spicynujac

Over 3 years after the US withdrawal and Taliban victory, It's much more likely these are relatives of Afghanis already living in the USA, or what Americans informally call "chain migration." The linked article states there are many children, which would corroborate this. However, it also states the Afghans are receiving visas with a maximum stay of 59 days which makes little sense. Hundreds of women and children on holiday in America in January during record low freezes? Either there are some factual errors in the reporting or something else is going on. The news was reported in a number of places, including domestic media like the Washington Post, so I'd imagine these are permanent immigrant families. If they are indeed issued short term visas, it's probably just a formality or faster way of getting them permanent status once they are physically in the US. The choice of Manila is bizarre. One can only speculate. But it wouldn't surprise me if the BongoBongo regime has become the nearest "American friendly" territory to process the visas.

Thankfully the I-485 with the huge fee is for fiance visas only We are IR1.

Surprisingly I can't find this answer in the forums or elsewhere online. How does one sign on the spouse signature line of a joint US tax return? I am including a signed application for IRS tax number, signed statement by both spouses selecting US tax residency, and Form 2848 which authorizes me to sign for my wife but WHAT NAME do I write on the tax return? hers or mine? My tax preparer thought I should sign my name on both lines, but I wanted to make sure. Since we are approaching April 15, I don't really have time for mistakes!

Are you retiring through Social Security in July? If so can you provide the amount of your monthly payout? If not, you must qualify based on assets alone. It's not as straightforward or simple, but it's done all the time. As a former loan officer, assets never meant nearly as much to us as income--assets can come and go, be spent, garnished, levied, wasted, invested poorly, gambled, depleted, or even stolen, but an income stream is a stable prediction of future ability to pay. One can have $80,000 in an account today, and go out and buy an $80,000 car tomorrow and have no money. The US Treasury generally doesn't even tax or track assets, only income. But that is merely to say that income is the *preferred* and most secure method of proving ability to pay. Proving ability to live off assets is not a terribly hard barrier to overcome, particularly for retirees. In fact, that's typically the only way many retirees have of proving wealth, and it's a common element of many retirement visas in foreign countries, and is done every day. Based on what you have posted, it seems you are financially qualified based on assets. The only issue is providing the documentation requested (cash account, proof of account ownership, etc. based on the immigration rules). Rejections could be for a number of reasons. I had a tax return rejected because it was missing ONE schedule from the dozens of pages of the return. The contents of the schedule didn't affect my income threshold at all. My income alone was well above the qualifying limit, but because I didn't include some obscure schedule (I dont remember--like a $25 stock dividend payment or something silly--which I didn't even need to prove minimum income--the form was rejected. I finally uploaded all the schedules (twice--it was rejected the second time!!) and was accepted in the end. I could have freaked out and said "WHY are they REJECTING me in proving my INCOME! I have PLENTY of INCOME" but that wasn't the issue at all... they just required ALL schedules and unless I had all schedules the fact that my salary alone qualified me easily didn't matter. So it's likely those who were rejected didn't follow the rules. Just follow the rules fully and make sure you are proving the ability to support based on assets as they have described in the instructions, not just showing a number in a bank account balance.

Thanks all. We decided to just do 2 separate trips to Manila. With the insanely cheap airfares from Cebu to Manila ($64 round trip and even lower if we had planned more in advance), it's cheaper to do 2 trips there instead of spending a weekend in a hotel room waiting for the medical results to be issued. So we will have the medical tests done several weeks before the interview, and then she can focus on just doing the interview and maybe some sightseeing and celebration in Manila on the second trip (she is excited and has never been to Manila before--at least the Embassy is by Rizal Park with a lot of museums and attractions--I don't care for Manila one iota personally). I told her she could have the gross sugary Jollibee spaghetti that's right there in the park haha. Hard to believe we are this close! And also hard to believe St Lukes charges a tarsier hair's shy of $500 for a flippin medical exam! I thought US medical costs were insane! That's a very significant component of the whole visa cost (which I've been tabulating: FYI $1469 in fees only, excluding travel or costs obtaining documents, and I believe there is one final green card type payment (USCIS Immigrant Fee of $220?) to go. So any new applicants count on about $1,700 as a starting point for what you will have to cough up going forward. Thankfully my tax preparer called today and I should get at least that much back in a tax refund from filing an amended married joint return last year! Another big benefit of the IR1 visa IMHO. I honestly cannot see how someone could complete this process alone without the fantastic (not to mention prompt) help from the VJ community. I suppose I still could have done it but it may have taken an extra year and duplicative trips and hundreds more $$ as I figured things out on my own because the official instructions and documentation for the process are abysmally poor (and in some cases nonexistent!). Thanks to all, especially those who have successfully made it through and stick around to help others !!! Blessings on you all.

In looking at the St Luke calendar today, you could even book same day appointments for later this afternoon (though only 2 were available). So as long as you are scheduling a week or so in advance, you should have your choice of time slots.

We've found midnight Philippines time is the best time to schedule (it's worked 3 different times when there was nothing available at other times). Don't beat yourself up logging in multiple times per day. There are either free spots or there aren't. We checked once per day, waiting on them to open up March spots (February has been available but we wanted better scheduling with back-to-back biometrics and interview, while the February calendar didn't allow that. And March spots became available today. It's really annoying that they won't show you the more rare interview spots until after you already book the biometric time. Because this often leads you with huge gaps between them which I'm sure leads to a lot of cancellations like we did. And let me just add that forcing you to go to two different places on 2 different days is NOT helping (they sold the second facility as something to make the process go smoother lol) FYI We were just able to schedule for March a few hours ago (Midnight / morning of Jan 16th). Yes we have scheduled after cancelling. The site is very confusing but I believe you have to "CLOSE" your application, and then it gives you a scary message that kind of sounds like you are cancelling the whole visa process but you are supposed to answer yes and then you start over again. You have to re-enter a lot of your info like passport #, address to mail passport, etc. but it saved some of the info and then takes you to the scheduling screen. Or if you haven't yet cancelled your dates you may be able to select "reschedule" instead of "close" and then "start new." Then it is sort of Russian Roulette--sometimes it will allow you to complete the process after showing you the calendar of dates, other times it looks like you have picked a slot and then it pops up a window "you are not allowed to schedule now." Haha it's truly a ridiculous site. By the way I should probably post a new question but is doing the medical exam on day 1, interview on day 2 ok or do you need to allow more time? (Biometrics is on Monday AM, Medical exam Monday PM, Interview Tuesday AM). I think my spouse will need some vaccines as she can't find a vaccine card for anything other than Covid-19 so from what I've read that means you need to come back the following day for vaccines, so can that be done after the embassy interview or do you have to have all the medical checks done first? Hoping to avoid having to stay over a weekend but will do that if it's needed.

EDIT: The only proof of relationship we had to provide were some photos and boarding passes from time we spent together, which were uploaded at the very beginning of the process when we submitted our I-130 form. And then the original marriage certificate in person at the embassy interview. The next time we anticipate interacting with US immigration (after Port of Entry) is when we apply for citizenship. With the marital visa, the proving of the relationship is done on the front end, before entry to the USA. Once she's your wife, unless there are reasons to suspect fraud, that is not typically questioned again.

Correct. ??? No, they are not the same, as you indicated above. The Adjustment of Status process is indeed onerous and expensive, and it's one of the drawbacks of K1 vs CR1/IR1. Your question is confusing. You seem to understand that CR1 holders avoid Adjustment of Status but then ask if it is the same process you go through as a K1 fiance visa holder? That's why many are scratching their heads. If you have a friend and don't want him to go through the Adjustment of Status headache, advise him to marry and go the CR1/IR1 route. Wife gets green card upon entry, and can immediately travel out of the country if she wants. There is no "status" to "adjust." There *IS* an "AOS" related to a marital visa, but that is an Affadavit Of Support (one reason I dislike using acronyms). Maybe this is causing the confusion? Affadavit of Support is proof of income, showing that you can financially support increasing your family size. It is filed after your I-130 is approved before your visa interview at the embassy, along with a fee of $120. But there is no Adjustment Of Status.

Generally, one should not take relationship advice from strangers on the internet. However, in this case, it is not likely that many of your friends and family have been able to meet your foreign partner. I used to work for a rather popular men's publication. And what I say here is not from any sort of position of a relationship expert, but merely one who has heard countless stories from other men, far beyond what my personal life experiences have given me. It is often only in hindsight we can see red flags or relationship problems in the women we are emotionally attached to. Lying to obtain money from your partner is a big one. The Philippines is FULL of sweet, honest, loyal, trustworthy, Godfearing women. Go find one. Unless this girl is extremely young, this type of behavior is a moral failing that is going to cause you lots of problems in the future. (FYI The other recurring theme I noticed in my time at that publication is that men often failed to take good relationship advice when it was offered.)

Curious if anyone has used LBC or a similar carrier for luggage shipment. I tried the general forums here, but found nothing recent. I'm looking for a reasonably priced service to ship a large bag or two full of my wife's things in her move to the USA. We don't want to lug them around during our honeymoon, and we also don't want to fly back to PHL to get them after the honeymoon, but hope to ship them and have them waiting at home for us in the USA afterwards. I've found the following: Mybaggage.com $248 up to 20 kg $323 up to 30 kg 4 days Luggageforward.com $269 11 kg $489 22 kg 7 business days DHL - maybe I entered something wrong but was getting $1,000 The LBC website gives me an error when I try to quote. Time isn't an issue. It could be sea freight or air. I guess the reasonable thing would be to honeymoon in the Philippines but we are hoping to celebrate big in one of the neighboring countries and then head to the USA together

What is the actual document you get back after 6 months? After 7 months (our form was still not processed after 5!) I ordered a marriage certificate from PSA online and it came back with just the same ROM form we filled out, with an official stamp. I thought we would be getting a new document, similar to a marriage certificate (PSA advisory on marriage?) Is this filed and stamped ROM ok to bring to the US embassy? Is it sufficient for applying for a PH passport with married name change?

We were able to find a free spot within a week of trying. They seem to schedule interviews for a 30 day advance period, so I would expect after Jan 1 you will have some options for scheduling in February. Whenever they release new spots (once a week?) you can easily grab them. It's a bit scary when they give you access to the site and then you can't book, but that's normal for the PH embassy They give you access to the site in a mass approval with a bunch of other people (which they inexplicably call "expediting" but it really just means scheduling) but don't add available booking dates into the website until later. It will tell you "no dates available" for several days and then once the embassy releases the next week of slots, you will be free to book them (and there are many, many free slots each day so don't worry). We just checked once a day until the bookings were available. We had several choices of dates, and each day had dozens of spaces left. Just pay attention because it's confusing, you book the biometrics and the interview separately and it is NOT clear what you are doing until you've completed it. They use some vague abbreviation like "VAC appointment" and then change that in the next screen to read something else in fine print without telling you these are 2 separate actions. It never explains you will be booking 2 separate dates so we had to cancel ours afterwards because we booked them 4 days apart without understanding we were booking 2 different things. You are booking fingerprinting in one location and in person interview on Roxas Blvd, in the same website action. Due to the holidays, you might have to try for more than a week until there are free spots, but they should be there soon. You are almost there!

As someone who did the research in advance here, and went the spousal route, I've seen DOZENS of cases where the couple wished in hindsight they went with spousal visa. I've never seen one who wished they went fiance visa. There are some cases where a fiance visa makes sense (I believe when adopting your wife's children from a prior relationship) but otherwise spousal visa is cheaper, easier, better, and about the same amount of time. We are days from the final step/ embassy interview, and I can't stress enough how nice it will be to avoid further interactions and payments with US Immigration (this goes on for years and is currently at least a thousand more dollars, assuming they don't raise any fees before you are done, with fiance visa)! The only thing that's changed since we made our decision is that with the upcoming US administration, we are very happy to be bringing a *family member* to the states, vs bringing in an unrelated immigrant... perhaps (probably) nothing will change with border admissions, but it's a superior position to be in if things do. If you're already there, together? You could file for spousal visa in a week if you do the Utah video marriage. If you are physically together, and know you want to marry, why keep her in the fiance zone? (You cannot marry until she is admitted to the US if you go that route).

So in a few days, we will be unable to reschedule online and are stuck with the dates we picked (unless we cross our fingers and call)? We only grabbed some dates to have SOMETHING on the calendar but right now we have a 4 day gap between our appointments which we don't plan on keeping if possible. I'd be nervous just relying on the word of someone in Manila over the phone that they changed our date and time.... Good grief!