Advice on what Documents needed to smoothly immigrate to the U.S, petitioned by a U.S citizen Spouse

[Andrew&Vangie 1]

Greetings! First of all i would like to introduce myself, I am Andrew. In 2013 of last year ( right before the typhoon Yolanda hit my Wife's hometown, Baybay City,Leyte). We married, and are going on now about into our nine mth I had to leave due to not financially funding an extention on a tourist visa and now i am back in the states. Which is why i joined this forum. Yes, i am not a immigrant, but my Wife (a Filipina) is. We miss each other so much and suffer the distance like the rest of you. I lived and traveled to many places, Manila, Cebu, and Tacloban. My stay was extended for up to three months. I had planned to live and reside with my Wife but i failed to save enough for the one requirement needed, a bank acct with funds to prove i am not a financial burden. So i bring you up-to-date, I am now here in the U.S and she is in Manila. We are collecting the documents needed.

I have joined this forum to journalize my process for you all so that you too can get an idea of the documenting, process, and filing fees for your conveinance. The following is a recap of all i have collected and what we have paid a fee on.

January 2014. I had my Wife and her child, whom i have not legally adopted yet, travel by bus to Manila. Documents she had with her at this point in time:

Wife's Civil registry Birth Cert. (short form) 400P

Daughter's Civil registry Birth Cert (short form) 400P

Our Marriage Certificate Civil registry (not NSO) 1500P

Postal Id 500P

As of May 2014. She collected the following from the offices in Manila required for her passports. We ran into a road block when we found out her postal id wasn't a valid photo id requirement for her Philippine's Passport. And we had to re-process her postal into her new last name from her maiden name. Why then do we need a new postal id? Read on and You'll find out.

National Statistics Office of the Philippines in Manila:

Birth Certificate of Wife (NSO) * warning...make sure its a "Long Form" not "Short Form" 550P

Birth Certificate of daughter (1yrs old) (NSO) * "Long Form " 550P

Marriage Certificate NSO 650P

NBI (National Police Clearance) 150P

New Postal id 855P

Ok. So it is May 9th as i write this, our next step is to get the passports. From reading the passport website, we need one PRIMARY PHOTO id from a list which they provided and three SUPPORTIVE IDs from another list. We have two supportive docs already, NBI, the NSO's. We need now the Following to move to the next step..Passport processing:

Barangay Clearance 200P

Digitized SSS id 5000P

To get the Barangay we can use the new Postal Id she has. Getting the Digitized SSS id is going to be our next challenge because we don't know what is in front of us on that, not knowing how long it is going to take. She has no other Photo ids besides her Postal and the Passport office and website won't take a Postal for a Primary id, at least this is what we have been told.

So that is about it for now on our process on getting our documents ready for her immigrant visa to the United States. On the Visa side, i am deeply reading and attempting to find answers of about how our marriage will be authenticated. What i meant by this, is that i had heard if your marriage to a alien is less than 6mths, the visa processing may or may not legitimize out marriage as valid. So i am searching and asking questions about what other documents or proof i can provide to further make our marriage valid. To those who have gone through this simular process on how i should validate our marriage further as proof indeed that we are married, please comment. I know this is a long read, but i wanted to help others and i hope you find this useful for reuniting with your Relative or Spouse. I know far too well the how distance and missing of those you love can be. So be sure to check out my future posts here as i go through this process! Next post, we tackle the SSS id and Barangay Clearance, i hope all goes well wish me luck!

Andrew.W

[amuna0526 11]

Good luck

[maritoni 3]

Greetings! First of all i would like to introduce myself, I am Andrew. In 2013 of last year ( right before the typhoon Yolanda hit my Wife's hometown, Baybay City,Leyte). We married, and are going on now about into our nine mth I had to leave due to not financially funding an extention on a tourist visa and now i am back in the states. Which is why i joined this forum. Yes, i am not a immigrant, but my Wife (a Filipina) is. We miss each other so much and suffer the distance like the rest of you. I lived and traveled to many places, Manila, Cebu, and Tacloban. My stay was extended for up to three months. I had planned to live and reside with my Wife but i failed to save enough for the one requirement needed, a bank acct with funds to prove i am not a financial burden. So i bring you up-to-date, I am now here in the U.S and she is in Manila. We are collecting the documents needed.

I have joined this forum to journalize my process for you all so that you too can get an idea of the documenting, process, and filing fees for your conveinance. The following is a recap of all i have collected and what we have paid a fee on.

January 2014. I had my Wife and her child, whom i have not legally adopted yet, travel by bus to Manila. Documents she had with her at this point in time:

Wife's Civil registry Birth Cert. (short form) 400P

Daughter's Civil registry Birth Cert (short form) 400P

Our Marriage Certificate Civil registry (not NSO) 1500P

Postal Id 500P

As of May 2014. She collected the following from the offices in Manila required for her passports. We ran into a road block when we found out her postal id wasn't a valid photo id requirement for her Philippine's Passport. And we had to re-process her postal into her new last name from her maiden name. Why then do we need a new postal id? Read on and You'll find out.

National Statistics Office of the Philippines in Manila:

Birth Certificate of Wife (NSO) * warning...make sure its a "Long Form" not "Short Form" 550P

Birth Certificate of daughter (1yrs old) (NSO) * "Long Form " 550P

Marriage Certificate NSO 650P

NBI (National Police Clearance) 150P

New Postal id 855P

Ok. So it is May 9th as i write this, our next step is to get the passports. From reading the passport website, we need one PRIMARY PHOTO id from a list which they provided and three SUPPORTIVE IDs from another list. We have two supportive docs already, NBI, the NSO's. We need now the Following to move to the next step..Passport processing:

Barangay Clearance 200P

Digitized SSS id 5000P

To get the Barangay we can use the new Postal Id she has. Getting the Digitized SSS id is going to be our next challenge because we don't know what is in front of us on that, not knowing how long it is going to take. She has no other Photo ids besides her Postal and the Passport office and website won't take a Postal for a Primary id, at least this is what we have been told.

So that is about it for now on our process on getting our documents ready for her immigrant visa to the United States. On the Visa side, i am deeply reading and attempting to find answers of about how our marriage will be authenticated. What i meant by this, is that i had heard if your marriage to a alien is less than 6mths, the visa processing may or may not legitimize out marriage as valid. So i am searching and asking questions about what other documents or proof i can provide to further make our marriage valid. To those who have gone through this simular process on how i should validate our marriage further as proof indeed that we are married, please comment. I know this is a long read, but i wanted to help others and i hope you find this useful for reuniting with your Relative or Spouse. I know far too well the how distance and missing of those you love can be. So be sure to check out my future posts here as i go through this process! Next post, we tackle the SSS id and Barangay Clearance, i hope all goes well wish me luck!

Andrew.W

Hi there,we have gone through the same situation as you and your wife here's the lists of Accepted Id's for new passport applicants.

For spouse of foreign national:

• Marriage Contract (MC) in Security Paper (SECPA) issued by the National Statistics Office (NSO) or Certified True Copy (CTC) of MC issued by the Local Civil Registrar (LCR) and duly authenticated by NSO. Transcribed Marriage Contract from the LCR is required when entries in NSO Marriage Contract are blurred or unreadable.
• Report of Marriage duly authenticated by NSO if married abroad
• Original and photocopy of Commission of Filipino Overseas (CFO) Guidance and Counseling Certificate of Attendance (required for first time applicants or renewal of passport to be used for the first time the surname of the husband)

LIST OF ACCEPTABLE IDS (At least 1 of the following):

• Government-issued picture IDs such as the following:
  • Digitized SSS ID
  • Driver’s License
  • GSIS E-card
  • PRC ID
  • IBP ID
  • OWWA ID
  • Digitized BIR ID
  • Senior Citizen’s ID
• Other acceptable picture IDs such as the following:
  • Old College ID
  • Alumni ID
  • Old Employment IDs

LIST OF SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS (At least 3 of the following):

• Voter’s ID
• NSO Marriage Contract
• Land Title
• Seaman’s Book
• Elementary or High School Form 137 or Transcript of Records with readable dry seal
• Government Service Record
• NBI Clearance
• Police Clearance
• Barangay Clearance
• Old documents issued at least one year prior to date of application that show correct name, date and place of birth, picture and signature of applicant such as the following:

• • NSO Birth Certificate of child / children
  • SSS-E1 Form or Microfilmed Copy of SSS-E1 Form
  • Income Tax Return
  • Voter’s Certification, List of Voters and Voter’s Registration Record (for newly issued VRR, please attach receipt)
  • School Yearbook
  • Community Tax Certificate
• Good luck on your Visa journey...

[Andrew&Vangie 1]

Thanks Maritoni, yup. When my Wife picked up Marriage NSO certificate, i was wondering if it was on Security Paper (SECPA). LoL She mentioned to me "Babe...its from the National Statistics office..lol..its got it.." I guess i'm overly excited or worrying if its the right document or not. Also on the NBI. It states to have a personal letter from the NBI stating why she has no criminal record. Just wondering if your NBI cert was enough without a letter..

[pushbrk 13,663]

Start by clicking on the word Guides at the top of any page here.

If you are legally married in the Philippines, you are "married", PERIOD. No "authentication" is needed except your NSO marriage certificate. By "PERIOD", I mean you a married everywhere and anywhere you live or travel.

Edited May 10, 2014 by pushbrk

[Andrew&Vangie 1]

Thanks Pushbrk, I will look at these guides you are speaking of. I've read somewhere about how people abuse the visa process by getting married to live in the USA and we are not one of them. I was just wondering if this alone would be enough to validate our union. We married in Sept 19 2013, we've been married now and conversing on facebook for 7mths. We met online in 2013 of January and talked online FB for 8mths. I then flew to Manila to meet her...lived there on an extended tourist visa for three months and then married I'm now wondering if our meeting online and marrying in such a short time will be valid enough to prove our union. We have her Parents and mine as witnesses of our correspondence and marriage plus pictures of us with the Judge at the civil registry in her province where we married at. And lastly receipts from myself and my U.S parents sending money to financially help her and our daughter (Step Daughter), who i will be adopting when we are ready and researched on it.

[pushbrk 13,663]

Your marriage is legal and lawful, whether your visa is approved or not. Those are two separate issues. You need a petition approved, then a visa approved and issued. You don't need any kind of authentication or validation of your marriage.