julianthecat

2 hours ago, confusedshoes said:

I just got a little confused with the fact that you say your wife has never lived in the Philippines. Is she a Filipino citizen during 2019 to now? Does she have other citizenships?

Her parents are OFWs, in a Middle Eastern country that doesn't have birthright citizenship, so she's been a Filipino her whole life. 

That is a bummer, but kind of what we expected re: the foreign divorce. It sounds like we're going to have to consult with a family law practitioner in the Philippines - but we're always thankful for VisaJourney as a much faster (and cheaper!) alternative.

My wife and I find ourselves in one of those bureaucratic quagmires that seem to be all too common when dealing with the Philippine government.  Here are the basics:

- My wife was previously married (and divorced) a Canadian.  She has never lived in the Philippines, and they never registered their marriage with the Philippines.

- We were married in the US in 2019, and she received a CR1 US visa in 2021.   She got a CENOMAR from the PSA at the time even though she was already married twice.  

- We now need to register our marriage so that she can reacquire Philippine citizenship once she's naturalized as a US citizen (she can apply in early 2024). 

- Based on info from the consulate we would need to hire a lawyer and go to court in the Philippines (any Regional Trial Court, apparently) and the Manila City Civil Register Office to get her Canadian divorce decree registered before we can register our marriage.  

- Then we need to get the US Dept of State and the State of Maine (and maybe British Columbia) to apostille our documents before we send them off to the consulate.  

However, if she is currently legally single in the eyes of the Philippine govt, do we really need to bring the first marriage into it at all?  On the registration of marriage, there's a box for civil status of the husband and wife before marriage.  Could we just put "single" instead of "divorced" there?  The only documentation that contradicts this is that our US marriage certificate shows this is her second marriage.  

If anyone on here has experience with any of this, we'd love your advice.

On 1/13/2023 at 9:38 PM, julianthecat said:

Due to moving at the start of this month and life getting in the way, we left our filing until the last minute.  😬  My wife's conditional green card expires today, and we mailed the petition to the IL lockbox on Tuesday.  It was signed for according to USPS yesterday at 6:28 am, but I'm certainly going to be nervous until we get the receipt by mail or text.

Update:

Mailed 1/10

Arrived 1/12

Text notification: 1/18, MSC case number

I-797 letter (3 years) received: 1/23

Now, time to hurry up and wait...

Due to moving at the start of this month and life getting in the way, we left our filing until the last minute.  😬  My wife's conditional green card expires today, and we mailed the petition to the IL lockbox on Tuesday.  It was signed for according to USPS yesterday at 6:28 am, but I'm certainly going to be nervous until we get the receipt by mail or text.

Thanks @Ayrton and @SteveInBostonI130 for the quick replies!  It looks like I can e-file federally still through TaxAct, and then prepare a separate paper return for MA.  

Any fellow Massholes around?  I'm working on our 2020 tax return, which will be the first one we file jointly after getting married in 2019.  My wife entered the US with a CR1 in January 2021 and now has her SSN (we filed MFS for 2019 because she didn't have her SSN and we didn't want to send in her passport with Covid-related delays).  All looked good, including claiming the previous stimulus checks as the Recovery Rebate Credit, until I got to the state tax return.  Her foreign income was well under the threshold for claiming the full exclusion on form 2555.  

Apparently, MA does not allow you to deduct foreign earned income on your taxes, even though it's federally deductible. So, to get the $1800 in stimulus payments, we end up owing $2050 in state taxes on her foreign income.  Since she was a nonresident for the entire year of 2020 and earned no income in MA, she is not required to file a return in MA.  Does anyone have experience with filing a MFJ federal return and then a MFS state return for just the US-based spouse?  

I've been trying every day this week, using Chrome, Firefox, and Edge on Mac, and then Chrome and IE on Windows at work.  I'm also getting the "Security Exception" Javascript error when I try to upload the civil docs, so the double whammy of CEAC failures.  Sent in an inquiry on Tuesday but no response yet. 

On 5/4/2020 at 2:03 AM, JCP said:

When did you get your noa2?

We got NOA2 on 4/30.  

Posting here hoping there are some former Canadians who can help.  We just got NOA2, a few months earlier than expected!  Unfortunately, that means we're scrambling a bit to get stuff ready for the NVC.  

My wife went to university in BC, but now lives in Singapore.  I know we need an RCMP fingerprint certificate showing she has no criminal record, but no idea about how to go about getting that while in Singapore (much less with a pandemic happening).  Does anyone have experience ordering one from outside Canada?

On 5/2/2020 at 9:10 PM, Trish and Oli said:

Congratulations!

Thanks! We weren't expecting to be approved this quickly, so now we have a lot of work to do tracking down documents from M's former countries of residence.  

I'm posting in this subforum to hopefully get some advice from those who have dealt with this before as Filipinos abroad, but if this thread's in the wrong place Mods please move it as you see fit.  

My wife is a Philippines citizen but was born abroad and has never lived there.  We were married in the US on a tourist visa and now she is back in Singapore and we're applying for a CR-1.   We're still a long ways away from the embassy stage of the process, but we're starting to get documents together anyway.  I saw on the Singapore embassy Web site that she is required to order a CENOMAR from the PSA:  

Quote

Filipino applicants and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Philippines: You must obtain a “Certificate of No Marriage” (CENOMAR) from the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA). The PSA must send the CENOMAR by mail directly to the Immigrant Visa Unit, Consular Section, U.S. Embassy Singapore, 27 Napier Road, Singapore 258508. We will not accept CENOMARs submitted by individual applicants.  https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Supplements/Supplements_by_Post/SGP-Singapore.html#pre_interview_checklist

We have not registered our marriage with the Philippines, and weren't intending to do so because she doesn't plan on ever living there.  Is that going to present a problem for our US visa case? 

On 11/13/2019 at 9:00 AM, julianthecat said:

Hello all!  We mailed our I-130 last week, received and signed for by USCIS Dallas on 11/9.  

NOA1 received by text (no email, though) this afternoon 11/15!

Hello all!  We mailed our I-130 last week, received and signed for by USCIS Dallas on 11/9.