RO_AH

Your marriage must be consummated before filing for a CR-1. Meaning that you will need to be together in person. If you are there when doing am online wedding you are good. If you are apart when doing the online wedding, you will need to go in person before filing.

I almost wonder if they paused CR/IR visas to focus on clearing the K1 backlog

I think you are spending too much time reading too much info in the wrong places. I believe CR1 is a much better choice. I would say almost all people that have gone the CR Route and many who have gone the K1 route would agree. Getting married there is not as daunting as it seems. Here are my man suggestions. 1. Have her go to her LCR and ask what are the requirements to marry an American in the Philippines. The reason is that it does vary depending on where she lives. Every LCR has some different policies. Make sure she writes down every requirement and then read it back to verify. The reason for this is things are not very detail oriented there. You do not want to miss any requirements. 2. One requirement in all of the Philippines is that it takes 10 business days to get a marriage license. Plan on a 3 week trip since it will take 14 days to get your license. Even more if there is a holiday so make sure you know the Philippines holidays. 3. Last make sure she asks if there is an expedite process for your PSA marriage certificate. That will make it faster to apply for the CR1. If you do not ask, and pay the expedite fee it may take 6 months or so to get your official marriage certificate. Your other option is an online Utah wedding. They are the only state that allows and has a process for online weddings. You can do this while you are together there or with you in USA and her in PH. You will need to be together in person during or after the wedding for you to be able to file for the CR-1

Is this even longer than the covid shutdown?

If the poverty guidelines change between the time the petitioner signed the Affidavit of Support and the issuance of an immigrant visa, must the petitioner/sponsor and joint sponsor, if required, submit a new Form I-864? No, the Form I-864 remains valid indefinitely unless evidence of failure to meet the poverty guidelines in effect on the date of I-864 filing arises. The consular officer will determine whether the income claimed by the sponsor and documented with financial evidence meets the poverty guidelines in effect at the time the I-864 was filed. If the income claimed does not meet the poverty guidelines, then the consular officer may request that the sponsor submit current year income information. In other words wait till the interview. Otherwise you are probably just creating more headaches for yourself.

All this reminds me of our case. We were probably 1 or 2 weeks away from IL an then the Embassy locked down due to Covid. When they finally opened up and we got the letter, my wife got flagged for sputum. When it was complete we could not reschedule interview due to backlog. We finally got the interview about a week from medical expiration. She had to redo medical and luckily no sputum the second time. Ours became an IR1 too.

Why would you update it? I don't think they would request more current info until after 4/15. Why did you even file, you should have waited til after the interview.

That was a waste of time and money. Also, the reason for the sputum test is that is much more accurate. This is why the just do the simple skin poke test that the other doctor did. Sadly there is nothing that you can do. The real shame is that we are letting millions through the southern border with no testing and we hand them a cell phone and cash when they arrive.