W199

The instructions clearly say you have to meet within 2 years to petition for a K-1 visa. COVID is not an excuse.

Then you have your answer

A soft deny would be a NOID, Notice Of Intent to Deny. But it sounds like that you are saying your case status at the USCIS case status page clearly says "Denied". If this assumption is true, then its a hard deny. You have something so severe that you are not eligible for the K-1, you can not appeal it. Did you not meet the 2 year meeting requirement? Are you or her not already have final divorce decrees from previous marriage? Are you not a USC? Do you have a criminal history against children?

Just be sure that you give them the correct document for your State. For example, in my State, the first document we get is the divorce decree signed by the judge. This basically is the approval of the divorce agreement, many pages long, that spells out the terms of the divorce.. The next document is the registrar/clerk will issue a divorce NISI certificate. This 1 page certificate certifies your divorce is approved and that it will become final in 3 months. Then 3 months later, if you go to the court house, they will give you a divorce Absolute certificate, saying your divorce is final. The latter is the correct document (for my State).

Ahh, sorry, I misunderstood. My bad. I thought you were saying they immediately said the copy was cropped so they rejected it and asked for a certified copy due to the bad copy. Plus its the USCIS on USA soil who is much better equipped and has the resources to verify the civil documents. And not even they require an original. That sure does seem to be strong proof they want the original. But I don't know how to reconciliate that with that they also immediately noticed the copy was obviously cropped off. This is also in contrast to what my agency (exclusively filipino k1/cr1 visas) said (see my previous posts). There has to be something else going on. The consul is not going to reveal their "secrets", so I don't think we'll ever find out why they requested the wet ink for some people, yet the Manila consulates official policy is accept a photocopy and per my agency, as of last week, has never had an issue with a photocopy of ALL civil documents for the petitioner at the Manila embassy. The embassy has not yet announced they have changed their policy to require original. I guess until this mystery is officially resolved by the embassy, to play it safe just send a certified copy. I probably will at this point, maybe there a rogue temp consul there, but I don't like it since one of them is very fragile, on this paper, from Thailand and not easily replaceable if lost. But USA ones are very easy to replace. You can use LBC (they have branches in USA) which is very cheap and reliable or just spend the $80 and use fedex all the way. When I use LBC, I just send to a local LBC office to be picked up by my fiancee since her Barangay is out of the delivery area and takes an extra 1-2 weeks to arrive. Fedex (a credit card) to her was no issues.

Actually, here is a quote from the first guy who got 221g in one of your examples that I contacted "It was a poor copy. The print margin very conspicuously cropped off something. My wife said the interviewing officer pointed right at the giveaway. "

Thanks for posting the cases proving that people got 221g in Manila. On one we hand, we know from multiple agencies that year after year, thousands of clients, they have never an issue with copes of the civil documents, and the Manila embassy does not specify they are required in their instructions. On the other hand you provided some real life examples of people getting rejected. But I bet is similar to USCIS rejecting hundreds of cases every month due to errors, and not due to a requirement. To investidate, I contacted one of the references you listed above. He confirmed that his photocopy got rejected not because of needing to be an original, but because it was such a poor copy, the margins were messed up, etc... He went on to explain as I did that many printshops just print the documents poorly or wrong, often on the wrong size paper, A4. I imagine once you submit a poor copy, they at that point want the original to verify rather than deal with another poor copy. For the Dimitri example, he first says he needed a wet ink, then he says the certification was wrong ... .. so which was it? The documents were direct from the court house he said, so agreed, the copy had no printing errors, allegedly just a certification error. But the certification looks perfect. And he had 2 divorce decrees from 2 different States. Its impossible that both of them were not certified properly. Basied on the ceritification, it looks to me like he submitted a copy of the divorce decree or similar document that was on file at the court. For my State, if I submitted that it would be rejected. The divorce decree is the wrong document for my State. It doesn't prove the divorce is final. A decree is the divorce agreement and approval from the judge. It does not become final for 3 months (in my State) . Then you need to go back and request the divorce absolute certificate. That certified is is only embossed by the court, not certified as a "copy on file". So my guess is that he gave the wrong divorce document, and usually when you go back to the court house requesting a dicorce certificate they know to give the certificate of absolate or final divorce and not the decree. But ok, this is only a guess, but based on the data from the agencies and thousands of clients, I am confident that there was an issue with the document or photocopy that prompted the request for a new certified copy. After seeing the low quality and wrong size printing from the best printshop in my finacee's barangay, I am not going to let her print any documents ... I'm just going to print them from high quality scans on premium paper.

Exactly, correct! The Manila embassy does request them in their requirements for the interview, only a copy, , and the Department of State does not require them to do so. Its only a formality that the embassy even looks at them. The State deparment in the USA are the ones that have the resources to verify them, and the embassy doesn't need to double check them. The only exception are some rogue embassies like Montreal and Dubai who feel they know better than USCIS. I also verified with my K1/CR1 agency, that they have done nearly 20 thousand K1/CR1 in 20 years, and the Manila embassy has NEVER asked them for originals, including upto last week. I don't know why another member says they know 6 couples in the month of July that all got 221g for their CR1/IR1 at the Manila embassy. Really? They know 6 couples all being interviewed in the Month of July, all having divorced usc petitioner at the Manila embassy and all being 221G due to not having an original divorce decree.? This seems very hard to believe .. Especially since there is not one member on this website that reported it first hand themselves and on the contrary many members saying the exact opposite (embassy has never asked for original). I don't know whats going on with these people saying its needed .. one even said ALL civiil documents must be original .. .. but at this point I would definately call this just a social media rumor and ignore it. No originals are needed and everyone needs to stop panicking and worrying about it. This goes for all documents, incuding your tax returns, I-134 etc... The other possibility, and thekey is to provide the correct divorce document, as specified in the reciprocity details on the DOS web page. Some people present the wrong document .. such as a Divorce NISI certificate instead fof the Divorce Absolute certificate. But the correct divorce document varies by State and by Country if it is a foreign country divorce (and you need it to be translated as well). If the USCIS approved it, you'd think that would be the correct document and a photocopy of the same document are at most needed.

That is interesting, I will call my Filipino K1/CR1 agency tomorrow and double check about their recent experience with CR1/IR1 interviews. But for sure, for K1, they have clients nearly every day interview and never ever had or heard of any issue.

If we are still talking about the Manila embassy, then this isn't true at all, or misleading at best. Its causing a lot of unnecessary panic and fighting in other forums. For many people, its easy to get a certified copy, but in other cases its not and this is causing so much panic. If it is true, then please provide hard data, proof, and the exact circumstances of the event instead of some authoritative sounding statement without any credentials or facts backing it up. Here are mine: 1) The Embassy falls under the DOS, as well as the NVC, and there are no rules or requirements for the consulates to REQUIRE ANY original or certified copies from the petitioner. Only the beneficiary is required to have originals for their own civil docs. 2) The USCIS in USA, before it gets to the DOS, is much better equipped to judge the validity of the civil documents, and even they don't require originals except for court documents, and so the DOS doesn't require originals at the NVC or consulate level. 3) The petitioner does not need to give the beneficiary any originals for their interview, This includes divorce certificates, court documents, I-134, tax returns, and W-2.s Again only the beneficiary's own civil documents must be original/certified 3) Some rogue consulates make up their own rules, such as Montreal, Dubai, etc.. and those do require certified copies, but not the Manila embassy. 4) Sure, of course, if at the interview, the beneficiary shows a horrible copy of any civil document, something that was printed on a ####### printer (I guess that is common in the Philippines), that is fuzzy, hard to read, looks suspicious or similar reasons, then sure they may ask to see the original. But these are rare isolated cases, and this is a very different story, and does not mean the original is REQUIRED, Its just their fault for giving such a bad copy that they forced the consulate to ask to see a certified copy. 5) The USA agency that I used for my K1 specializes in doing Filipino K-1/CR-1. I verified with them today, that literally nearly even single day since yesterday they have clients getting their interview, and they have never ever had anyone got 221g. They tell all clients to only give the beneficiary a copy, since its not required to provide an original or certified copy. 6) So .. sure, if you don't trust your fiancee to print out a clean copy, or if there is something very rare or suspicious about your certificate, then sure send her a certified copy to bullet proof it. For me, I am just sending her a high quality scanned copy on heavy weight paper to overkill it. It actually looks identical to the original including the certified stamp. In her barangay they just have cheap ink jet printers and copy paper that is as thin as rice paper. In summary, for the Manila embassy, no original or certified copies of ANY of the petitioner's civil docs are required at the embassy (even at USCIS level (except for court documents to the USCIS)) ... Sure, you can say "do this at your own risk" .. but that is just promoting unnecessary fear ... You should just say "as long as your civil document is printed normally, not fuzzy, blurred, or other printing artifcats that make it look suspicious, etc etc .. then it is absolutely not necessary. Again. my agency which has had thousands of clients over many years, as of yesterday, they have never ever heard of any such requirement and their clients have had zero issues.

Is it possible that is only for poorly scanned copies that look suspicious? Are they giving out 221G's for everyone? Are you 100% sure? If so, are they requesting it for all divorces, or just the latest one? Finally, are they keeping the certified copy or just inspecting it? My original is very old from Thailand. It would be a nightmare if I had to give up my original. Have you heard anything about court papers from the petitioner (not the beneficiary)? Before a scanned copy was alway ok too, Has that changed?