US Immigration from Philippines

My wife has become a USC in 2019 and we have attempted to secure a Tourist Visa for her mother to visit for a week. Her mother is a senior citizen in her mid 60's. She is widowed and has a 35 year old son, grandson and wife living in Cebu. She sold her home after the death of her husband 15 years ago and has a makeshift, side of the road store for income. She presently has a new boyfriend in Cebu. On our first attempt at her visa she was turned down because of not being able to convince the official of her intent to return home. Since her original rejection she has taken trips to South Korea and Singapore with her son's family, staying a week each time. My question is that since she has gone internationally and returned numerous times, would that be evidence of her intent to return after being on a week long trip to the USA? Is it worthwhile to attempt another shot since having this new information?

I just stumbled across this interesting web site, although I cannot find any instructions and cant get it to work, It seems to imply that it might track the status of a Report of Marriage.

https://consular.dfa.gov.ph/crd-application-tracker

If there are any inquisitive persons who recently filed a ROM maybe you might play around with it and see if you can get it to do anything useful.

Based on our ROM from 2021, our "reference number" is formatted slightly different. Maybe it might work on a more recent ROM???? Our reference number is MX-00-2021. "MX" is obviously the Philippine Embassy in Mexico City where we filed the ROM. "00" corresponds to the "Doc. No." in the lower left and 2021 is obviously the year it was filed. In the form they give the example reference number "OCR-ROB-00000000-0000". In their example "OCA" probably refers "Office of Consular Affairs" "ROB" probably refers to Report of Birth. "00000000" might be the "Doc. No."(???) and "0000" the year(???). The web form is titled "CRD Application Tracker" and I assume "CRD means Consular Records Division.

As I said, I cant get it to yield any information on our old ROM but maybe someone with a more recent ROM can figure it out. The other possibility I considered is that maybe it only works for ROM's filed with the DFA ASEANA office in Manila.

Per https://www.uscis.gov/i-864, "Starting Feb. 10, 2025, we will accept only the 10/17/24 edition. Until then, you can also use the 12/08/21 E and 12/08/21 editions."

My wife and I are at the NVC->Embassy stage and have submitted a I-864 before 10/17, which was approved at NVC late last year before in November. Now that the case is in-transit to the Embassy, we are worried that the I-864 we have will no longer be valid (despite it having an expiration date of 1/31/2026 on it) because our visa interview date is in March.

Summary timeline:

* October 2024: submitted I-864, rev 12/08/21, to NVC.

* October 17, 2024: I-864 announcement that current rev expires February 2025.

* November 2024: NVC DQed.

* January 2025: Case in transit to Embassy

* February 2025: We found a post about I-864 revs being expired and to watch out, now we don't know if we need to submit a new I-864 or just take a deep breath

* March 2025: We have our interview date set, will also have medical a few weeks before.

Should we forget about it and not worry? Do we need to reopen anything? We only found out about it today because of a stray facebook post. What are the next steps?

I just got married under K1 Visa and I am now on the AOS stage. I am starting to file and my target is to have this out to USCIS in early February.

The obstacle that I am stuck with is formatting my name.

For Example, my name before marriage is Nina Camille F. Cruz with the following format:

Nina Camille (Given Name)

Fernando (Mother's Maiden Name/Middle Name)

Cruz (Last Name)

Husband's last name is Smith.

Would it be okay for me to not follow the Philippines format, and just do it the way they do it in the US?

Nina (First Name)

Camille (Middle Name)

Smith (Last Name)

This is how I prefer it. Would USCIS allow me to have this name? But I am just worried that it might cause issues later on because it won't match my Passport and Birth Certificate format-wise.

I am getting different answers from groups and guides that I've seen. I'd like to know what works best. Thank you for answering.

I filed online for naturalization in Sept 2024 and took the oath in Jan 2025. In the online form where it asks "Do you want the Social Security Administration (SSA) to issue you an original or replacement Social Security card and update your immigration status with the SSA if and when you are naturalized?" I answered YES.

Today I received a new SS card in the mail, less than two weeks after my oathtaking and without needing to go to the SS office.

Great, for once the USCIS and SS systems talked to each other properly!

Hope this saves others a step in their post-naturalization to-do list.