W199

Fantastic list.. Just in case they lost the lease, I would enclose another copy. I’d enclose a narrative and paint a picture of your life together and your love story. Also, enclose a cover letter with the list of items you are enclosing.

I’m not 100% sure, but technically if you do the Utah wedding while in Vietnam, it wouldn’t be considered a proxy marriage, plus you’d have more evidence her family was present for the marriage. Both would make a stronger case. You don’t seem to have any obvious other red flags, unless your fiancee has some, so I don’t see an issue. USCiS accepts it as an legitimate marriage. Check if Vietnam itself would accept your marriage certificate. There was a point in time when the Philippines government would not accept it but that went to court and now it’s settled and now Philippines accepts it. Perhaps one way to check is to call the Vietnamese embassy and see what they say. If Vietnam accepts, and the USA accepts, then I can’t see why the embassy wouldn’t. Or you can just file for K1 Visa today no need to wait to go there and consummate the marriage. All your local friends and family can attend a real live wedding.

At least in my State, the laws of intestecy say that even if your Spouse leaves everything to someone else in their Will, then as a Spouse you can just ask the court to void that part of the Will. In my State, the spouse has the full right to everything regardless of what is said in the Will, unless they waive that right in a pre or post nup agreement. I'm not sure if that law applies to beneficiary as opposed to a Will, but you'd think so. Likewise for a workplace 401K, you can not change the beneficiary to anyone else but your Spouse unless they waive the right.

I would imagine it is just 1 piece of the puzzle. What are all the other puzzle pieces that make the full picture? How did you meet? Have you met face to face yet, do you have any Vietnamese ancestry in you that could hint being a relative, how many times have you met, how many times do you plan to meet after getting married, why do you want to do a proxy wedding, why not just do the Utah wedding while in Vietnam together with her, assuming there is some issue with getting married in Vietnam, and why not just do a local wedding with her and her family? The embassy will look at the big picture and your unique circumstances in light of the customs there ... Even if you get married there, all the above apply.

I can't see how having lazy uneducated immigrants who didn't want to study for an easy test and didn't care or know anything about the USA government would be a benefit for the government. If you want to become a USA citizen you should at least know something about the USA. Its not asking too much. There are enough ignorant or misinformed people writing misleading articles and spreading misinformation, we don't need more. It boggles my mind why you would even suggest that. People write rhetoric about the world being flat too, and about every other crazy thing.

Confused, what do you mean by "it wasn't required"? You are required to provide a copy of all previous divorce and death certificates , not just the most recent one, in the I-129F petition. USCIS on State side needs to assess your legal status to re-marry. Did you hide that divorce in the I-129F petition?

Especially since she has a daughter .

Your USA spouse can choose for you, his non-resident alien spouse, to be treated as a US resident for the purposes of filing taxes as married filed jointly. This will get him a lot of tax breaks and a lower tax bracket. That is generally what I would do, as mostly likely the total taxes that both will end up paying will be less than him filing married seperately. However, since you are working, whether or not this will save money is very complicated, and you need do both your and his taxes each way to see which will be more favorable to you. Turbotax makes this pretty easy forthe USA. Though, seeing a tax accountant may be a wise choice if you are not familar with the details of eveything involved on both sides. There may be other conditions put on him if he elects to treat you as a USA resident for the purpose of taxes. There may be another for him to, filing as head of household, that can save money. But I am not 100% sure. The above applies to this too.

Even foreigners living overseas can open up a US bank account. But this heavily varies by bank. You will need to get an ITIN number for her if she does not yet have a SSN yet. Why don't you just go to your local banks and ask them for the requirements for her to open it up?

They are .. but it takes millions and millions of dollars and time to study and figure out how and where to best apply technology, develop and review the algorithms, design, test, and support. And they have a LOT of different processes that need to be improved. They are also studying what parts of the adjudcaton review and paperwork are a waste of time and never lead to denials so they can be more efficient. Right now, you can't even file a I-129F K-1 online .. its all done by paper. They are working on things like that. USCIS is funded by the application fees. You can look at their budget. Its very hard to increase the fees to support more staff and development. But they have finally recently increased fees quite a bit inorder to get funding to hire more people and develop more technology. So I think it will be limited by their budget and managmenet. If everyone is screaming at you to adjudicate faster, immediately, without years of HW development, you are probably going to hire more staff and then slowly phase in the technology when things cool down .. Maybe someday the IRS will too .. their computer technology is more primitive and full of patches than you could even imagine. Priorities and budget ....

Since you legally divorced your 1st husband after you married your 2nd husband, your 2nd marriage is not valid. That is a common and valid legal reason for getting an annulment so that should be easy. Just get a divorce lawyer to represent both of you in court to make it easier for the judge and you. Then with the annulment you can reply to the RFE. You better hurry because the RFE response time limit will run out soon ...

is this family member overseas and traveling to USA, or are they in USA and traveling overseas to the funeral? Which Country?

My fiancee just had her interview at USEM, just 60 days after the NOA2. She said they did NOT ask for the original/certified/wet ink copy of my divorce certificates. A copy was fine. She did't see or hear of anyone else needing to submit certified copies either. She didn't even give the "decree", she just gave a copy of the single printed page printed by the court that was a certificate of the divorce, saying it was final and on file at the court in lieu of the decree. In fact, they didn't even ask for my I-134, or any supporting documents like the tax transcripts, or even a copy of court papers. However, the 1st screener spent a long time to ask her many many trivial questions like what is your mother's name, etc.. why did you wait so long to get engaged, .. Out of her group of 25, only one got 221g for an "expired" NBI Like others said .. do not overthink it . like we did .. Approved.

That info is so inaccurate .. There is a website that has very detailed daily tracking and statistics of all the cases, as well as predictions based on the rate that they are plowing through the backlog. If you filed 10 months ago, you have a 50% chance of being approved now .. .. I didn't look but I assume that quote on 6 months is a projected time based on how fast they are clearing the backlog. However, it sounds a bit aggressive. The last I had checked they were clearing about a week or so of backlog every month ..so in 4 months they would be 1 month fast .. so 9 months .. in 8 months .. 8 months .. etc .. so 6 might be possible .. but its a little aggressive or unopredictable

I don't know about 20 years ago, but when I did it 26 years ago, the I-129F approval took 3 months, then a couple of months maybe for the interview. I think the CR-1 was taking about 14 months at that time.

Yeah, until the delays return back to how it was 20 years ago when K-1's took a fraction of the time than CR-1's took, the decision between doing a K-1 vs a CR-1 are based on unique personal or special circumstances of the couple rather than a general statement as to which is better. Unfortunately, that can be complicated and many do not appreciate the impact that the pros and cons will have on them or think it through. Hence, the ones that choose K-1 for no other reason except it might be a little faster are more likely to regret it. Though that guy whose CR-1 got refused for misrepresentation might be regretting switching to a CR-1 if his waiver gets refused, which is more likely than not based on what Hacking said. Let's see...

Sounds like the lawyer scammed you. Did he factor in how much time it will before you can go back, how much time it takes to get marriage license, and the many months it takes to get a marriage certificate in the Philippines? Did he advise you of the Utah wedding which would be much faster? Did he advise you the impact to your life, getting a prenup, and many other things that would be impacted by getting married abroad, or in the immigration process? And every immigration lawyer I talked to offered this info in a free initial consult, certainly not for $250. I also found most of their advice wrong and not specific to the Philippines. Thats why I ended up using an agency that does exclusively Filipino k-1 and cr1 and knows all the subtle tricks and issues with the Manila process (saved up months of delay) ... to do my K-1 and advise me about the issues of marrying in the Philippines .. all for a fraction of the price the lawyer's charge.

Agreed, in the long run, the few months, or even a couple of years delay is going to an insignificant drop in the bucket and long forgotten after being married. In fact, I'll bet that in years to come many people will have wished it took longer and they had more time to be single. Except if babies, kids or unborn babies are involved, then time could be a very high priority for some.

@Crazy CatThe K-1 timelines you posted for the Philippines show An average of about 12-13 months from NOA1 to NOA2. USCIS has already sped on K-1;s, As of today, it is currently 10-11 months for about 50% of the cases. More importantly, all those cases show 4-5 months from NOA2 to the interview date. My fiancee is just 2 months from the NOA2 to interview at the Manila embassy,. We could have done it even faster if we wanted. The USEM has added Filipino consuls to do the final interview at the embassy (after the initial screening interview), and keeps opening up new and earlier appointments. Last week a ton of them opened up from Monday-Wed. Instead of the usual Tuesday. Must be because of the added Filipino consuls and speeding the process up. Therefore, I think the numbers in those timelines are 2-4 months longer than what 50% of the new K-1's that apply today will see if, and this is a big if, they don't mess up their I-129F (my filipino agency was a big factor in my case for making it go fast), and don't get confused by when you can start booking appointments for medical and the interview .. most people here do it later than what is really necessary for Manila. In fact, my only problem with the K-1, is I had to keep rebooking my plane tickets. twice. to make them sooner and sooner because the process keeps speeding up I was predicting February originally based on the timelines. Now it is end of October, Also I lost 3 weeks because I forgot about something leading me to need to do IMBRA waiver. If it wasn't for that, I'd be 3 weeks faster

Not bad, I got locked out for exactly 72 hours just for refreshing the appointment calendar a few times.

Now that you mentioned it, I just looked at my fiancee's copy, and it had the same crazy formatting. I doubt they are even going to take the time to even read it, esp for a K-1.

In my State, I don't need to get a SSN to add my wife to my health insurance, nor is it required for driver's license (though a denial letter might be needed). Therefore, I am just going to wait until after getting married, get an ITIN for her for taxes and bank accounts. I don't want to deal with going to the SSA office to change the name on the SSA card after marriage or after the work authotization done since there is no need for the SSN in my State. But some States are do need it .. so ... The SSA office near me is always very crowded and not a pleasant place to go to, hence I am avoiding it as necessary

The CFO was trivial for my fiancee. They interviewed her for about 10 seconds on the phone and said since you are doing the K1, and the embassy will check all your documents, we don't have to. Your CFO is approved, No need to supply any thing except my passport. That being said, I heard recently that the CFO is starting to go crazy again and ask for unnecessary documents that are not needed, and you need to push back.

The truth

Strictly FYI: Regarding the topic of a legal name change in this thread, if you google There Is No Such Thing As A “Legal Name” then you will come to an article at "Columbia Law Human Rights Group" with a downlink link to a PDF paper that discusses this extensively, along with so called USCIS Legal name requirements. It is a very interesting paper