John & Rose

You will need 5 original copies with notary stamps. You also need to meet again after the marriage to file the spousal visa. Plan ahead. Since you cannot file the I-130 before you meet again, bring the ROM forms with you and get it all notarized there. Remember they require 5 original wet signature copies of the form.

I’m back! ROC was finally approved! I will answer here.

CR-1 is THE best option from the Philippines and I did K-1 and CR-1 there.

All of this only matters in the Philippines and The Vatican. Those would be the only places on earth that don’t allow divorce. There is no reason for annulment or recognition of divorce unless you wanted to marry another Filipino. CFO would be the stumbling block. There are “helpers” that issue Sharia divorces so the law states that the Sharia divorce requires a Nikah (Muslim wedding). So many were trying to convert the divorce that the government clamped down. There are a lot of people paying serious money for Sharia divorce and it ends up not recognized so they need the annulment anyway. We are talking hundreds who paid the helpers but got nothing. Some pay over ₽200k for the non-help. $5k and you have to get an annulment anyway would suck.

Philippine law is pretty straight forward on that. If one of the couple is a foreigner and the divorce takes place in the foreign country it is eligible for “Recognition of Foreign Divorce” no matter where the marriage took place. Recognition of foreign divorce takes as long and costs as much as an annulment…no surprise there.

LOL! Ain't it the truth!

Exactly!

One thing my wife did mention was they do tend to “attack” the shier ones. They seemed to fight and pile on the “weaker” looking beneficiaries. She felt is was very unfair but all they had to do was push back a little and the CFO councilor would leave them alone. I don’t know about not getting their sticker but they definitely pick on the shy ones.

There are stories of people who did not get the certificate or sticker but that was usually because of fake documents. If you are married in the Philippines without a recognition of foreign divorce or annulment they have stopped both K-1 and spousal until they deal with their current marriage.

I love it there and while they are not perfect, either are we. CFO is a joke but we all know about it. It isn’t expensive and there is a lot of fraud with PSA documents. Other than the lies told to my step kids, CFO was pretty easy and uneventful. We didn’t have to pay anything for documents we didn’t already have and they did not keep any originals so we can reuse them if needed.

Do you know for a fact that the PSA documents she showed were real? Forgeries are very common since annulments are so expensive and divorce is not allowed. There are hundreds of cases a year where people try to use fake documents for both the visa and CFO. I’m not saying that happened here but “fixers” and “helpers” make a lot of money giving fake PSA CENOMARs, annulments and recognition of foreign divorce. It is a lucrative business and costs about the same as a real annulment but can get papers in a day or two. There is always more to the story.

We didn’t pay anything for documents for CFO. We did have to get them for the visa process. CFO was started by nuns trying to sell credit cards to people leaving! It has a lot of power now but it really isn’t a for profit thing. There is no way the cost of CFO pays for all the employees. there is human trafficking. That includes people trying to claim a family member as their biological child to try to give them a better life. The heart is in the right place but the law is strict. As far a prostitution I don’t think the Philippines is much different than any Asian country. I don’t really understand that argument.

PSA has all kinds of unwritten “rules”. They have way too much authority. They also told my step kids that Americans only bathe once a week and that I was going to abuse my teenage step daughter because all Americans abuse their daughters. Oh, and my kids would get a lot of social security money because I am old and disabled because all American men who want a Filipino wife are old and disabled. These statements were made to the group in their in person class. Luckily they knew me enough not to believe any of it.

There was a point in time that the Philippines required a visa for Americans during the pandemic. That is when they got it and it was only available for spouses and expat Filipinos. That is all back to normal now.

No surprise there. That was the common thinking here too. We were all watching this one. Obviously they had a great lawyer. It made it past getting the visa but we always thought AOS would be the challenge. Last I heard they received their combo cards. I will have to go back and see if the green card worked out. They definitely got their K-1 approved with the unconsummated marriage.

USCIS will accept the Utah marriage cert. that won’t be an issue. CFO will most likely be stressful.

The US will accept the marriage as long as it is legal where it takes place. The visa should be no problem. CFO may be a different story. I would anticipate challenges there.

That is what he got back from the Consulate. They were lucky.

Agreed. Utah helped during the pandemic when travel was very difficult but it looks like those days are numbered.

I believe the marriage certificate would be enough but that does bring up another wrinkle. I read that as "marriage certificate or PSA ROM" but as with most things Philippines, it is up to the individual to determine what that means. My step son has his ROM but they haven't tried for the PSA marriage certificate or DFA to change the passport name yet. I anticipate a few challenges ahead.

Don't count on Manila being much better. My wife's dentist died while sitting in a chair waiting for a doctor. The preliminary diagnosis was Covid but he actually had a heart attack. He sat there dead overnight before they noticed. My friends daughter went to the hospital in Manila with severe abdominal pains. They kept asking id she was pregnant. 6 hours in that waiting room later and the doctor finally takes a look and her appendix had burst. Unfortunately that hospital couldn't handle that so they had to take a cab to another hospital who luckily rushed her into surgery. She was there with an open abdomen for 3 weeks as they needed to make sure there was no infection left from the burst appendix. She is fine now but that illustrates the quality of medical care available there. It didn't burst until she was sitting at the hospital for 6 hours just to be looked at.

This is the ONE thing that keeps me from wanting to retire there. Their medical is third world and 40 to 50 years behind the US. So many of my wife's relatives had died from things that are simply not lethal here. The caregivers and nurses are world class there. The Doctors are below third world. Many still get better medical treatment from the local witch doctors than the professional doctors. My biggest fear there is me getting sick. I hope the @Mick Jones is being well cared for and can completely recover from the Philippine medical system. My heart goes out to him. He lived my greatest fear.

Keep in mind this ONLY impacts ROM and the changing of the beneficiaries name on the passport. The US will still allow the wedding and if you meet after the online wedding you can file for a spousal visa. ROM is not required. The Utah wedding is still legal for US immigration and is technically legal in the Philippines. This will get straightened out but it is just a minor hiccup. I actually know of a couple who met in Cebu and did the Utah wedding while they were together. It is too early to see how that will turn out but if it works for the Spousal visa they did find a way to avoid the LCR and licensing wait. It was not a Proxy wedding as they were both involved and they were together for the ceremony.

Thanks for the update. The one thing people seem to forget is that USCIS and State already know more about you than you know about yourself. You handled this correctly. They may already have more information on the incident than the FBI can give to you but you showed that you performed due diligence in your pursuit of records. The National Crime Database has a listing of everything including minor (underage) offenses and sealed or expunged records. This was to test your honesty with the beneficiary and you should not have a problem getting approved.

Per Philippine law the online marriage is recognized. I know of one couple that got their stamped paperwork back on Oct 17, 2022 and I saw another that got the same letter on October 28, 2022. My step son’s wife got her PSA marriage certificate after the Utah marriage but hasn’t tried DFA yet. This will have no impact on the CR-1 but may cause challenges changing the passport of the beneficiary to the married name.