US Immigration from Philippines

Good Day everyone! I want to ask for your opinion regarding our situation right now.

We received an email from NVC last JULY 7, 2020:

The National Visa Center (NVC) updated the status of your immigrant visa application. Please go to the Department of State's Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) at https://nvc.state.gov/ceac. You will need your NVC case number and invoice ID number to log into your account.

Once you have logged into CEAC, please look in your message box or on the Status Chart at the bottom of the page. If NVC has feedback on any items you submitted, there will be a new message with details. If not, please simply follow the updated instructions on your Status Chart to complete your case. If any column says "Pay Now", "Invalid Doc", "Incomplete", or "Re-Opened", that means you must take action by paying a fee, submitting a form, or uploading a corrected/missing document.

Regards,
National Visa Center,
U.S. Department of State
https://nvc.state.gov/ask

But when I opened our CEAC account, the inbox is empty. And the status chart still has not changed, it says there "Submitted".

It has been 45 days and there is still no update or anything in our CEAC inbox.

Another one, when I opened our CEAC account, this appears in the link above:

I don't know if it's related to us not receiving any messages in our CEAC account because I just noticed it earlier. What do you think? Any comments would be highly appreciated.

Thank you!!

Hi,

This is for a friend. Her US husband petitioned her daughter when she was 20. It got approved but at the time the beneficiary did not act on it, reason too busy for schooling.

She turns 22 so they never pursue, USCIS SEND them email to pay for the visa. The petitioner is so confused because they know the step daughter has aged-out.

Their question, should they go ahead pay for visa knowing she aged-out?

Will it be a waste of money and time?

They think they can pursue it since uscis sent them an email to pay for the visa

Hi! Has anyone experienced EAD got rejected before AOS got encashed? We submitted last July 28,2020 and it was delivered August 1,2020 but when we called today they said that our EAD got rejected yesterday but they still don t have any record of the status of my AOS and AP and haven t also encashed. The USCIS staff said that they they check if form and they reject it individually but we are worried now that they also rejected The AOS and AP. What do you think happened? Did they rejected our whole AOS packet? Thank you.

I am now filling up the Affidavit of Support I-864EZ. On the Federal Income Tax Info, I have filed my last 3 years' tax with my spouse. It says to provide gross income on IRS Form 1040EZ. The income indicated on our 1040EZ is a combination of mine and my husband's. Do I provide that on item 6a-c? Or shall I just get my gross from my W2?

In the past, when most people's documents had been accepted by the US government, it would take about 30 days to land an interview in Manila. With this virus, only expedited cases are being processed and those applicants are getting an interview.

In 2019, there were 232,274 immigrant and nonimmigrant visas issued (I'm not sure if fiance and student visas were included in this).

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2019AnnualReport/FY19AnnualReport- TableIV.pdf
Philippines, Manila
Immigrant Visas____25,770

Nonimmigrant Visas___ 206,504

Total: 232,274

Interviews took place 5 days a week for 52 weeks per year = 260 days worth of interview

So that's 893 visas per day in 2019.

Assuming that 2019 has a similar amount of visas to 2020 and that the embassy has been shutdown since March 17, the backlog is growing.

So in five months, there is the potential to have 89,300 visas not issued because of the closure. There are a few interviews trickling through with expedited cases, but I don't think there are that many visas being issued now.

Reports have shown that the local embassy has a skeleton crew.

BerhaeLee's US Immigration Timeline
July 17, 2020
Embassy Review: USEM is open for US citizen petitioners only. According to my husband, there are less than 10 people inside the embassy and the interview portion is quick.

Don0's Philippines US Consulate Review on July 20, 2020:

"Smooth process but there were only 3-4 Filipino officers and 3 American consuls."

So, this could turn into a situation where you have to wait 6-10 months for an interview in Manila. It's going to turn into a waiting game like the USCIS waiting period. How much backlog will the US Embassy tolerate? Will they hire more staff to help process all these cases?

In the back of my mind, I think I remember reading the US Embassy processed around 300-400 per day, but I can't find the source. Even if it's that amount, that's still 3-6 months of waiting for an interview with this growing backlog.