Just joined! Some questions about proof of relationship and processing locations.

[MD and MA 0]

Context: I am a US citizen, residing in the US. My wife and I married last month in the Philippines. She is a Filipina OFW who has lived in Singapore for the past 20 years, working in the tech industry. We both work remotely, and decided to pursue the IR-1/CR-1 path as it will enable her to keep her job upon relocation without having to go through the lengthy wait for a work permit. She currently holds a US B1/B2 visa.

 

We are currently awaiting the PSA version of the marriage certificate to complete processing so we can continue with the process. She wanted to change her last name to mine, so we are going through all of the things she needs to do for that right now... including changing her name on her passport. We have seen that it is OK to file with her maiden name and then change during the process, but she wants to have things as buttoned-down as possible when we apply.

 

We are both older, and have no plans for children. She has never been married and has no children of her own; I am widowed and have two grown sons from my late wife.

 

We met online and after a long time talking via chat and videocalls (multiple times daily), I began visiting her there for a few months at a time. I've been there a total of three times so far (I just returned from the third/marriage trip), and plan to go back later this year and return twice per year for a few months at a time until our processing completes. As I said we are both remote so we would travel together so we have several airline itineraries, AirBnB and hotel reservations, etc. from all of our previous trips. I've met her extended family. After my second trip, she returned with me to the US using her visitor's visa. We went straight to Florida, went to Disney, then flew back to Pennsylvania so she could experience life where I live. She was here for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, we were extremely busy trying to fit in all kinds of activities during those 2 weeks and although she met my entire family, we only have a photo of us with my sister. A big, missed opportunity.

 

As she is currently living in Singapore and we don't have much in the way of co-mingling of assets yet, we are looking for different ways that we can demonstrate proof of relationship as solidly as possible. We have all of our joint travel documented on the TripIt app as well as having various physical tickets/invoices/etc that we kept as souvenirs, photos of us together in the various places we've been. A very, very lengthy record of messaging/video calls. We had a very nice wedding at a large venue with all of her family there, and we have a ton of photos and videos from there that includes interviews with each of us regarding how we met, how we knew each other was the one, etc.

 

I plan to file my 2026 taxes as "married filing separately" since I don't want to have her income be involved with the IRS until necessary.

 

She does NOT like posting anything personal on social media and has no online presence of her own... just an Instagram account where she doom-scrolls and posts photos taken as a part of her subject photography hobby... but nothing of or about her at all. She is a private person. Though I did post general travel entries on my page, I respected her wishes and kept her out of the posts... but I did post our wedding video edits to my family/friends only.

 

I figure we will need to get a lot of affidavits from friends and family.

 

So, any ideas on more things we can do to more clearly illustrate proof of relationship? We may open up a joint bank account in the Philippines using our wedding gift funds during my next trip there later this year if useful; but is having an invested joint account enough or do we have to actively pull life expenses from it and use it as our primary account?

Also, after filing we are looking into the possibility of getting her processing done in Singapore. She isn't a bona-fide Singapore "resident" by status, but is there on a perpetual work visa and is only back in PH for maybe 2 weeks per year, or when I am visiting her (much cheaper for long stays than Singapore). We aren't sure what criteria they will use to determine whether she can have her processing done where she lives versus her country of citizenship... it will be a quite an annoyance and expense to have to go back and forth on 4 hour flights, rent accommodations, etc just to go to an interview, medical exam, or whatever else she will need to do for this process... plus the Philippines is very slow with processing. Is anyone aware of the current guidance in this area, will she likely be able to have much of her processing done in Singapore? We plan to send a letter requesting the transfer of the case to Singapore.

 

Any thoughts on our situation will be greatly appreciated, and we're looking forward to this journey together!

[W199 566]

8 hours ago, MD and MA said:

Context: I am a US citizen, residing in the US. My wife and I married last month in the Philippines. She is a Filipina OFW who has lived in Singapore for the past 20 years, working in the tech industry. We both work remotely, and decided to pursue the IR-1/CR-1 path as it will enable her to keep her job upon relocation without having to go through the lengthy wait for a work permit. She currently holds a US B1/B2 visa.

 

We are currently awaiting the PSA version of the marriage certificate to complete processing so we can continue with the process. She wanted to change her last name to mine, so we are going through all of the things she needs to do for that right now... including changing her name on her passport. We have seen that it is OK to file with her maiden name and then change during the process, but she wants to have things as buttoned-down as possible when we apply.

 

We are both older, and have no plans for children. She has never been married and has no children of her own; I am widowed and have two grown sons from my late wife.

 

We met online and after a long time talking via chat and videocalls (multiple times daily), I began visiting her there for a few months at a time. I've been there a total of three times so far (I just returned from the third/marriage trip), and plan to go back later this year and return twice per year for a few months at a time until our processing completes. As I said we are both remote so we would travel together so we have several airline itineraries, AirBnB and hotel reservations, etc. from all of our previous trips. I've met her extended family. After my second trip, she returned with me to the US using her visitor's visa. We went straight to Florida, went to Disney, then flew back to Pennsylvania so she could experience life where I live. She was here for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, we were extremely busy trying to fit in all kinds of activities during those 2 weeks and although she met my entire family, we only have a photo of us with my sister. A big, missed opportunity.

 

As she is currently living in Singapore and we don't have much in the way of co-mingling of assets yet, we are looking for different ways that we can demonstrate proof of relationship as solidly as possible. We have all of our joint travel documented on the TripIt app as well as having various physical tickets/invoices/etc that we kept as souvenirs, photos of us together in the various places we've been. A very, very lengthy record of messaging/video calls. We had a very nice wedding at a large venue with all of her family there, and we have a ton of photos and videos from there that includes interviews with each of us regarding how we met, how we knew each other was the one, etc.

 

I plan to file my 2026 taxes as "married filing separately" since I don't want to have her income be involved with the IRS until necessary.

 

She does NOT like posting anything personal on social media and has no online presence of her own... just an Instagram account where she doom-scrolls and posts photos taken as a part of her subject photography hobby... but nothing of or about her at all. She is a private person. Though I did post general travel entries on my page, I respected her wishes and kept her out of the posts... but I did post our wedding video edits to my family/friends only.

 

I figure we will need to get a lot of affidavits from friends and family.

 

So, any ideas on more things we can do to more clearly illustrate proof of relationship? We may open up a joint bank account in the Philippines using our wedding gift funds during my next trip there later this year if useful; but is having an invested joint account enough or do we have to actively pull life expenses from it and use it as our primary account?

Also, after filing we are looking into the possibility of getting her processing done in Singapore. She isn't a bona-fide Singapore "resident" by status, but is there on a perpetual work visa and is only back in PH for maybe 2 weeks per year, or when I am visiting her (much cheaper for long stays than Singapore). We aren't sure what criteria they will use to determine whether she can have her processing done where she lives versus her country of citizenship... it will be a quite an annoyance and expense to have to go back and forth on 4 hour flights, rent accommodations, etc just to go to an interview, medical exam, or whatever else she will need to do for this process... plus the Philippines is very slow with processing. Is anyone aware of the current guidance in this area, will she likely be able to have much of her processing done in Singapore? We plan to send a letter requesting the transfer of the case to Singapore.

 

Any thoughts on our situation will be greatly appreciated, and we're looking forward to this journey together!

You have way more than enough evidence that your marriage is legit and eligible for the CR-1.

 

It is during the I-751 removal of conditions, to change her green card from a 2 year one to a 10 year one when you need to have the stronger evidence, such as a joint lease or home title, joint bank accounts and so forth, they don't expect you to have that at this point.

 

It will be hard for you to get a joint bank account in the Philippines since you are a non-resident. A non-resident account is very restricted, almost useless  

 

 

[pushbrk 14,409]

File with the name she intends to use going forward.  She can complete the name change and get the new passport during the process.  That it doesn't match yet at filing doesn't matter.  There is no wait for a work permit with an immigrant spouse visa. She is authorized to work upon arrival.  So, that is not an issue.

 

The most important evidence of relationship  will be passport stamps and/or boarding passes showing time spent together in the same country, and some photos from your visits.  No need to complete any laundry list of evidence categories.  Newlyweds living in separate countries are not expected to have joint bank accounts anywhere.

[pushbrk 14,409]

2 minutes ago, W199 said:

You have way more than enough evidence that your marriage is legit and eligible for the CR-1.

 

It is during the I-751 removal of conditions, to change her green card from a 2 year one to a 10 year one when you need to have the stronger evidence, such as a joint lease or home title, joint bank accounts and so forth, they don't expect you to have that at this point.

 

It will be hard for you to get a joint bank account in the Philippines since you are a non-resident. A non-resident account is very restricted, almost useless  

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, W199 said:

You have way more than enough evidence that your marriage is legit and eligible for the CR-1.

 

It is during the I-751 removal of conditions, to change her green card from a 2 year one to a 10 year one when you need to have the stronger evidence, such as a joint lease or home title, joint bank accounts and so forth, they don't expect you to have that at this point.

 

It will be hard for you to get a joint bank account in the Philippines since you are a non-resident. A non-resident account is very restricted, almost useless  

 

 

Yeah, forget about joint bank accounts until you are together in the USA.  You need to have at least applied for an ACR card in the Philippines to open a bank account.  Some banks have more strict requirements.

[MD and MA 0]

1 hour ago, W199 said:

You have way more than enough evidence that your marriage is legit and eligible for the CR-1.

 

It is during the I-751 removal of conditions, to change her green card from a 2 year one to a 10 year one when you need to have the stronger evidence, such as a joint lease or home title, joint bank accounts and so forth, they don't expect you to have that at this point.

 

It will be hard for you to get a joint bank account in the Philippines since you are a non-resident. A non-resident account is very restricted, almost useless  

 

 

 

OK this is great news and we won't worry as much. I've already added her as an authorized user on my credit card which is all that would materially help us at this point (gaining airline miles to help with travel expenses)... she doesn't actually need any money from me from day to day.

 

I own my house outright and don't have any plans on changing anything about that; hopefully that won't affect us at that time in the process? Maybe buying a car together or something?

 

We already know that with current timelines, it's entirely possible that we could end up close enough to the 2 year wedding anniversary for entry that it might make sense depending on when we get authorized for entry that we wait until the 2 year mark to enter as IR-1 and avoid that whole conditional green card thing.

 

1 hour ago, pushbrk said:

File with the name she intends to use going forward.  She can complete the name change and get the new passport during the process.  That it doesn't match yet at filing doesn't matter.  There is no wait for a work permit with an immigrant spouse visa. She is authorized to work upon arrival.  So, that is not an issue.

 

The most important evidence of relationship  will be passport stamps and/or boarding passes showing time spent together in the same country, and some photos from your visits.  No need to complete any laundry list of evidence categories.  Newlyweds living in separate countries are not expected to have joint bank accounts anywhere.

 

Interesting, so we really just would need to wait until we get the PSA marriage certificate to file and not all the passport stuff. That could help the timeline for sure.

 

Yeah the ability to work on arrival was the main consideration when we decided to do the CR-1/IR-1 path versus the K-1 visa.

 

 

We were just kind of disappointed that we neglected to get photos with my family when she was here in the US with me. Since she can only take off 2 weeks at one time at her job, it's not worth it for her to visit again for only 2 weeks. By the time she gets adjusted to the jetlag, it'll be time for her to return to Singapore again... with another case of jetlag. :-) I'll have more trips over to see her though in the meantime so I'm glad to hear that's the most important thing.

 

[W199 566]

BTW,  I am a USC and was able to open a bank account in the Philippines from the USA, without needing to even step foot in the Philippines. all without an ACR card, and not even married at the time. The bank even sent me by FEDEX the security dongle and ATM cards. This was all free too.

 

The catch is that it was a non-resident account with a lot of restrictions. But it is perfect to do instant transfer to it from USA, and then transfer money elsewhere in the Philippines using pesonet. Its not allowed to do the reverse, unless its USD.  LOL, almost like a one-way account. I like that I can get a better exchange rate than using WU or Xoom, and the safety net that it provides when I travel there.  The account will lend me upto $10K in emergency money even if my balance is near zero. 

 

[W199 566]

2 hours ago, MD and MA said:

 

 

I own my house outright and don't have any plans on changing anything about that; hopefully that won't affect us at that time in the process? Maybe buying a car together or something?

 

 

In about ~3 years from now, when you file the I-751 90 days before her 2 year green card expires, then you should change the house to joint names.   I know someone who was rejected because they didn't do that. But after they did, they got it approved.  For myself, I changed the house and car to joint names to assure everything goes smoothly for the I-751. You could also do a postnup if you feel uncomfortable it or move it into a trust later. 

 

As far as loosing ownership rights, It really doesn't matter much in my State due to marital and estate/inheritance laws that override wills and such,. unless its in a irrevocable trust.

 

[W199 566]

2 hours ago, MD and MA said:

 

We already know that with current timelines, it's entirely possible that we could end up close enough to the 2 year wedding anniversary for entry that it might make sense depending on when we get authorized for entry that we wait until the 2 year mark to enter as IR-1 and avoid that whole conditional green card thing.

 

That would be very nice to come in on an IR-1 instead of a CR-1.    Given how slow the Philippines can be in giving you your PSA, that may be a good plan, even if you needed to stretch it out a few months.