top_secret

Another grim milestone. It has now passed 7 months since any VJ member has updated their timeline reporting issuance of a CR1 or IR1 visa by US Embassy Manila. A gap for Philippines spousal visas that as far as I can tell is unprecedented in the entire history of this forum.

US Embassy Manila is on their Facebook page AGAIN patting themselves on the back and trumpeting what an awesome job they are doing on visa interviews lately. This time for C1/D crewman's visas where they issued 110,000 last year, and publish a current wait time of 32 days to get a visa interview for that category. OTOH, all the CR and IR interview appointment letters they just sent out Friday and Monday were for cases that were documentarily qualified before the last week of June 2023. Since they got April Interview dates that makes the backlog for spousal visas rather definitively 10 plus months from becoming documentarily qualified. A backlog that only developed over the last year and that did not previously exist. The embassy is getting roasted in the comments AGAIN. Certainly one of the more dumb, tone-deaf social media campaigns ever.

A "certificate of finality" is probably the same thing as "decree of annulment". I think you would be enough. You should also get your Advisory on Marriages/CENOMAR from PSA.

That is common. My wife's birth certificate was the same. You should ask for an AKA on your NBI Clearance with your mother's surname.

Unfortunately, that is rather definitively exactly what US Embassy Manila really did. It has been ALL CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 cases that became documentarily qualified past that May 2023 cut off date. I can't even imagine what they were thinking.

She was refused a B1/B2 visa. She answered the question honestly. There is no paperwork. They could look it up in their computer if they really wanted to but it doesn't make any difference at all for the spousal visa. No problem.

Awesome. Maybe the consul who wrote the 221g didn't know what it was supposed to say, but someone else down at the embassy knows what they are doing. It was correct. happy it worked out.

Most people who get a positive result on sputum testing would get called back to Saint Luke's early within the first month. So if your culture was taken Feb 5,6,7 and you haven't heard anything yet, that is good. Most people pass sputum testing anyways and your odds are improved even more after a month without hearing anything. The Psych evaluation is nothing. One day at most. It is not a delay. So it may be a little early to be looking at apartments. Chances are you wont need one. Any really good deal you found right now would probably be rented to someone else already by April. People I know who got good deals renting apartments or condos in Manila actually searched for places by walking around the neighborhood looking for posted ads and asking security guards etc. A lot of places aren't even advertised. People who rent from agencies or AirBNB etc tend to pay more but it's easier and more straightforward. A friends wife got sent for the psych evaluation just because she said traveling from her province to Manila and the whole immigration process has been stressful and caused her anxiety. It's an extra fee for Saint luke's

I don't think there is any consideration or difference of treatment scheduling between CR or IR. Fewer CR's and many more IR is just a side effect of the embassies slowness. Looking at CR's and IR's that reported got interview letters today, I think they literally stopped on May 25 and you previously said your husband was May 26. There was two cases that with May 24 DQ dates that said they DID get interview letters. At least one other May 26 DQ IR5 case that said they certainly DID NOT receive an interview letter either, as well as several May 30 and later cases without interview letters. I 'think' if you arrived in the US exactly on the second anniversary you are still IR1 but I sure wouldn't want to be the one to put that to the test. I think it would be a really good idea to wait the extra day just to be safe.

CR or IR should have the same priority and be in the same queue. Probably the reason you aren't seeing any CR's is that with a year long interview backlog at US Embassy Manila most of the CR's are hitting the two year mark and converting to IR's by the time they are getting interview letters. Looking at the people who reported receiving interviews letters today more carefully, it looks like they covered cases documentarily qualified up until almost the end of May 2023. There were two who had June DQ dates but looking at those cases more carefully they had associated IR2 cases with May dates and probably got interview letters today so they would interview as a family. I don't think they got to any routine June dates yet and it looks like they stopped at the last few days of May 2023 right now.

Apparently a second round of CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 are being out sent out now including DQ dates at least up into June 2023 somewhere. That would finally seem to actually start getting into the real numbers of the CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 backlog. Maybe the public shaming shaming they got on all their social media accounts actually worked.

N400's are getting processed really fast these days. It may depend on the local office but naturalization completed in well under a year is not at all unusual. Definitely get on it immediately.

Marriage certificate wasn't required. It's an easy standard service to get a certified copy of a Philippine passport from Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs so that's what we did. It sounds not as easy in Mexico so Im not much help there. Whatever you do, don't send in the actual passport since it disappears into an IRS black hole for an indefinite period of time with no traceability and that's not where anyone wants their passport to be during an immigration process. There are certified acceptance agents in Mexico so that might be a good option if conveniently located.

So, in the unlikely event that airport security did demand the envelope be opened. If they actually require you to open it, then do it by cutting a corner so they can see in. Then it would still be just like many other envelopes CBP sees.

There is Philippine Airlines unaccompanied minor page. https://www.philippineairlines.com/en/before-you-fly/special-needs-and-request/unaccompanied-minors We flew our daughter from LAX TO the Manila unacompanied at age 10 last summer so she could stay with grandma and visit her cousins while school was out. Philippine Airlines handled it very well and we felt she was in good hands for the trip so I would recommend them for an unaccompanied minor.

Sadly, it is probably time to start looking at apartment options in Ermita. Most of the time sputum testing turns out to be a big waste of time but realistically sputum testing is probably accurate and if positive the treatment is actually necessary. It would be better if it could occur under better circumstances.

How did you get NVC to refund you? I had a friend that recently got double charged by NVC and even though it is totally NVC's fault and he has documentation and everything they won't budge on him a refund.

I think you would definitely be in the next batch too. Even if it's another month at least there is finally some movement.

I saw that remark too and that is definitely interesting but it is an outlier and there are many more DQ mid to late May that definitely did not get interview letters. I was wondering if there is something unusual about their case or if they were certain about their exact DQ date. If you follow the IR5 group and the group chats there are allot more data points and with the sole exception you mentioned it seems like the cutoff date was very early May. It does seem certain they advanced two or more months in just the last month so it seems reasonable to assume all of June would be covered next month if they follow any kind of predictable pattern.

Interview letters just went out for a large number of IR5's DQ March and April 2023 and a relative handful with early May DQ dates. I also saw like two or three reports from IR1's with similar DQ dates. It still fits the hypothesis that CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 were deprioritized after the June 2023 mass expedite and were dumped into the lengthy IR5 queue without priority. Since it appears that the cutoff point for interview letters this month was early May 2023 DQ dates, that would still exclude the large number of backlogged CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 cases since almost all of the CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 DQ before mid May 2023 already got their interview letters way back in June 2023. So as it stands. It seems that in the last month, the IR5 backlog decreased 2 months. CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 backlog 'might' be following IR5. Interview letters came out on the 8th for a second month in a row so 'maybe' that could be looked at as a trend of when to expect interview letters. If the cutoff point this month is indeed early May 2023(?) then next month around the 8th one could wildly speculate that May-July DQ dates might have some chance to get interview letters. Unless US Embassy Manila does something wildly unpredictable, which they have been doing. The backlog rather definitely is 10 months at this point and would be a year by the time large numbers of CR1/IR1 CR2/IR2 start actually getting interviews.

Here's a somewhat poignant news story reflecting the opinions of many here and on other immigration forums.

We recently had a VJ member from the Philippines do a strait same day turnaround in Guam to activate a IR1 visa before it expired and returned to the Philippines to wrap things up before going to New York to live with her spouse a few months later. They said immigration in Guam were understanding and they didn't have the slightest issue.

Were charges even filed? Unless I'm missing something here, it seems like there was an arrest, you were released, and the DA hasn't filed a case over it. (???) If that was what happened, then "there was an arrest but no charges were filed". If charges had been filed then there would be a court case to refer to.

I will relate what we did filing CA taxes as MFJ with a non resident spouse, with the extreme caveat that I am not any tax professional, just read some stuff online and let TurboTax do the rest. From what we were able to gather it seems that California's main requirement is that you must file the same status on state as you did on Federal. IE if you file MFJ on your Federal return, then you are required to file MFJ on CA state too. From there we just answered all the residency questions very literally in TurboTax and the program decided we should file 540NR (California Nonresident or Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return). SCHEDULE CA (540NR) Column E allowed for excluding income from non resident and non california sources. If you were a part year resident you pay taxes on all income earned while a resident and only on income from California sources while you were nonresident. They had a worksheet for splitting it up. In our case the return was accepted and very promptly paid months before my wife even had an ITIN. CA FTB has not complained, and I am quite sure they would have if they saw anything they didn't like, so it must have all been good..

Should still be fine. CBP doesn't issue green cards, USCIS does, and they have all the facts and are supposed to check.