been talking. As I stated, the copy I had was the temporary certificate (hence the expiration date). She was given the paper copy of the GCC that was delivered while we were in Costa Rica & it has no expiration date on it. Based on what her counselor told her, the certificate has no expiration however it is only valid for the person that she went through the counseling process for. In other words, the certificate is only valid if she uses it with me. If she was to choose to be with someone else in the US or another country, she would have to go through the counseling process all over again. A large part of that "counseling" process included a lot of background information on me & a lot of personal information on me & my personal situation.

I was more concerned with whether what she had received was the equivalent of the "Guidance & Counseling Certificate (GCC)" or if that was something else. Whenever we get into deep discussions about marriage & her life here it doesn't seem like she has a clear vision of the rights she has here. It makes me wonder what that counseling session even involved. Also the certificate that I have access to right now was a temporary one that her counselor issued to us since our trip back in 2021 was happening before it could be delivered to her. I am not sure if the certificate she received from the CFO has an expiration date on it as well. She's asleep right now, so I can't verify anything with her just yet.

I hadn't even noticed it before but her certificate was issued on August 4th, 2021 & does have a valid until date of June 30th, 2022.

Hi Folks, Looking to try to get some clarification on what is needed from the CFO to allow my fiance to travel to the US once her K1 Fiancé VISA is approved. She has already gone through counseling & received a certificate from the CFO for completing the Overseas Filipino - CFO Online Registration System (OFCORS) for our trip to Costa Rica back in 2021. She initially reached out to her counselor once more to verify whether anything else needs to be done & she was told by her counselor that all she needed to do was to bring her VISA down to their office to get the sticker attached to it. We saw the notice that the CFO will forego stickers in favor of a digital certificate starting on May 1st. Since she will not receive her VISA until after May 1st, we have reached out once again to her counselor to see if she still needs or even will get a sticker for her VISA at this point or if she will receive a digital certificate instead. Her counselor has not yet responded. My question is whether or not the certificate that she has is what is needed or if there is something else in addition that is required. I can't seem to access the CFO website directly from the US, so I can't seem to be able to verify this myself. A general Google search seems to indicate that she may also be required to acquire the Guidance & Counseling Certificate (GCC) as well as the CFO sticker (or digital certificate after May 1st). Can anyone shed some light on any of this? Thanks! Kawika

We were told the same thing by the embassy with our K1...unfortunately they have not programmed the website to recognize this so any future reschedules beyond the set number the system allows will likely need to be done over the phone.

I'm in Katy, Texas...just outside of Houston. I'm part Asian so I am well acquainted with a lot of the Asian stores and restaurants in the area. We were just hoping to create support groups with others how are currently experiencing the culture shock of moving to the US so that they could provide support for one another. There are some Facebook groups that we are a part of that connect Texas as a whole, but we are also looking for a mix of those who have experience as well as those who will be brand new. As far as the CFO requirements go, we've already gotten a certificate from the counseling she received when we met in 2021 in Costa Rica. She has reached out to her counselor once before & was told that all she would need to do is bring her VISA to get the sticker attached. I am not sure if that is all that needs to be done & she seems to be unsure. She has reached out to her counselor once more for clarification (especially with the recent announcement of the CFO doing away with stickers in favor of digital certificates) but her counselor has not yet responded to her.

Best thing to do is to continue checking the website periodically to see if there are any earlier appointments that you can snap up. I would occasionally check the site while I was at work or at home and was able to move our interview up a month from our original first available appointment that I took back in June 2023. I'm out of reschedules otherwise I would have continued looking Once you run out of reschedules, they force you to repay your MRV fee to be able to reschedule again.

Hi Everyone, Been here awhile but just stumbled upon this forum. My fiancé & I been together since June of 2020 and are now a few weeks away from her K1 Fiance VISA interview at the Manila embassy (May 4th). If everything falls into place, we hope to have her travel to the US (Texas) the following Friday (May 12th)…if not…shortly thereafter. We are making plans for our wedding in Hawai’i so that my parents & the rest of my family can take part in it… If there are any other Filipinas who are in Texas or plan to move there in the future, please reach out to me as we are trying to create a network of Filipinas for support & potential get togethers. Take care & good luck everyone! Kawika

I left Sections 6 & 7 completely untouched as it didn't apply to our application. Keep in mind that we are in the interview phase of the process so our form has not been checked, validated & accepted as of yet. Like yourself, I watched a few YouTube videos of individuals who prepared the documents for their beneficiaries as well as lawyers who walked through the form to determine how I would fill out our form.

The way I read this form, Part 2 Question 13 is where you list your fiancé & any children or other dependents she has that you are agreeing to take responsibility for. It seemed pretty clear to me by the instructions here that at the very least your beneficiary/fiancé will be listed in the table here. It wouldn't make sense that the total number of dependents would ever be zero. Since I was filling out the form on her behalf, I entered my fiance's name in the first column, birthdate & then "Beneficiary" as noted above. Since my fiancé has a son that I have agreed to support & eventually adopt, I added him to the second line. For the last column for income, I simply entered "0" for both.

Most of this is answered in the instructions that come with the form: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-134instr.pdf

Our interview isn't until May 4th, but on the sign up page...all I've ever seen is an appointment of 6:30 am with as many as 50 slots available per day. I've also noticed that the only day available for K1 appointments were Thursdays. How are other people seeing other time slots? How safe is the area for those going for their interviews? Do they line up outside the embassy gates? Inside?

I have no inside information on this...but my best guess is that it is entirely dependent on the speed of the person processing the case & the complexity of the cases that are ahead of yours. I am guessing that each processor is given a set of cases to work on (let's just say 100 cases per processor)...and they only get an additional set of cases to work on after they have completed the cases they currently have. With this kind of set up, this would explain why some cases move faster than others & seem to be going out of order. With so many new processors recently hired, it is likely that some processors simply work faster than others. Add in the fact that some cases are simply more complex than others & you can see how some cases may get stuck in a stack longer than others.

Unfortunately that's my guess as well...it would have been nice if they would have let us know up front that we had a specific amount of reschedules. If I hadn't noticed that text while I was checking on our case & had decided to grab an earlier appointment, I'm guessing it would have either not allowed me to make the change or required me to pay an additional $265 before being able to attend the interview appointment.

Hey Folks, I just wanted to see if anyone knows if this is true or not. When we initially scheduled our K1 interview appointment, we took the first available appointment which was June 8th at the time. Since then we have noticed that on occasion there will be earlier appointments made available on the scheduling website (likely due to canceled or rescheduled interviews). We have decided to take advantage of these earlier appointments & have moved up our appointment to June 1st. We were hoping to continue to monitor the site for any earlier appointments prior to our scheduled appointment, however when I logged in to the site today I noticed the following note: "If you cancel this appointment, then you will have exceeded the limit of appointments canceled, and will not be able to schedule another appointment until another MRV fee has been paid." Does this mean that if we attempt to reschedule our appointment to any earlier appointments (should one open up) that we would have to pay an additional $265 MRV fee? I sent a message directly to the embassy for clarification as well. I think the spirit of the rule...if this is one...was to prevent people from continuously postponing their interview appointment due to scheduling their interview before they were ready. It wouldn't make sense to penalize those of us who are waiting in line & want to take advantage of an earlier appointment when it becomes available. Thoughts?

Do you mean that if someone enters the country under a K1 visa & then immediately abandons the petitioner that they are free to remain in the country indefinitely? It would seem that if the beneficiary did this that they were basically lying to the government in order to enter the country illegally.

What happens if a couple marries under the K1 but does not pursue any additional adjustment of status? Does the immigrant who married the US citizen get to stay in the US indefinitely or will they be eventually asked to leave the country if an adjustment in status is not made? One of the admins should split this topic as the content & interaction is valuable but doesn't have a whole lot to do with the original topic anymore.

In the case in question, the woman falsely entered the US under the guise of a 90 day fiance visa. If she does not marry the petitioner in that 90 day time frame, she gets deported. It's pretty cut & dry when you fill out the paperwork.

I already mentioned the need to protect our country from potential criminal activity as part of the reason they need to be a part of the process. I'm not advocating the government to be completely hands off in the process but this whole thread was primarily speaking on the validity of the relationship based on subjective criteria. Subjective meaning non-quantifiable & basically at the sole discretion of a third party. In both of your mentioned cases...there likely wasn't a whole lot that the government could do to prevent those things from happening. In Case 1, the woman gets 90 days to screw around & then she'll be deported and likely banned from any future US visas. In Case 2, short of the guy being a known murderer how would the government know that he was going to potentially do this? If our government truly cared about sex trafficking, they would do far more to prevent the illegal crossings on our borders as well as more actively pursue those who are actively sex trafficking within our borders.

Isn't the K1 strictly for the purpose of marriage with the subsequent process thereafter for the purposes of immigration?

I've never seen that listed on a NOID. Yeah...I think you guys seem to be missing the point I am trying to make here. Taking things out of context is often the root of a lot of arguments & disagreements in our world today. This whole circus is being done simply because the two parties are from two different countries...one of which includes the US. If both parties were citizens of the US...the government wouldn't care one iota about any of the things they are scrutinizing over the cases in question. I could literally find any other person in our country...and as long as the two of us are in agreement & we meet all of the legal requirements (i.e., age of consent, not currently married, etc.) we could get married in a heartbeat. No one cares how often you have met before, your age difference, whether you do drugs or not, your financial situation, etc. To me...the only legitimate reasons that come to mind as to why the government should question any relationship leading to immigration into our country is for the safety of both parties in question (i.e., is either party being forced or coerced to marry...in which case the offending party should be brought up on charges), for the safety of the country (i.e., is the immigrating party a potential terrorist threat, bringing in contagious medical issues, is the immigrant a criminal, etc.), and to prevent an immigrant from becoming a financial burden to the government (which is a non-issue as we are contractually obligated to provide support for the beneficiary when we fill out the necessary forms). The numbers are alarming but hard to quantify when they don't tell you why there were denied. I'm presuming that the majority of the denied cases have a legitimate reason for their denial.