W199

When I did it, it was quick and easy to get the Thai marriage certificate. And it was great to have a authentic Thai ceremony with everyone. But you do then need to do an extra step. You then just need to get a certified english translation. In the future, if you ever need a copy of the marriage that could be tricky. Likewise, to get divorce, it was trivial, we just wallked in to the the same registrar in the district office. She wrote up 1 page agreement, and then wrote down in her book that we are now divorced, and gave us a dirovce certificate. Trivial and easy.

Crazy cat was very clear. He even underlined it and use all CAPS of what you MUST do to make it valid.

It just doesn't work that way. I don't mean to be pessimistic, even though many people here will say you have a chance and have nothing to lose to try. But unfortunately, its really just pure fantasy and dreaming that she has a shot at it. They must assume by law she has a plan to immigrate and must prove by law she is innocent of that. Having no job, no travel history, and a USA bf that is going to live with during the visit will destroy any possibility of that. Her kids, your potential future plans to live there won't even come close to proving she has no immigrant intent. Yes, its cheap to try, but now she will have a visa denial on her record, and every word she says will be recorded and compared to any future visa interviews. And many people using a "service" end up getting banned for any future visas due to bogus info they put down.

It takes about 2-3 business days for the letter to go out, then about 5 days for the slow USPS to deliver it. I filed my case at end of August 2022, got my notice a few weeks ago, it was issued on Thursday, postmarked on the following Monday, then received the letter in the mail a week from Saturday. so 9 days for me. Also, I heard that will send the notice directly to your lawyer, not you. I wonder what else your lawyer did wrong to take 16.5 months? How many pages was your i-129F? In anycase, tell him other immigration lawyers, such as Hacking told you it is legal malpractice and you want 100% money back or you will sue him for punitive damages as well, report him to he Bar, and post what he did to you all over the internet and give him honest but bad reviews everywhere you can. The K-1's are speeding up now, about 50% of the people notified within 12 months of filing, and every month this slowly speeds up. You should check with the T/hai embassy by iniitiating a DS-160 .. and see how long it takes to get an interview for a K-1 vs CR-1. In Manila a K-1 interview date only takes about 3 weeks now. CR-1 are on hold You do not need to do a CR-1, you can re-file for a K-1. Since you only met her 1 time, a K-1 and a prenup might be prudent. But if you are 100% certain in this, a CR-1 does have many advantages, and a little easier to get approved at the embassy level. In the long run, a few months longer for either one is not going to be signficant and will soon be long forgotten once she is here. Just do the one that makes the most sense for you based on the pros and cons and using your head. A Thai wedding is nice, I did one a long time ago.

Also, someone called into the Hacking immigration youtube channel, and said their lawyer did the same thing, and they got denied. But their lawyer didn't even warn them. Let just say that Hacking immigration is not a company that does "free or volunteer work", but in this case that outraged Hacking and he told the caller that he will get his money back for him for free.

A lawyer has a legal code of ethics and responsibilities when they represent you. They are liable for legal malpractice if their grievous mistake causes harm to you. In this case though the lawyer did warn you that you needed to meet. It is theoretically possible that USCIS could waive the requirement if he applied for a waiver. Did he even apply for a waiver of the 2 year meeting requirement? However, he should have informed you that the chances of the waiver being approved is nearly 0%. No one is getting them approved. On one hand "Sometimes get approved" doesn't seem to imply that it happens often and you accepted the risk. On the other hand, "sometimes" is misleading as he should have said "rarely to never" do they ever approve such waivers, you should wait and meet first and have you sign a paper to state that you understand the risks and waive him of resposibility". He also should have applied for a waiver. If he didn't even apply for a waiver, and misled you and didn't advise your chances are unlikely, then it seems to be neglicance that caused harm and made you lose over a year of your life. I would ask him if he applied for a waiver, and tell him other lawyers told you they never approve them due to covid or similar reasons, and that it was legal malpractice, and you want a refund or else you will report him and file a legal malpractice case against him. Or alternatively, since he did warn you, and you paid him already, see if he will agree to fixing it for you by filing again and doing the CR-1. Was his fee a fixed fee or a deposit for the number of hours he needs to work? That 5K should include all the follow up work of doing a DS-160, I-134, interview practice ... which obviously won't happen at this point unless he fixes it. For myself, I used a paralegal Filipino agency that don't sign the form and don't take that legal liability, but they did a much better job than a specialist immigration lawyer that reviewed their work for me (via my legal plan at work). The lawyer advised a change which the paralegal said would likely result in losing 6 months of time. the agency was also much better in other subtle ways and advised differently on some matters. The agency does far more I-129F at $600 than the lawyer does for $5K ..

What do you plan to do? File again? If so, with such a basic fundamental mistake, I bet there are other more subtle issues with your petition that will result in an RFE. You may want to consider using an agency to help you this next time around. The one I used was only $600 and was invaluable and cuts through all the different opinions you will hear But there are a lot of agencies and incompetant lawyers that will also do it for you. Choose wisely.

The instructions clearly say you have to meet within 2 years to petition for a K-1 visa. COVID is not an excuse.

Then you have your answer

A soft deny would be a NOID, Notice Of Intent to Deny. But it sounds like that you are saying your case status at the USCIS case status page clearly says "Denied". If this assumption is true, then its a hard deny. You have something so severe that you are not eligible for the K-1, you can not appeal it. Did you not meet the 2 year meeting requirement? Are you or her not already have final divorce decrees from previous marriage? Are you not a USC? Do you have a criminal history against children?

Just be sure that you give them the correct document for your State. For example, in my State, the first document we get is the divorce decree signed by the judge. This basically is the approval of the divorce agreement, many pages long, that spells out the terms of the divorce.. The next document is the registrar/clerk will issue a divorce NISI certificate. This 1 page certificate certifies your divorce is approved and that it will become final in 3 months. Then 3 months later, if you go to the court house, they will give you a divorce Absolute certificate, saying your divorce is final. The latter is the correct document (for my State).

Ahh, sorry, I misunderstood. My bad. I thought you were saying they immediately said the copy was cropped so they rejected it and asked for a certified copy due to the bad copy. Plus its the USCIS on USA soil who is much better equipped and has the resources to verify the civil documents. And not even they require an original. That sure does seem to be strong proof they want the original. But I don't know how to reconciliate that with that they also immediately noticed the copy was obviously cropped off. This is also in contrast to what my agency (exclusively filipino k1/cr1 visas) said (see my previous posts). There has to be something else going on. The consul is not going to reveal their "secrets", so I don't think we'll ever find out why they requested the wet ink for some people, yet the Manila consulates official policy is accept a photocopy and per my agency, as of last week, has never had an issue with a photocopy of ALL civil documents for the petitioner at the Manila embassy. The embassy has not yet announced they have changed their policy to require original. I guess until this mystery is officially resolved by the embassy, to play it safe just send a certified copy. I probably will at this point, maybe there a rogue temp consul there, but I don't like it since one of them is very fragile, on this paper, from Thailand and not easily replaceable if lost. But USA ones are very easy to replace. You can use LBC (they have branches in USA) which is very cheap and reliable or just spend the $80 and use fedex all the way. When I use LBC, I just send to a local LBC office to be picked up by my fiancee since her Barangay is out of the delivery area and takes an extra 1-2 weeks to arrive. Fedex (a credit card) to her was no issues.

Actually, here is a quote from the first guy who got 221g in one of your examples that I contacted "It was a poor copy. The print margin very conspicuously cropped off something. My wife said the interviewing officer pointed right at the giveaway. "

Thanks for posting the cases proving that people got 221g in Manila. On one we hand, we know from multiple agencies that year after year, thousands of clients, they have never an issue with copes of the civil documents, and the Manila embassy does not specify they are required in their instructions. On the other hand you provided some real life examples of people getting rejected. But I bet is similar to USCIS rejecting hundreds of cases every month due to errors, and not due to a requirement. To investidate, I contacted one of the references you listed above. He confirmed that his photocopy got rejected not because of needing to be an original, but because it was such a poor copy, the margins were messed up, etc... He went on to explain as I did that many printshops just print the documents poorly or wrong, often on the wrong size paper, A4. I imagine once you submit a poor copy, they at that point want the original to verify rather than deal with another poor copy. For the Dimitri example, he first says he needed a wet ink, then he says the certification was wrong ... .. so which was it? The documents were direct from the court house he said, so agreed, the copy had no printing errors, allegedly just a certification error. But the certification looks perfect. And he had 2 divorce decrees from 2 different States. Its impossible that both of them were not certified properly. Basied on the ceritification, it looks to me like he submitted a copy of the divorce decree or similar document that was on file at the court. For my State, if I submitted that it would be rejected. The divorce decree is the wrong document for my State. It doesn't prove the divorce is final. A decree is the divorce agreement and approval from the judge. It does not become final for 3 months (in my State) . Then you need to go back and request the divorce absolute certificate. That certified is is only embossed by the court, not certified as a "copy on file". So my guess is that he gave the wrong divorce document, and usually when you go back to the court house requesting a dicorce certificate they know to give the certificate of absolate or final divorce and not the decree. But ok, this is only a guess, but based on the data from the agencies and thousands of clients, I am confident that there was an issue with the document or photocopy that prompted the request for a new certified copy. After seeing the low quality and wrong size printing from the best printshop in my finacee's barangay, I am not going to let her print any documents ... I'm just going to print them from high quality scans on premium paper.

Exactly, correct! The Manila embassy does request them in their requirements for the interview, only a copy, , and the Department of State does not require them to do so. Its only a formality that the embassy even looks at them. The State deparment in the USA are the ones that have the resources to verify them, and the embassy doesn't need to double check them. The only exception are some rogue embassies like Montreal and Dubai who feel they know better than USCIS. I also verified with my K1/CR1 agency, that they have done nearly 20 thousand K1/CR1 in 20 years, and the Manila embassy has NEVER asked them for originals, including upto last week. I don't know why another member says they know 6 couples in the month of July that all got 221g for their CR1/IR1 at the Manila embassy. Really? They know 6 couples all being interviewed in the Month of July, all having divorced usc petitioner at the Manila embassy and all being 221G due to not having an original divorce decree.? This seems very hard to believe .. Especially since there is not one member on this website that reported it first hand themselves and on the contrary many members saying the exact opposite (embassy has never asked for original). I don't know whats going on with these people saying its needed .. one even said ALL civiil documents must be original .. .. but at this point I would definately call this just a social media rumor and ignore it. No originals are needed and everyone needs to stop panicking and worrying about it. This goes for all documents, incuding your tax returns, I-134 etc... The other possibility, and thekey is to provide the correct divorce document, as specified in the reciprocity details on the DOS web page. Some people present the wrong document .. such as a Divorce NISI certificate instead fof the Divorce Absolute certificate. But the correct divorce document varies by State and by Country if it is a foreign country divorce (and you need it to be translated as well). If the USCIS approved it, you'd think that would be the correct document and a photocopy of the same document are at most needed.

That is interesting, I will call my Filipino K1/CR1 agency tomorrow and double check about their recent experience with CR1/IR1 interviews. But for sure, for K1, they have clients nearly every day interview and never ever had or heard of any issue.

If we are still talking about the Manila embassy, then this isn't true at all, or misleading at best. Its causing a lot of unnecessary panic and fighting in other forums. For many people, its easy to get a certified copy, but in other cases its not and this is causing so much panic. If it is true, then please provide hard data, proof, and the exact circumstances of the event instead of some authoritative sounding statement without any credentials or facts backing it up. Here are mine: 1) The Embassy falls under the DOS, as well as the NVC, and there are no rules or requirements for the consulates to REQUIRE ANY original or certified copies from the petitioner. Only the beneficiary is required to have originals for their own civil docs. 2) The USCIS in USA, before it gets to the DOS, is much better equipped to judge the validity of the civil documents, and even they don't require originals except for court documents, and so the DOS doesn't require originals at the NVC or consulate level. 3) The petitioner does not need to give the beneficiary any originals for their interview, This includes divorce certificates, court documents, I-134, tax returns, and W-2.s Again only the beneficiary's own civil documents must be original/certified 3) Some rogue consulates make up their own rules, such as Montreal, Dubai, etc.. and those do require certified copies, but not the Manila embassy. 4) Sure, of course, if at the interview, the beneficiary shows a horrible copy of any civil document, something that was printed on a ####### printer (I guess that is common in the Philippines), that is fuzzy, hard to read, looks suspicious or similar reasons, then sure they may ask to see the original. But these are rare isolated cases, and this is a very different story, and does not mean the original is REQUIRED, Its just their fault for giving such a bad copy that they forced the consulate to ask to see a certified copy. 5) The USA agency that I used for my K1 specializes in doing Filipino K-1/CR-1. I verified with them today, that literally nearly even single day since yesterday they have clients getting their interview, and they have never ever had anyone got 221g. They tell all clients to only give the beneficiary a copy, since its not required to provide an original or certified copy. 6) So .. sure, if you don't trust your fiancee to print out a clean copy, or if there is something very rare or suspicious about your certificate, then sure send her a certified copy to bullet proof it. For me, I am just sending her a high quality scanned copy on heavy weight paper to overkill it. It actually looks identical to the original including the certified stamp. In her barangay they just have cheap ink jet printers and copy paper that is as thin as rice paper. In summary, for the Manila embassy, no original or certified copies of ANY of the petitioner's civil docs are required at the embassy (even at USCIS level (except for court documents to the USCIS)) ... Sure, you can say "do this at your own risk" .. but that is just promoting unnecessary fear ... You should just say "as long as your civil document is printed normally, not fuzzy, blurred, or other printing artifcats that make it look suspicious, etc etc .. then it is absolutely not necessary. Again. my agency which has had thousands of clients over many years, as of yesterday, they have never ever heard of any such requirement and their clients have had zero issues.

Is it possible that is only for poorly scanned copies that look suspicious? Are they giving out 221G's for everyone? Are you 100% sure? If so, are they requesting it for all divorces, or just the latest one? Finally, are they keeping the certified copy or just inspecting it? My original is very old from Thailand. It would be a nightmare if I had to give up my original. Have you heard anything about court papers from the petitioner (not the beneficiary)? Before a scanned copy was alway ok too, Has that changed?

And if he told him, then his bf could get medications that would prevent the spread of HIV to him, I agree it is disgusting, sick, and cruel not to reveal this to him while having sex. I believe some people have gone to jail over this. And he should too if you knowing have HIV and having sex with someone without their consent knowing this or even the opportunity to prevent the spread of HIV to themselves through the preventative medication that is widely used for this. Its criminal, and not love. The medication to prevent catching HIV is called PreP. Its so sad you didn't give him the opportunity to take it before risking his life.

Are you sure she booked an in-person face-face appointment and not an online seminar? Are you sure she completed the registration process, ir can be a multi-step process, getting an email cofirmatiom, then clicking on it to finish the registration and get a bar coded appointment sheet with all the details

Why would you think simply to get some co-sponsor with $150K to sign a paper would magically make a family of 4 eligible? An income requirement is just one tiny piece of the requirement. In fact, that info alone is so meaningless. Many people with incomes of $150K are deep in debt with no significant disposable income. You have not said anything about this sponsor except his income. You have not even said anything about this family 4, their ages, occupation, health, and so forth. No one in the world is going to believe that this co-sponsor is going to suddenly support a family of 4, paying $2K+/month for their health insurance, plus living, food, clothing, transportation, etc etc for more than a very short time, at very best. The consulate isn't stupid, its probably obvious they will soon become a public charge, or they have a complete lack of information to determine so. Or perhaps other relatives came to the usa and became a public charge, etc..

For multiple different reasons you can't overcome, especially since she is from the Philippines and has a pending K-1, she has zero chance of getting the tourist visa. Unfortunately, it is just being delusional and it pure fantasy thinking she has a chance. It doesn't matter your excuses including the need for the K-1 to come back to Manila. You won't even get a chance to express them before they deny you after a max of 1-2 quick questions.

>:> 26F Assuming you are single, this will be strong negative >> fully fund your trip People who a relatively low income, especially compared to USA standards generally don't spend most of their life savings to make a short trip to visit their friends. So you will need far more than just being able to afford the trip such to make it OBVIOUS you have no need to work or stay in usa. >> Freelance So you job is flexible and you could adjust yourself and work in the usa >> Take chemotherapy So you are likely to find better doctors and medical care and then will want to stay in the usa, and/or have massive unpaid hospital bills >> visit relatives and friends Strong ties to the USA, and if any of them overstayed, etc... then.... :>> Documentation They don't go by documentation. They will use common sense based on the above and deny you very quickly. Then you will have a visa denial on your immigration record forever, and if you ever decide to apply for a tourist visa to a country like Canada, that will base the decision on documentation you will need to declare the denial and it will hurt your case, and possibly future usa visa interviews, depending on exactly what you say or exxagerate. And every word you said will be in your history forever. Feel free to try, but you had better be super honest as they will know if you are misrepresenting, and just know you are extremely, close to zero chance of getting a visa, unless you have major very high revenue job, house, immediate family, and it is extemely evident by your job, income, savings, that you have no reasons to stay or work in the usa. of course, thats just my opinion and based on a lot of personal experience with the usa embassy in the Philippines, so you can believe someone more optimistic than me and give it a try.

If its just for a visit visa to visit you, then why do you make this sound so urgent and so important, and want to get a lawyer involved? You can just do a zoom call or something. Why do you sound so desperate and begging for help? It is quite obvious why the embassy rightfully denied her the visa. The consular already knew the answer to the questions and was being nice to you by indirectly telling you why you are not eligible for a tourist visa.

We did the online CFO. I just checked that link, and it said "email not found" for us. Therefore it only applies for the face to face CFO.. But wow, that sure is a security hole. Maybe that is a good reason to do the online version.