US Immigration from Philippines

10 yr GC holder, finally. Should my wife update her SS Card to remove the "Valid for work only" restriction? Does it make a difference

We received notice that the Embassy in Manila has received the documents from the NVC and we are now able to schedule the interview.

I have the instructions on how to do this but we need to wait until mid August because she has the appointment to renew her current passport.. (Current Passport has her married name on it)

Currently she is in the process of having her name changed once the divorce is recognized in the Philippines.. She was divorced in England and she will have that divorce recognised in the Philippines so that she can have only her given name on the passport.

My question is: should we wait to file the DS-160 until she has the passport with her family name on it or would we still be able to file the DS-160 with her current passport that has her married name on it.?

The notice that we received stated that we have one year to start the scheduling process for the interview from the date of this notice. (Which was June 23, 2022)

We don't want to waste time renewing the current passport if it will be unacceptable.. If that is the case we will wait until the divorce is recognized in the Philippines and file the DS-160 once she has her family name on her passport. (This process should take a few more months)

I will try to reach out to the Embassy also to see if they can help to answer this question.

Please advise and thoughts.

Thank you

We married online a while ago through Utah because we haven't heard progress on fiance visa for couple years. But then not long after marriage we got a news that embassy have received our application. I still haven't go to Philippines to meet her to consummate marriage for spouse visa. Is our fiance visa application void or still possible to receive it since our marriage hasn't consummated?

My wife is in Davao City. We want to register our marriage with the DFA so she can take the CFO class and come live with me. Per their site, we are to email all the documents to them in order to schedule an appointment (to make sure we have the correct documents, and don't waste time).

It has been about 2 weeks since our first email. Does anyone know how long it takes the DFA to respond back via email and schedule her appointment for our ROM?

Hello!

First off, a quick summary of our situation:

• We are currently both in the Philippines (Metro Manila).
• We got married via Utah County's Zoom Ceremony, as we wanted to have the certificate from the US
• We are waiting for the certified marriage certificates, but we have the digital version required for the Spousal Visa
• Now, we're trying to figure out the order of operations and steps required

The next step is to either file the Spousal Visa or the Report of Marriage at the San Fransisco Consulate. I've heard mixed things about how long the SF Consulate takes, and I've heard varying timelines for the Spousal Visa. I'm concerned that the Spousal Visa could be done before the Report of Marriage is complete and we wouldn't be able to do the CFO in time. So that'd be my first question -- should I just bite the bullet and submit the Spousal Visa application ahead of the ROM while we wait for the Apostille copy of the Marriage Certificate?

Aside from this, there are many things about the ROM itself that are confusing for someone in my situation:

1. The ROM requires the application to be notarized, with the virtual wedding requiring both spouse signatures to be notarized respectively.
2. If we are both currently in the Philippines, is it acceptable by the consulate that all notarizations on the documents are done in the Philippines, or would I have to go to the US to do all of this? I'm hoping this isn't the case as it seems rather unnecessary.
3. The requirement of a Cashier's Check or Postal Money Order as well as self-addressed Priority Mail envelope is also a hurdle if I'm in the Philippines. I could have my parents do this portion of it, or I could go the DFA route below:
4. The possibility to do all of this through the DFA would eliminate the cashier's check / postal money order as well as the envelope is intriguing, but my understanding is that this just slows the process down as the DFA sends the document to the SF Consulate ANYWAYS and reroutes it back to Manila
5. I've read conflicting information about the CENOMAR document - is this necessary? We are already married and my wife has no previous marriage.
6. I've read conflicting stories about the ROM itself -- does the CFO process require the PSA certified copy of the ROM, or will the initial copy we receive from the consulate be sufficient?
7. I have also watched some videos on YouTube (I know, not the most official sources, but there aren't many options) stating that Utah Zoom ceremonies require an extra letter NOTARIZED IN THE US stating that the Filipino citizen was not in the US at the time of the ceremony and held no US Visa - is this true? If it is, can it be notarized in the Philippines?
8. If we do go forward with the visa ahead of the ROM, would there be an issue getting the CFO stamp if we still hadn't received the certified copy / initial copy of the ROM from the consulate?

So, we're juggling some options here as well as just being overall confused about the ROM process. I know there are a ton of questions here, but from all my exploration on this forum, there's only been one or two cases similar to mine, and there are no further updates on those threads unfortunately (and they don't answer most of the questions we have), as seen in this thread as an example:

Any thoughts, information would be super helpful and appreciated. I'm going to be emailing the consulate itself, but as with a lot of PH government institutions, I don't expect much help there. I'd prefer to do everything here so that I don't have to spend more time apart from my spouse.

Thank you in advance!