Jinky&Bob

The sad thing is that Biden will most like put the illegals ahead of thousands and thousands of people that have done the legal filings and spent lots of money to come to the US. It makes me mad that those that sneak across the border would have ANY priority over anyone legal. I’m glad my husband is here already and we don’t have to go through too much more going forward. 

That’s right... I think i944 was more of a check compliance with legislative requirements type form more so than a  whole new rule..
 
my understanding of its introduction was merely a way of trump enforcing USCIS to ensure emigrants complied with immigration laws rather than think they can come here and claim welfare... which is fair enough since they haven’t paid into the system. 
 
so any “permanent” removal of the forms implementation would ultimately require changes to immigration legislation which will take years going off historical trends, since nobody can agree..

You can't just blame the Philippines. My wife is also there and the markets are open as well as the malls. Some places she is able to bring the kids and others (like SM) she is not. It seems your fiance's local government is pretty restrictive. I think overall the entire globe has over reacted to this so called pandemic.  Here is a pic from last week with my 2 boys in a store without a mask making friends with a worker there.

Thank you! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that

Its a whopping failure on the first world. They will keep locking down and when things go nuts, economic & financial collapse is inevitable. It is going to end very ugly. 

Great suggestion. I agree that this would be super useful. Or even the option to filter by most recent.

I think USCIS is closed today and tomorrow. Monday was a holiday.
Closed because of all the happenings in DC.

I think USCIS is closed today and tomorrow. Monday was a holiday.
Closed because of all the happenings in DC.

After the interview, the visa took about 2 weeks to arrive. We sent the picture of the visa to the CFO rep because we did that before the interview and proof of payment. She sent us an email of the temp certificate and said the real sticker would arrive by mail. After seven days, it still hadn't arrived. It shipped from metro Manila to metro Manila. It shouldn't have taken that long. I don't even think they sent it.
 
I had booked both our tickets through Japan Airlines because I was in Manila with my wife. We both downloaded the Traze app and filled in our info. We arrived at Terminal 1 at 5:45 AM, but they wouldn't let people enter until 6:30 AM. The guard asked for our Covid test before entering the airport, but we said we were going to the States. No test is required for now. We never had to show anyone the Traze QR code (even though they claim it is mandatory). Also, BoI requires that all departing Filipinos fill out a Travel Declaration form that says they are aware of the risks. I didn't have to fill that out. My wife paid the travel tax, but I didn't have to do that. At the JAL luggage counter, she showed the employee her temp CFO certificate and her passport, and she got her boarding pass. Going through immigration was easy. There were hardly any other passengers in line. We left on time, and when we landed in Narita, they made the people entering Japan get off first. The flight was about 80% full. The rest of the transit passengers got off and walked down this corridor to do a final security check. They just check for scissors or knives. Once through, we stayed at the gate for an hour before we boarded. It seemed like 80% of the airports shops were closed.

We departed Narita on time and except for the crying kids in the row in front of us, the flight was great. It was only 50% full. They fed us from MNL->NRT and then twice from NRT->LAX. It was good food with some Häagen-Dazs as a bonus! You had to wear your face mask on the plane except for when eating. At least they didn't require the plastic face shield too. 

LAX airport was a ghost town. Usually, there are Automated Passport Control Kiosks that you can walk up to and enter your info. All 50 of them were shut down. They made all passengers go to 1 area. We walked to the immigration officer's booth, he looked confused about her IR-1 visa, made a phone call, and then stamped her passport. Total time was 5 min. His only question was verifying the mailing address for the green card, and then he said, "Welcome to the USA." We got our bags and left. 

I am totally happy with WU my goal was just to share my experiences and maybe help others. I know a lot of people here use Remitly and other methods. I just wanted to the pro's and con's I have experienced with each 🙂

I was kind of shocked to be honest. I guess they have finally started processing again.

Sorry I should've clarified, we'll be visiting Charleston in SC, still the same state but just has a lot more stores than the town where I'm living!
that sounds amazing! I need to visit

Move to Wisconsin! We have lots of "Cheddar cheese"

Move to Wisconsin! We have lots of "Cheddar cheese"

Yes! Help the wider economy by helping your local neighborhood.
 
For those who lean towards "charity begins at home," some other ideas would be to help out deserving family members (key word: deserving) or, thinking longer-term, investing the money in tax-advantaged accounts for retirement or kids' education.

With the "new strain' coronavirus rapidly closing what options may exist, any route may be short lived.  But the way my wife actually went remains open at the moment.  She flew Manila--Istanbul--Panama on Turkish Airlines.  I flew LAX to Panama arriving abort 45 minutes ahead of her landing in Panama, so I was able to meet her at the gate when she got off the plane.  Then we continued together from Panama to San Jose Costa Rica on Copa Airlines.  With the caveat that although Panama allows Filipinos to transit without a visa, I couldn't get it booked on a single ticket and since Panama requires a visa for Filipino passports to clear immigration, the first airline 'could' balk at carrying a passenger without a visa if the transit is to a separate ticket and separate airline.   This was not an issue for my wife as Panama will also accept a Multiple Entry Visa from any G7 nation or South Korea as a substitute visa and my wife has Multiple Entry Visas for both Japan and South Korea.  A more visa friendly way though may be to instead fly Istanbul to Bogota Colombia on Turkish Airlines and then Bogota to San Jose Costa Rica on Avianca thus eliminating the whole visa question.  Alternately someone here was looking at Manila to Doha to Madrid to San Jose.  Which is fine visa wise but Spain is now on the Philippines no-Bueno list.  Honestly, Istanbul Turkey may still be a viable route this week, but who knows if it will be on the 'new strain" list next week.  Travel is challenging these days.

Very good point!  The stimulus is not just to make YOU better off.  It is to make EVERYONE better off.  If you don't have a great need for it, go spend it at some businesses that are hurting.  Buy some things at small businesses and then give it to someone who is in great need.  Take a family whose breadwinner has been laid off out for a nice meal at a struggling restaurant.   Many opportunities here!
 
I would recommend NOT to blow it on gadgets for you, on Amazon!

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think the 2019 adjusted income will be the determining factor on the stimulus check eligibility.  So if a married couple made $170,000 last year, and took the standard married filing jointly deduction of $24,000, that would put the married couple below the $150,000 income threshold.  The standard deduction, along with qualifying child care credit and a bevy of other deductions factor into the equation greatly.
 
On a fiscal policy note, the entire bill is full of pork, 5000+ pages plus of deficit spending that has absolutely nothing to do with CoVid relief.  But that's Washington for ya, never let a good crisis go to waste.  

A single person showing 140k income will get nothing.  A couple showing 140k income with get the full payment.
 
I would guess your husband is like me.  The whole bill as passed is terrible.  The stimulus check is just one part.

I feel so bad for your fiancé. If you think of pulling the plug, better do it sooner. Don’t wait until more damage has been done. She did nothing to deserve this. 

Evidence is quite clear: 
 
Duterte has put the Philippines on probably the longest and more than likely the strictest lockdown back in March.  He has said many times the country will remain under lockdown until the vaccine is distributed
 
As of now target take for the bulk of the population to get vaccinated is late 2021 or early 2022.  If you keep up with news in the Philippines this is pretty much common knowledge
 
Duterte runs the county with an iron fist, He will remain President until the end of June 2022 when his term ends, rumors are his daughter will take over as the next President, this has been is style when he was Mayor Of Davao, once his term expired his daughter took over as Mayor to enforce his policies. 
 
Google him and you will see how he ran Davao City and what he did to law breakers there, and now how he is running the entire country.  I like the guy he has done alot of good for Philippines.
 
 

Sorry to hear that
 
I would wake up every morning and give China a one finger salute for this ordeal spread on the world.

Hi all,
 
I recently realized that although the immigration process for us has had its frustrations here and there, it's the reality of how the system works in a country that, in spite of everything, has offered freedom to millions of individuals over the centuries and is considered a very desirable place to live (proof is in the pudding - one million people enter the U.S. each day (barring the stupid pandemic), and millions try to move here permanently each year).
 
Having grown up in Canada, we were always attentive to everything south of the border. Our accent is almost the same as the U.S., we watch the same shows on TV, wear the same clothes; we felt American without realizing it, because on the outside we look and talk the same. And having always lived in big cities in Canada, I have a huge number of friends who are foreign-born immigrants from Europe, Africa, or Latin America. Every now and then, I would hear a foreign-born individual criticize the government, society, or lifestyles in Canada. Sometimes I felt slighted; "If you don't like it here, just go home," I would want to tell the person.
 
When I started visiting my wife-to-be in Michigan, long before we filed our I-129F application, I immediately noticed the underlying assumption behind the sometimes rough attitudes I witnessed when crossing the border: for some DHS agents, everyone is a potential terrorist or drug or people smuggler until there's a reason to believe otherwise. That's understandable: loads of drugs get smuggled into this country all the time, and there is no lack of people out there with very bad intentions, who would love to cause harm to people here (for too many reasons to count). Hence the guilty-until-proven-otherwise approach I'm sure we've all seen.
 
That same approach could also be the reason many frustrating things happen for immigrants and those in the process of immigration. We can't complain, because we're the beneficiaries, and we don't want to bite the hand that feeds us. From the U.S. government's perspective, immigration is a privilege, never a right. Truth is, they are right about that.
 
This forum has been an enormous (I can't stress that enough) help for my wife and I throughout this whole process. If it didn't exist, and if we tried getting all our info from USCIS directly, I don't know if we'd be here right now. We picked VisaJourney as our go-to because we had heard so many stories about people paying thousands of dollars for lawyers, basically to fill out forms for them and look up information they could easily find themselves (we ourselves looked into many lawyers over several months and eventually came to this same conclusion). So we owe VisaJourney a debt of gratitude.
 
I've shared some frustrations on these forums before about the opacity of Citizenship and Immigration Services in the U.S.A., about how difficult it is to reach someone, and again I realize that it's simply a reality of the system and its approach, and that we are immensely fortunate all the same. The other day, chatting with friends after Mass, I caught myself referring cynically to how complicated the immigration process is and how unhelpful USCIS has been, and I realized, "I'm speaking in exactly the same way [such-and-such] did back in Montreal, and he was an immigrant." USCIS has been enormously helpful - the proof is that I am here now, in the U.S., living with my wife, awaiting the next step (biometrics appointment, which will have to be re-scheduled since it was scheduled for December 24). Many people are not so fortunate.
 
Immigration really is a privilege, not a right. Some frustrations are also attributable to the circumstances occasioned by the unnecessary pandemic, not just the way USCIS operates. All this said, people do get frustrated, and they need to voice their concerns and ask for help. This forum is a great place for that.
 
I would love to hear anyone else's thoughts. We all want to live in the United States, for different reasons, and we are grateful for the chance to be here (whether we are already here or hope to be one day). No one deserves to be treated as a criminal (unless they really are) or as a faceless number, even if we do get the impression at times that we are treated as a potential criminal or as a number. It's very human not to react kindly to that sort of thing. If things go ill, do you just sit there and take it, and wait for the next opening (the next appointment, the next flight, the next interview), or do you voice your concern? How do you do so without coming off as a spoiled brat, demanding to be attended to, since it's your God-given right, as a human being born on this planet, to live and work in the United States of America? I would be grateful to hear your opinion and/or of your experience about this balance between these two poles.

I doubt all this happens. Hes been in office 47 years. 

Whatever the problem is, Trump caused it. Biden will restore America's dignity and make America great again after trump screwed it up! #Biden2020