DaveHorton

Speaking about the Philippine NBI clearance, my wife just received an NBI clearance obtained from abroad (here in the UK) by filling in the form at the Philippine embassy and getting it certified there, with fingerprints etc. The form has instructions that state that marrried women should fill out the form with their unmarried name and fill in the husband's name in the appropriate spaces. Then when the NBI clearance came back from the Philippines it had the names filled out correctly with the married name along with the maiden name.

If you have an old NBI clearance you should send that back with the new application and that makes things go a little more smoothly for your relative who will be making the application on your behalf.

Good luck!

We recently filed DCF, submitted I130 1st Nov, got the I130 approved Jan 17, then got NOA2 after a couple of days and arranged medical for the earliest date (Jan 31). Foolishly I waited until the medical was over and they had confirmed that they had sent the papers to the Embassy before I logged into the interview site and tried for the earliest date: that turned out to be Mid March. So the biggest delay for us was waiting between the medical and earliest interview. If I had my time over I would arrange the interview at the same time as the medical and then hopefully get a shorter delay.

Good luck!

Regarding the part you asked about financial support, after your I130 has been accepted and you are into the interview prep phase, you will need to fill out the I864 affadavit of support, and be ready to submit at least one US tax return copy for the last financial year. I hope that you have been filing those, otherwise that may be something you need to think about...

Then about the actual amount of money needed to approve your application, if there is any doubt that the co-sponsor plus your own income (as declared on the past tax return) meets the federal poverty guidelines, you can indeed declare assets such as your house that you own. There is no specific requirement that you have employment arranged, but of course it all helps the consular officer make a decision.

In our case, I have no job arranged, but my last IRS tax return shows adequate income and I submitted some proof of assets (IRA statement, property titles, bank account statements) to indicate that I am likely to be able to support everyone in the states.

Good luck!

I filed DCF, and accompanied my wife and 2 kids to the IR-1/CR-1 interview in the Manila embassy. The initial paperwork was handed in at a little booth just inside the large room (ground floor but opposite the room for Non-immigrant), then the initial meeting for biometrics, fingerprints, document checks etc was at a window, and the interview itself took place in a small office just round the corner from the glass windows. All was clearly notified on internal displays.

I do not have your exact experience and situation, but when I was living temporarily in the Philippines, all that was needed for me to file DCF was some evidence like a rental agreement that shows that you are living there, and have somewhere formal for the emabassy to send papers to.  If I recall correctly, I manually delivered the initial paperwork to the embassy (this is going back to 2007, so things may have changed...), and the guy who looked through the papers I was submitting noted that I had a signed rental agreement and accepted the submission.

But if someone else has more recent experience, listen to them not me....

Good luck!

Barclays took 2 days (my wife has an account), but it was a request that seemed to confuse the counter staff, and they took some amount of persuading to do the deed. 

I can't be sure that the Embassy web site for you is the same as London is for me, but I went and printed the interview confirmation letter and receipt by going to the London embassy web site where I had originally found the visa info. Here's the London emabassy link just in case it sparks something for you there...http://london.usembassy.gov/interview.html

then the link in the top right called (helpfully) "Download the appointment confirmation letter and fee receipt. " takes you to the embassy-specific portal where you need to type in your passport number and date of birth, then it shows you the two forms to be printed. Each one has a bar code by the way.

Good luck

If your condo is close to Ermita, there are dozens of money changers there. My personal favorite is Edzen, but there are so many there, and most have the dollar/Peso rate in the window . It changes every time the runner does a bank run. Going pesos to dollars is obviously not going to get you that rate, but its a pointer to how small a margin the shop is taking. In my experience it is a better rate by far than the banks will give you, and certainly much better than the rate you get at the air terminal.

If you are in Makati, my preference is to go to Burgos/MakatiAve (yes, the red light district...), the changers there tend to give a tad better than the places where the rich folks go to shop (Greenbelt/Glorietta).

In the end though its pretty much down to chance. Make sure to count your money before you leave the shop. In 5 years of changing, I have only been ripped off one time and it was fixed immediately I caught it inside the shop.

I petitioned for my Filipina wife and her two minor kids in 2006 and was granted a CR1 and 2xCR2s

They joined me in the states.

Things didn't work out, we are now divorced, and they returned to the Philippines before the 2 year renewal was filed.

The conditional visas have expired.

Looking at the instructions for the K1 (I-129F), I note that a waiver is required if 2 or more K1 petitions have ever been filed. The spirit and intent of that would appear to apply to my situation, even though the strict wording does not apply.

Anyone out there been there and done that?

Should I enclose a provisional waiver request with the I-129F, and hope that the reviewing officer understands what the heck I am talking about? Or does that risk opening a can of worms?

Merry Xmas to all VJ-ers!

Is DCF possible with an I-129F? Living in the Philippines at the moment and hoping to marry in the States, but it seems that DCF implies IR1/CR1 rather than K1... Anyone know the answer?

Anyone got any experience of filing an I-129F in anticipation of getting a divorce finalized?

I will get my uncontested and amicable divorce finalized in California, in December. If there anything that would prevent me from submitting my I-129F now, knowing it takes at least 6 months to get to interview time?

For the Port of Entry preparation, does anyone know of anything else needed besides the brown envelope in your carry-on, and the Xray in the checkin? (Assuming the hawaii experience above was unusual...) My wife is travelling light and really does not want to carry the filing cabinet of interview preparation.

Thanks

Does anyone know of a cargo shipping company for shipping a box from Manila to the U.S.? We ran out of suitcase space and need to ship some things home.

I recently went looking for the same thing, for the same reason, and came up with ridiculous prices. I used the local yellow pages, and like most other times I used that source, almost every number was not working: but the few that did work gave me polite quotations in the region of $1,000 minimum door to door, to West Coast cities. That was air freight, but not express. Actually, I think express service may be about the same because of the minimum requirements, but I lost focus on the conversation after the third zero. Sea freight takes many months and I didn't get a price.

Sorry I do not recall the names, but I assume you have a copy of the yellow pages in Manila as your note implies you are here...

Good luck, and if you do come up with anything reasonable, post it here as the same question comes up from time to time.

I am happy to report that my two step-kids' CR-2 interviews yesterday were successful! Maybe this little snippet of good news will help to get everyone off that NOA2 extension letter thread that has occupied so much bandwidth in the last 24 hours!!

For the keeper of the timelines, I never logged the kids as their case was unusual and the timeline was rushed as a result... definitely not typical!

Yesterday was not busy at the IV Unit, but I saw lots of smiling faces as folks came out of the interview rooms.. Let's hope it is a pointer to a successful January and February for us VJ-ers!!

Good luck everyone!!

Regarding St Lukes and the taking of the passport, if you bleat loudly enough the Releasing Clerk will give you back your passport, getting you to sign a release statement. I did that with my wife, and later with each of my two step kids, as I do not trust the process. One gets the impression that everything is well orchestrated and the process is watertight, but behind the curtain I feel there are many potential slips just waiting to happen. For example, my wife's medical report was not available at the embassy until after noon on the day of her 6:30am interview. My step-child's Packet 4 never did arrive at St Lukes, hopefully not a big deal but I'll tell you later (just leaving for his 7am interview at the USE).

I wonder how many passports have gotten delayed or worse... not heard of any, but I am not ready to risk delaying any further...

I agree. I was wondering WHEN we should start freaking-out that the visa has not released from embassy yet. Due to this info, I still have at least two-days before I should start spending a zillion dollars to call the embassy and talk to people who can't give me an answer.

Just a data point for you... Our interview was on Monday 4th. The passport was released about noon yesterday. Delbros site shows it as out for deliver today. (I am not celebrating until I read the visa inside the passport).

Hopefully yours will be released soon... as you probablhy know, the Delbros site claims the embassy can take 5 to 7 days to release and I'd assume those are working days...

Dave

What is your fiance/e's loc? We had our interview the same day, but delbros says 12/4/2006 2:30:08 PM SHIPMENT PROCESS IN THE EMBASSY.

She is in bohol.

Sorry, I was replying to a number of previous posts and forgot to address your specific issue... my own delbros response said exactly what yours says all the way through this morning at 8am, when it told me that the package was out for delivery since yesterday. I think the updates are semi manual, because yesterday at noon the embassy released the package and it went thru several stages of Delbros processing yesterday, but those steps only got updated on the screen today... rather takes the usefulness out of a real-time web-based reporting system doesn't it?

I agree. I was wondering WHEN we should start freaking-out that the visa has not released from embassy yet. Due to this info, I still have at least two-days before I should start spending a zillion dollars to call the embassy and talk to people who can't give me an answer.

Just a data point for you... Our interview was on Monday 4th. The passport was released about noon yesterday. Delbros site shows it as out for deliver today. (I am not celebrating until I read the visa inside the passport).

Hopefully yours will be released soon... as you probablhy know, the Delbros site claims the embassy can take 5 to 7 days to release and I'd assume those are working days...

Dave

What is your fiance/e's loc? We had our interview the same day, but delbros says 12/4/2006 2:30:08 PM SHIPMENT PROCESS IN THE EMBASSY.

She is in bohol.

My wife and I live in Las Pinas, Metro Manila. Delbros site, www.delbros.com, quotes 1-2 days for metro Manila, and 5 - 7 for provincial locations... that of course starts from the day the embassy release the passport.

My tracking number was our CR1 case number with an additional "01" tacked on the end... so in the delbros waybill text box I type "MNL200620899901", and it returns a screen of info about the status of the shipment. Actually it seems to be overloaded much of the time so it returns an error screen, but I keep trying and get a response sooner or later.

I agree. I was wondering WHEN we should start freaking-out that the visa has not released from embassy yet. Due to this info, I still have at least two-days before I should start spending a zillion dollars to call the embassy and talk to people who can't give me an answer.

Just a data point for you... Our interview was on Monday 4th. The passport was released about noon yesterday. Delbros site shows it as out for deliver today. (I am not celebrating until I read the visa inside the passport).

Hopefully yours will be released soon... as you probablhy know, the Delbros site claims the embassy can take 5 to 7 days to release and I'd assume those are working days...

Dave

I am reading all these depressed posts, and feeling for everyone, and what really chaps my butt is that the Immigrant Visa Unit could very easily publish a helpful tips list: I am betting that 8 out of 10 AR causes are virtually identical. The pre-screeners and consular officers see upwards of what, 200 per day (guessing here, whatever...) and they probably just glance at the attachments and mentally think "Hmm.. this one's ripe for an AR"... why not just publish the damn list?

The other thing that really steams me up is that every poor anguished soul sitting in the waiting area represents upwards of $100 revenue to the IV unit. In the case of CR1/IR1 it is $380 per backside! For What??? In my case, even though successful (I hope, not yet got the visa in hand), they had lost the medical results and the original DS230I, and kept asking us for them as if it was our responsibility to find them. I wonder what exactly the $380 is supposed to pay for? That is in addition to the $190 for the CIS to rummage around in your I130 information. And in our case, they too lost important paperwork never to be recovered. Damn, I'm getting all steamed up and we were successful!! You poor folks on AR must be just desperate! I am so sorry...

WooHoo!! Our CR1 was approved! I'll post the interview experience in the review section later. Summary: arrived at 6:20am, not so busy, a couple of scares with missing docs (lost by the embassy not by us) but apparently all's well that ends well. Out by Noon. Waiting till Delbros delivers, but hopefully that's not an issue..

Congrats to others who also passed today. Saw lots of smiling faces, only heard one denial discussed at a neighbouring table at a Chinese restaurant close to the Embassy.

Good luck to other upcoming beneficiaries.

The day is here, and the Typhoon left Manila unscathed so we are hoping for smooth sailing with today's CR1 interview. Good luck to others with interviews this month. I'll post our experience when we get home later today. Leaving now for the 6am appointment.

Well things are not looking good for interviews scheduled for early next week.

The tremendous storm, Typhoon Durian, seems bent on becoming a cat 5 tomorrow, and will still be cat 4 or 3 as it passes directly over the embassy Saturday or Sunday. The chances of anything moving in Manila on Monday or Tuesday are rather slim. This is much larger than the recent Bagiuo Millenyum.

And I recently went to great pains to get our interview rescheduled for Monday! Not a good omen...

I'm going thru the I130 petition process right now in Manila (DCF) for my two step children, so have become intimately familiar with the NSO procedures and forms.... Here are some things I found, offered here as background info if it is not directly on-topic....

I have the 2 original civil registrar birth certificates for both my step-kids, one of which has an annotation due to a paternity issue.

I have several originals of the kids' NSO Birth certificates. The NSO security paper that the BCs are printed on are different colors, orange and green, but i cannot work out if there is some specific rule that caused the color change, perhaps the date of request caused it. Whatever the reason I am certain that the background color is not significant as it is different from one certificate to another, for the same person, requested only days apart.

The NSO certificates are simply scanned versions of the original civil registrar documents, printed on the security paper, so handwritten changes made to the original registrar versions show up on the NSO versions.

In the case of the annotated civil registrar BC, the NSO version was scanned prior to the annotation, so the NSO version is actually the older version. The reason is that it is the reponsibility of the requestor (who succeeded in getting the annotation onto the registrar copy) to request that the registrar forward the annotated version to the NSO for updating. That was never done, so the copies differ.

My wife's NSO birth certificate is a very badly scanned version of her registrar certificate, but having submitted many times to many authorities including the USE, I guess the clarity of the scan is less important that the background security paper it is printed on.

Same rule applies to nullities: if the petitioner in the nullity does not request that the registrar forward the amended marriage certificate to the NSO, the nullity will never make it onto the NSO marriage certificate. No amount of waiting will be fruitful.

Regarding data reliability, the NSO search algorithm must be rather inneficient as I have both a cenomar and a marriage certificate for the same person requested on the same day.

With the USE, I believe that a belt and braces approach (that's belt and suspenders for you yanks out there) would be advisable: get BOTH the NSO authenticated certificate, AND the original (OR a certified Xerox Copy of the original) registrar or court document behind the NSO document. For nullities, you would need the DECISION and the certificate of FINALITY from the court, also as certified xerox copies.

Do I know this to be necessary? No, but given the pain and anguish of the journey so far, I for one am trying to get all my bases covered...

Good luck to you all....

Please amend my CR1 entry: we requested an earlier interview and just got a couple weeks pull-in...

Interview date now 12/04/06... Gosh that's next Monday isn't it? Better get practicing....

We just did the medical at St Lukes a couple weeks early.

In case anyone is biting their nails about it, relax!

We got to St Lukes at 11:20am, trying hard to make it before the published lunch break.

There did not appear to be any lunch break, certainly not for anything we went through.

There were hardly any folks waiting, we went straight to the USA reception, they did the paperwork, photo, directed us to the top floor where we did the eye test, the medical exam, paid the money (P4750), then we took a relaxed 45 minute lunch outside before returning for the blood tests, and chest xRay. We were hoping to get it all done in one day, but that was apparently not permitted, so we did the interview for the vaccinations and went home at 2:00pm. Lucky day 1?

Today was just as lucky.... arrived at 10:45, straight up to 2nd floor for the 2 vaccinations that were needed. Only 1 shot was given, tetanus was unavailable so we got a piece of paper instead advising us to get the tetanus after arrival in the USA. Waited downstairs for the final paperwork, and after about 40 minutes we were outa there!! My wife requested that she keep her passport in case we did an early Xmas vacation trip before the interview date... no objection raised... she signed a photocopy of it, and was just warned to take her passport with her to the interview.

The most challenging aspect of the whole thing was finding a parking place.

All in all a very encouraging event... hope the USE event is as positive!!