top_secret

The issue is simple. When he arrives, CBP will ask the question "how long are you staying?". If he answered honestly that he intends to stay, marry and adjust status he will be denied entry on a B2 visa. If he lied and says he intends to marry and return to his home country even though he intends to stay and adjust status then it seems like a material misrepresentation.

During the rona situation the Philippine government decreed that ANY notary could notarize an Affidavit of Legal Capacity To Marry. Later when the President issued a general decree that rona rules were in general rescinded, some LCR's started requiring them to be notarized by the embassy again. Later still, there was some kind of ruling that any notary is still OK. Leading to today where different LCRO's may be making their own rules and the rules may not be consistent. So. US Embassy Manila has a sample Affidavit of Legal Capacity To Marry here https://uploads.mwp.mprod.getusinfo.com/uploads/sites/24/2022/04/Sample-Generic-Affidavit.pdf . According to most, it should be valid if notarized by ANY notary. Unless the LCRO says it its not. If that was the case it still needs notarized by the embassy. It is the Philippines. YMMV.

That is a frustrating outcome. I recently read another firsthand account of a extension letter being rejected for this reason at ICN. I wish I thought to come back here and post a warning. In that case the traveler was boarded and made it to ICN but Korean immigration there refused to admit her with an extension letter despite escalating it to the supervisor. It kind of seemed like they don't know their own rules and the individual officer made a wrong decision and the big boss backed him up. So in her case, she spent 48 hours airside in ICN.

That varies from state to state but generally, short of adopting the child, it would take a court order to change the name if they will do it. Texas has a helpful looking website here. https://guides.sll.texas.gov/name-changes/children I don't know for Texas but we looked into it here in California and it seems not totally clear cut and easy, so we abandoned the idea. There is also the issue of getting the Philippines to recognize a US name change to change the child's passport. I 'think' you would need to have the child's birth certificate annotated by the LCRO and then re-submitted to PSA to have the Philippines recognize the name and I don't think they would do that without a Philippine court order. Which would leave the child with differing names on his Philippine Passport and other documents.

She does not have to change her name at all if she never wants to, but if she does want to it is WAY WAY WAY cheaper and easier if she just changes her passport now in the Philippines. It costs P1200 ($22) including the expedite fee and takes 2 or 3 weeks to change a Philippine passport. It costs $540 and could take at least a couple of YEARS to change the name on a green card once it's been issued plus all the assorted hassles associated with having differing names on different documents during those years. She can change it anytime up until the day of her interview. All that matters is the name in her passport. It's a name she can already legally use in the Philippines so if she wants to, she should start using it immediately. The Embassy will use whatever name is in the passport she brings for her interview for her visa, green card and social security card.

Going back to my earlier recommendation of Japan, it seems that as of December 15, 2023 Japan has instituted entirely online eVISAs for US Permanent Residents which seems to eliminate even the mail in step. My wife still has a 5 year multiple entry visa for Japan granted to her in the Philippines so we haven't tried online but it does seem like a very promising development. Japan is a really cool tourism destination. https://www.evisa.mofa.go.jp

Having followed your case here almost as long as I've been here, I am very sorry to hear this. With all the illegal aliens running around loose in this country who should be removed, and are not being, it's disheartening that USCIS should waste their resources on someone who is undoubtedly an asset to the US. VisaJourney is famously a do-it-yourself forum but, there are cases where it is prudent and necessary to involve an immigration attorney to achieve a just outcome. This seems like one of those cases. You certainly have my best wishes no matter which course you choose from here.

You can submit unsolicited evidence online. There is no guarantee they would look at it but they might. We submitted additional evidence a month after we filed online and I can't say if it helped or not but it definitely didn't delay anything.

Assuming you are travelling on a B2 visa, the consequences if you were turned around would be the loss of the B2 visa, probably forever. It's a very high risk for a one week visit.

US Embassy Manila has mostly been pretty fast issuing visas after interviews lately. But there are a few cases where it even takes 4 to 6 weeks with no outwardly obvious reason. Holidays always slow things down too. It's annoying but probably nothing to worry about yet. Has the "Ready" date updated since the interview?

My wifes sister was recently successful out-of-town late registering their mother at Angeles LCR. They suspect that maybe she was born in Leyte but aren't even completely sure about that detail. There is literally no record of her as a child. Absolutely nothing. The earliest record of her existence at all is that she was listed as the mother on some of her children's baptismal certificates. Somewhere around 1999 the family late registered her kids including my wife, plus they late registered her marriage then too, so that is where PSA documents start mentioning her. There are mixed ages on all of those documents and numerous other glaring discrepancies. I really don't think anyone has any idea her true age or birth date. They used the baptismal certificates of her kids, PSA marriage certificate and some of her kids birth certificates plus whatever new ID she has like PhilHealth etc. I wasn't directly involved but I know they were back and forth with the Angeles LCR for a while and finally she passed and now has a "very late" registered birth certificate and passport. I'll ask my wife if they have any advice on the process.

Just today my wife and stepdaughters UK applications are formally sent off to Home Office UKVI for adjudication and their passports are in the possession of VFS in New York City. I will reserve any recommendations pending the outcome which we expect to hear in 15-18 days but the process has been pretty easy so far by challenged passport visa application standards. You can start a dummy application online here https://visas-immigration.service.gov.uk/apply-visa-type/visit just to see what you are getting into. Until you submit it nothing is permanent. Their biometrics was at the local USCIS ASC Tuesday and we sent their passports to VFS New York City by USPS Priority Mail. VFS got them today and emailed us that the processed visa applications were forwarded to UK Visas and Immigration today. Now we wait. If UK comes back successfully we are doing a Schengen visa from Germany also for the same trip. That one looks like 'maybe' we can do by mail since my wifes biometrics were taken in the Philippines in 2019 for her Netherlands visa, and her daughter is under 12. Germany uses BLS not VFS and once we are ready to submit the application, BLS has a phone number you are supposed to call and verify the biometrics are re-usable. If yes it can be done by mail. If not, it's a 2 1/2 hour trip to Los Angeles for us since that is the nearest BLS application center. It looks like it would be Miami in Florida. But at least you can call and find out if mail is an option with previous biometrics.

Per my Wikipedia sleuthing 😁 🤣 I was counting Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital employs 2,400, and Saint Luke's ~500 within a couple miles plus quite a few smaller medical facilities in the immediate area. Maybe not a "complex" but seems a health care oriented neighborhood. I'm guessing there might be a lot of Filipinos working around there (according to popular stereotypes about common vocational choices of Filipino immigrants😁)

Not to spread stereotypes about common vocational choices of Filipino immigrants, but the store is rather strategically located near a very large medical complex that employs over 3,000 medical workers. 😁 (including a Saint Luke's hospital😮) I'm sure it will be a very successful location. I checked the map and the Jollibee's in Houston are somewhat far from the new Seafood City so I believe it is now somewhat obligatory that a new one must be opened nearby in the not too distant future. Seafood City is a full supermarket but if you go for the fish they have fresh fish on ice which you can bag up and take it up to the counter where they will clean it and cut it to your specifications at no charge.

Seafood City is incredibly popular. Usually the stores are, or become an anchor point for a whole host of well known Filipino businesses. Surly there is or will be a Jollibee's, Red Ribbon Bakeshop, Goldilocks LBC, and a few local Filipino restaurants in the immediate surrounding neighborhood.

SLEC would let you take your medical early once you were documentarily qualified but before you have an interview scheduled by signing a waiver that you know of the consequences. But that is becoming risky even for spousal cases since US Embassy Manila is now developing significant backlogs in CR1/CR2 and is not scheduling them in any kind of coherent or predictable manner. It was probably never a good idea to take the medical early for family cases since it's really hard to predict when you might get an interview. If your PD is not even current you would not have the documentarily complete letter they would want even with a waiver.

I think almost all of our evidence was "other". That's pretty normal for an overseas spouse.

We are in the middle of the UK visa process right now trying to pull off a tourist trip. VFS cleverly tries to lead you into costly "added-value services" that are not required or even helpful in many cases. Read the fine print and chose the "free" (well included at no extra cost in the $152 visa fee) free biometrics at a USCIS Application Support Center, and free self-upload of documents, and pay for and print your own UPS return label and mail it off to New York City. Or....... I could pay $82 extra and drive 2 1/2 hours to Los Angeles to unnecessarily pay them for the "added-value service" of VFS scanning and uploading the documents for me, rather than me just uploading them from my PC. The application is all online, the only required fee is $152. The only required appearance is biometrics at the same USCIS ASC they got biometrics done for removal of conditions, the only required interaction with VFS is the free self-upload option, and you pay round trip UPS to send in the passport to VFS in NYC and prepay UPS for a return label..

We recently looked at Greece. They seem to often be considered fairly easy to approve a visa but frequently give single entry and EXACTLY the time you say with little or no leeway on dates. We fired off an online UK tourist visa application just this week for my wife and stepdaughter as Green Card holders. Biometrics is at the local USCIS Application Support Center which I assume means the UK Home Office and USCIS are on really friendly terms. After biometrics with USCIS the rest is online and mail their passports off to New York, hopefully to come back with visas. I cannot comment on how successful that endeavor will be so far, but I can update whenever we get a decision from UK. Their biometrics are this coming Tuesday and we will mail off the passports immediately after the appointment. If in Florida the Japan Consulate is Miami but they still take applications by mail https://www.miami.us.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/visa_temporary_visitor.html

I would recommend Japan as both an easy visa and a fantastic tourist destination. Also note that generally Taiwan will admit anyone with a used Japanese visa into Taiwan visa free regardless of their ordinary visa requirements. https://www.atlanta.us.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/visitingjapan.html and search "Applying by Mail" (but make sure you choose the correct Japanese consulate for your state.)

In our experience, traveling with my wife on her "challenged" Philippine passport before we were married and before she had a green card, Japan is hands down the easiest first world G7 "visa country" by a long shot. There are no biometrics and in the US I believe it could all be done pretty easily by mail. For Schengen she was denied a visa by France, so we went embassy shopping based on statistics that the Netherlands was the most generous towards Philippine passports and she was approved by the Netherlands. (and then we went to France) For the OP though be aware that the Netherlands is definitely friendly towards Filipino passports but that does not translate into most friendly towards all nationalities passports. I seem to recall them having high reject rates towards Muslim and African county's passports. Chile was a kind of easy visa for a Philippine passport and I was really impressed by that country. Korea allows US Permanent Residents who are in transit between the US and a third country to enter Korea visa free for up to 30 days. IE if you took Korean Air from the US to Singapore via Incheon you could stopover up to 30 days visa free in Korea and no visa required for Singapore either. Korean visas are pretty easy too if you just wanted to go straight there.

Any Filipino adult that successfully made it through a visa interview at the very minimum has a passport and a NBI Clearance for ID.

US Embassy Manila in 2023 apparently subverted the expedite system as a back door way to allow self scheduling of ordinary cases. They had a so called "mass expedite" in mid January 2023 and then a second "mass expedite" the last week of January 2023 where they essentially cleared out all backlog whatsoever in CR1/IR1 cases. IE, a case that became documentarily qualified January 20, 2023 got an "auto-expedite" and was able to self schedule on January 27, 2023. However, then there was NO regular scheduling at all of newly documentarily qualified CR1/IR1 cases until the last week of June 2023 at which time there was another so called "mass expedite" encompassing all cases documentarily qualified up until mid May 2023. There has been no regular scheduling of CR1/IR1 cases at USEM since. IE, if you were a documentarily qualified CR1/IR1 case the first week of May 2023 you got an "auto-expedite" and could self schedule since the last week of June 2023. However, if you became documentarily qualified the last week of May 2023 you are still waiting for scheduling to this day. Various people are speculating that since they did two of these so called mass expedites in January 2023 then they would probably do it in January 2024 but there is really little to base that on. It is a fact that cases documentarily qualified the second half of May 2023 and later are still waiting for scheduling so the backlog is at least 7 months and has not moved for at least 6 months. That is historically long for spousal cases at US Embassy Manila so it seems something would need to happen "soon". There have been a handful of IR1 cases recently that had converted from F2A cases when sponsors naturalized and therefore had unusually old DQ date, that were scheduled by NVC for IR1 interviews in Feb 2024. They are unusual cases but being the only IR1 cases to see regular scheduling recently and NOT being so called auto expedites it could be seen as indicating a return to regular NVC scheduling. Anyone who says they know what US Embassy Manila is up to with CR1/IR1 interviews is merely speculating because all that is certain is they are being erratic. They have cleared huge backlogs in K1's and B1/B2's and are making good progress clearing huge backlogs in various family based categories, but at the same time USEM developed a new backlog of CR1/IR1 cases that did that did not previously exist even during the rona-lockdown days.

The way I've seen people get it recently is about every tracking method there is finally "goes live" like the night before she can actually pick it up. Like LBC receives it, inputs it into their system so it starts tracking and then they deliver it to MOA like 4 hours later and she can pick it up. So it really doesn't give you much to track. The "Issued" status is your best early notice that all is well.

I would say it is probably the holidays. Mid January flight is risky but is probably still doable. If she has to go far to say goodby to family, traveling to or from the provinces is rough for like a week after New Years in the Philippines. She also has to fit CFO in there somewhere once she gets the visa and I could guess they may be holiday affected too.