t1g3rtoes

Thanks for all the replies.  I can see from some of the answers that I was a bit unclear about the situation.  I am a US citizen.  My wife is Filipino.  She was previously married to a Filipino.  While every other country recognizes her as now divorced and remarried, the Phils still sees her as married to her Filipino ex.

From what I am gleaning, it looks like she needs to maintain her name as it reads on her old passport when she applies for a new one.  It does ask for name of spouse, however.  All of her US forms that will accompany the application for renewal will evidence that she's now married to a US citizen.  Should she be indicating that and putting my name in as spouse, or her ex?  Will they look the other way, or withhold renewal if she discloses the situation to the Phils Embassy staff? 

Need some advice for a peculiar situation, please.

My wife is from Philippines, having come over at the end of 2016 with a K1 visa.  We were married in December, and are waiting/wading through a long adjustment of status period now.  Her passport will expire within the year.  She has made an appointment for a passport renewal with the "traveling" Philippines embassy to process her renewal.

We have a strange circumstance for the following reason:  My wife was previously married in the Philippines, and tried exhaustively to secure an annulment.  When all doors were closed to that, we looked for other options.  Eventually, she secured a divorce decree from Singapore, where she has resided the last ten years.  We obtained her K1 on the strength of the Singapore divorce decree.  The Philippines' official stance is that it would not recognize such a decree as legitimate for its citizens. 

So now we find ourselves applying for a passport renewal, and the application form inquires about her marital status.  All of our US documentation will point to her being here as a result of a K1, and will evidence that she is now married to a US citizen.

The question is:  Where the forms ask about marital status, how should she respond?  Should she fully disclose her marriage?  Should she answer the application as if she were still married in the Philippines?  Will the embassy bother to look at her filipino marriage status and dig deeper, or will they accept her US forms and information without any hassle?

I know these are rather uncharted waters, so I would like to get some insight from you guys.  Anyone with information or suggestions on the issue would be most welcome.  Thank you!

4 hours ago, Fr8dog said:

Bring the NOA-1 and maybe a copy of the marriage certificate, it will make your life a lot easier if you happen to run into someone that decides to check. Just don't put them in your checked luggage.

i keep reminding myself:  papers and documents needed to pass airport checkpoints in-hand....illicit drugs go in the checked baggage....gotta keep that straight 

Sounds like it's advisable to wait for acknowledgement of receipt of the AOS packet.

If it colors opinion, we would be traveling from Tennessee to the Northeast corridor- maybe NY, Philadelphia, Boston, DC, etc.

Hi all-

I have seen this topic floated a bit with mixed replies, and a few "long in the tooth" threads on the subject that might now be a bit dated.  So I thought I'd pose the question anew:

My wife came over on a K1 in October.  We were married in December, but her I-94 expired earlier this month.  We are slowpoking thru getting our AOS paperwork mailed off, and hope to have that completed next week.  But in the meantime, we would like to travel in the not-so-distant future.

Although her I-94 is expired, it's been my understanding that we can fly domestically, so long as she brings her up-to-date passport.  To be on the safe side, we also plan to take a copy of our marriage certificate, along with her social security card for good measure. 

Is there anything concrete that stipulates that domestic air travel is kosher for us?  Are there any risks involved that we should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for the replies, folks.

mom should have a good shot at it. sister, notsomuch. she's looking at an excruciatingly long wait, i'd imagine. she's better off not counting on it. maybe you guys introduce her to a nice fella that lives close by?

aayoub is giving you sound advice. to elaborate: you have a few options. he can, as suggested, simply get another job. he will have about two months until you guys can look to receive noa2, and a few weeks further to collect the relevant info for you to take to your interview (proof of employment, check stub history, and bank information). hopefully he can find something between now and then. if he doesn't, you can still pull it off. does your BF have family that would be willing to help out? someone who could sign on to the affidavit for support? his parents perhaps? the government is looking to make sure that you don't become a financial liability to the state when you arrive here, and that your visa sponsor is capable of supporting you. i've seen various numbers on how much he needs to show in annual salary to satisfy this requirement, but the consensus is that he doesn't have to make much. if i remember correctly, it's something like 18-20,000/yr. someone with a better grasp on it than myself can nail that number down to a more exact figure, but the point is it isn't a world-ending problem for you guys. hope springs eternal, and this is a minor bump in the road. calm down, i'm sure you guys will get it smoothed out

you'll be pleased to know that government, in general, finds as many creative ways as possible to screw you under the pretext of offering you a "service." taxation is theft, whether it's from one country or two (in your case, it should be "just" one). want to go somewhere? great, let's tax that ticket sale. want to buy something? great, let's have a sales tax. want to earn something? great, don't mind if we steal a piece of that, thanks. want to invest the money you earned after we taxed it? if that becomes worth anything, we'll tax that too. want to move somewhere? great, pay a visa fee, a service fee, an application fee, etc etc etc and wait while we restrict you until it's our pleasure to let you move freely. welcome to america, cardinal. you got here just in time for the donald trump and hillary clinton era, so if you think it's stupid now, give it a year and see what new heights we might achieve!

so a few observations, as this is unfolding:

- the US gub'mint doesn't seem to have any issue with the divorce decree being from outside Phils. As long as it sees a line of continuity from marriage-disolution from recognized foreign governments, they don't mind that it isn't from within the same country. This circumvents the need for CENOMAR from philippines.

-not sure where this leaves us further down the road when we want to visit the Phils later. with a name change, she might not be looking at any problems on re-entry. without a name change, not sure if it wouldn't cause a dust-up from some fiesty government officials when we go back. maybe the philippines would reluctantly recognize that the marriage was satisfactorily dissolved? dunno, we will have to check- after she's here, of course.

-all of our history together precedes the official divorce decree. stretching back to our first meetup in 2013, virtually all of our evidence packet consisted of proof pre-divorce. the visa center didn't mind.

-if there are any filipinas in a similar OFW situation where they have a few years of working abroad in one country under their belt, i am becoming inclined to believe that this route is actually preferable to seeking annulment thru the filipino court system. it's been infinitely easier than the rigors and hoop-jumping that we went thru when we tried to follow that path, and at a reasonable cost, to boot. i'll update as we experience the embassy at Sg, by way of comparing to the circus that is the manila embassy/st lukes.

cheers!

well, a year later, and finally some news to report.

with the divorce in hand, we have filed our 129f. received approval on monday, and now preparing for the interview i'll keep updates coming as they become available. pray for good results for us please!

Update: Divorce approved Nov 25th in Singapore. Proceeding with K1 paperwork, although there is the slight time delay per shipping signed original docs. Onwards and Upwards!

just a quick update-

we opted to go ahead with divorce proceedings in Singapore. her time there is sufficient to file, and for around $2k, we've gotten everything squared away. filed everything, should have a positive result back in October, according to the lawyer. hopefully, we can get a k1 with it, philippines cenomar be damned. the ex gave us a bit of a hard time for a few months, regarding signing off on the paperwork, but in the end we finally got him to agree.

next hurdles for us will be the k1 process and figuring out if it's possible for her 13yr old son to come to the US. between a difficult ex and the delicate dance that this loophole will require to circumvent Phil gov, i don't know how good our chances are. anyone know if a k2 denied for any reason would hold up a k1, or if there is a better approach to getting the k2 locked up?

thx

t1g3rtoes

Manilaraf, thx for turning me to that poster about hong kong. Sounds promising, I've pm'ed and hopefully he will give me some advice and heads up about how that worked for them.

Thanks everyone for the ideas and suggestions. Yall are helping to "get the wheels turning" for me!

Need Help!

My pinay girlfriend has been fighting an ongoing battle with the Philippines courts for an uncontested annulment for some time now. We obviously cannot proceed with any efforts for her to come here without some resolution on this. After a few roadblocks, such as a bogus lawyer delaying and not filing appropriately, etc, she made it through a year-long court proceeding to get annulled. Result returned last week as denied, sadly. We are at an impasse as to what our next move is.

Options we are considering are the following, but we are certainly wide open to other suggestions:

1. Wait a few weeks, and refile with another jurisdiction. Start over and hope for a better result. Her current lawyer estimates that costs for doing this will run somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000php for his services, but additional costs would be 100,000php+ (psychiatrist, witnesses, bribe/padulas money, etc). This total of 300,000 seemed a bit high to me---is this a reasonable amount, or should I be looking for a different lawyer? If so, I'd love to hear recommendations....we are in the ilocos/luzon area, so lawyers in this vicinity with good reputations for results would be appreciated and warmly welcomed.

2. File an immediate appeal. This would cost a relatively paltry 50,000php. The ominous downside seems to be that it is uncertain how long an appeal would take. The lawyer has cautioned that an appeal can be mired in the court system for years, without result, and impeding any other options.

3. I'd love to find a third option that is more effective at obtaining a proper annulment, but any option that provides a better chance would be most welcome.

I would be grateful for any and all input or suggestions. We are at our wits' end on what our best and wisest move would be. Thanks in advance for any help and advice.