RA_PH1

Hi All, I have a question if anyone has had done a K1 visa for someone in the Philippines and were able to use a Birth Certificate from a local Municipality instead of one from the Philippines Statistics Authority? Me and my fiancé had already submitted our I-129F to USCIS back in July 2022. She had provided me 2 types of Birth Certificates. One was from the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) and one was from her local municipality office. The reason she provided 2 versions of her Birth Certificates was because her original PSA was handwritten and it was scanned in blurry and unclear. Her local municipal certificate is a clear version and these 2 birth certificates were used to apply for her Philippines passport. I reviewed the documents with my lawyer and she advised we can submit it with the 2 copies. However, my lawyer told me we would need to request a clearer copy of the PSA Birth Certificate down the road. She believes that may be needed during the consulate interview. I agreed we should try to obtain a clearer copy of the PSA Birth Certificate and had advised my fiancé on obtaining one. The issue is that my fiancé had attempted 2 times working with her local PSA office to obtain a clearer copy. Each time she requested a copy, she requested the copy be clearer. However, each time she comes to pickup the copy, it is not an updated clear copy. She has directed issue to the director of the office there on her 2nd attempt. So we'll wait and see if the third copy is clear. However, the whole situation is a bit frustrating, because she has to pay for each copy of the Birth Certificate even though it was not clear. I am not sure what other recourse we can do to pursue the matter since I am not familiar with the process of the country. Normally, in the US, if we are unsatisfied with the performance of a government office we can report it to our congress person. So I guess it becomes more of a 2 question, do we just try with the 2 Birth Certificates from the PSA and local municipality or do we try to escalate the issue to her congressperson? She tells me her government is corrupt. So she is not too confident anything is going to happen if she reports to her congressperson. Thank You any advice will be greatly appreciated.

I also work for the government. As someone else mentioned here...people bring home sensitive documents all the time. There's a section of our agency like USCIS that just process paper work applications and they all work from home. The files and paperwork are scanned into the system (sometimes by contractors) and the person processing it does it all digitally from their work laptop at home. This is also why certain positions require clearances. The clearance tells the government they can trust this person handling this type of information. We get emails of reminders and part of our remote work agreement explicitly states we are responsible for securing sensitive information when working from home. For example, we're not allow to work in like a Starbucks or out of a McDonalds where people can easily see our screens. I'm not sure about USCIS processing centers, but our processing centers are GS-5 to GS-8 pay. Which is not great pay in most locality areas. I can see why they may have a staffing shortage since wages have increases everywhere. Also, it's never fun working at a processing center. From what I was told of people that worked there...the quotas are sometimes not easily met. It depends on the application you are getting. Cause some people just send in a huge mess. They do appreciate things being sent in organized manner more. It is more easier to read through and process. Just like everyone else, I too am also frustrated by the processing time that just keeps going up. USCIS said they hope to get the K1 visas down to 6 months processing time by end of FY2023. But I haven't seen it go down yet since I filed in July 2022. Nor do I think they are able to hire additional staff to help. Since I am in the government too...the budget for our agency has not been approved and neither has most other agencies. So we are working in a CR (Continued Resolution) which means only bare minimum spending. I attached a screenshot of their budget proposal for FY2023 (that has not been approved due to politics around government budgets). The president's budget request for USCIS is to increase their operations and support staff up to about 4,000 personnel. I think that includes the processing center too. If the budget gets approved, hopefully it will mean processing times to start going down after 2 or 4 months (training and hiring time for new employees). However, our CR is due to expire in December 2022 and it may be another CR even though Democrats controls both congress and the presidency. Take into account the big election this year in November 2022 as well. Make sure you go out to VOTE!