spicynujac

We entered the US with IR1 visa almost 3 months ago. Social security card arrived automatically within a week or two (funny enough with a misspelled name). We are still waiting on the green card. I would prefer not traveling abroad without it (both due to the crazy news I've heard regarding US immigration actions but more importantly it allows certain benefits in my wife's home country (as well as third country transit benefits we will very likely need to use!). As I recall, 3-4 months was a normal processing time, pre-Trump. Can anyone give any first hand knowledge of receiving a green card in 2025 and how long it took? There are stories of extremely long backlogs which I hope are not affecting automatic mailings of spousal green cards. We will likely still travel in the coming months either way, fingers crossed, as we want to squeeze in a trip home before the baby making begins! I hope this estimate of 9.2 months does not apply to our situation... (Link removed) Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens: Spouses (inside the U.S.) Marriage Green Card No wait required 9.2 months

Friend who is a million miler and gets Global Entry benefits at no charge says he NEVER uses it as the free US Govt Mobile Passport App is just as easy and always faster (mostly because no one uses it). Global Entry is a nice idea in principle (and for a time made some sense) but in practice its benefits are pretty marginal. I wouldn't bother... Even TSA Precheck has become progressively less valuable (most recently as of July 2025 all travelers are allowed to wear shoes again, negating one of the biggest benefits of Precheck). Personally I'm not too comfortable installing an Uncle Sam app on my phone but if you are, then that's the best route. Also keep in mind that unless your final destination is a port of entry then you're still going to "wait" the same number of time --*hours*-- for your connecting flight, no matter how quickly you pass through US immigration... Waiting on this side of the line vs that side is the same to me: this is the sole reason I never got Global Entry!

I travel internationally frequently, and the vast majority of countries still stamp. If not, I often ask for stamps (many times there is a choice between electronic entry and physical processing and you can almost always get a stamp at the latter. Physical processing will likely never COMPLETELY go away as you have special cases, babies without documents, wheelchair assistance, etc. that a human needs to eyeball). An old passport is a great record of your memories, an heirloom for your decendents, etc. (an uncle who recently died had a prominent stamp from National Socialist Germany when he visited in the twenties which was quite the conversation starter at his funeral!) The US Gov't generally only knows about your comings and goings from the USA. I have several trips that the US has no idea I ever took unless they look at my stamps... Sad that the stamps might be ending. And I'm surprised there is not more governmental pressure to stamp so they have maximum knowledge/control. Most countries (particularly those who are more strict with their visitor rules) still stamp, as the document becomes proof of your time in country. But Jamaica and Dominican Republic (two VERY tourist friendly countries) this year both did not (I was in a group and didn't want to separate from them or else I would have bypassed the electronic entry line and gotten the stamp). I requested a stamp the last time I went to Canada. They warned me that they have to check my police history if giving a stamp, and if rejected they would have to deny me entry to the country versus normal automatic entry without a stamp. I hesitated but she insisted traffic tickets etc don't count so I got the check and the stamp. I imagine the next time I renew my passport we might be using "passport card only" and then after that who knows? But if the paper passport goes away I imagine there will be some type of imitation passport that airports or other public offices will set up, like how the US National Park system has a "passport book" for visiting their parks. There are already some post offices that do this (got the polar bear stamp in Churchill Canada last year). But the reality is in a world of 10 billion plus, it won't really be feasible to try to manually process and track the comings and goings of all of us... until we are all implanted anyway! Kinda sad but on the other hand, passports have really only existed for *barely* 100 years...

It's all in HOW you do it. If you are married, just think about the GOOD way to ask your wife a question, versus the way you know will result in a bad response I merely made the statement in front of the officer "We've been married for 2 years now!" and he put the rest of it together. Demanding that he write us down as IR1... may not gone as smoothly. Of course you can Choose Your Own Adventure if you like!

We had a smooth entrance to the US, entering about 2 years and a week after our legal marriage. I mentioned this to the immigration officer as he was finalizing our entrance (the entire process took maybe 3 minutes) and he said "Oh, hmm I wonder if I could go ahead and change you an IR-1." The agent right next to him said "Yes, you can do that" and he acted surprised. (He actually scribbled something out he already wrote on the visa and changed it to IR-1 haha I hope it's valid!) His comments made it pretty clear he was going to erroneously issue us a CR-1 and he seemed to not even know he could change the visa status until his coworker advised him (THANK GOODNESS she overheard!). I don't know how onerous the process is to correct such an oversight but I'm glad we didn't have to find out! Just wanted to pass this along in the hopes it saves someone from any problems with the wrong stamp being placed in the passport, as I've read about here before.... I would kindly remind the officer "We married >2 years ago. We can enter with an IR-1 visa now right?

I'll throw in my personal experience, and echo what I read on these forums when I was contemplating the same decision as you. I read many times: "Many VJ posters have regretted going the fiance visa route. I haven't seen anyone with a spousal visa wish they went the fiance route." We are very happy we went the spousal visa route. In our case, the process took around 18 months and $1,200 ($1,700 if counting the required medical test, paid directly to the hospital, which varies by country). The fiance visa will cost over $3,000, historically take a similar amount of time (it's been both shorter and longer than the spousal visa post-covid and is currently faster. (It's a bit hard to predict as it depends which type of visa the current administration prioritizes). At the time we married, fiance was a slightly faster option, but requires months of waiting once in the US before you can work, travel, etc., and requires additional visits with US gov't bureaucrats and large fees you will pay in the future to "adjust your status" and other things you don't need to do at all if you get the spousal visa. If the US increases those fees (they have increased several during our process), you will pay even more than planned. My wife was a permanent legal resident of the US the moment she arrived here, and particularly with the current US government situation, we are happy to have the legal status that we do. Plus her Social Security card just showed up in the mail a couple of weeks after we arrived, no need to apply or pay for anything further. What we did was a civil marriage ASAP via Utah over the internet while we were in separate countries (you can be married a week from now if you apply today) and then making a required personal visit to "finalize" the marriage before you are allowed to apply as a married couple for a spousal visa. That left us with about 13 months to plan a nice church wedding where we invited friends, family, and made it a happy ceremony. The planning for this big event (and the long honeymoon after) made the waiting pass by much easier. *As a plus, I am getting thousands of dollars back from the IRS because US income taxes for the past 2 years we were married can be adjusted to "married filing jointly" which has a much lower tax rate than I had as a single man (slightly off topic as there is another forum for this, but it saved me *thousands and thousands* which basically covered the cost of my wedding plus immigration fees!)* As someone who went through the process, I would only recommend fiance visa for someone trying to bring back existing children along with your partner or other special circumstances. Plus I don't want to deal with US immigration agents or pay them money any more than I have to! Bonus: if you enter the US 2 years after your marriage date, you get a 10 year green card instead of a 2 year one. We shouldn't have to deal with immigration authorities again unless we apply for US citizenship (assuming we stay in the US). The waiting is not ideal, but it's not all negative. We used the time to take some online premarital counseling sessions, intentionally talk about how we will handle certain problems, etc. all things that got us on the right foot, that I probably would have skipped if I just married a local gal Good luck to you and God Bless!

Trust me, I was outraged when the Manila Field Office closed in 2019, essentially ending DCF processing for all but a few special cases. I spent quite a while trying to come up with a scenario that would allow us to squeak in under the far superior and much cheaper DCF visa rules (both of us moving to Mexico while we underwent processing was the best option). If you don't currently have a job offer, you do not qualify. You could either try to purposefully create a situation where you qualify for DCF, or just take the path of least resistance, and get the I-130 filed ASAP. I did the latter. Yes, it sucks, but that's the path they are forcing us down now. Yes, Vienna will process your DCF case if you qualify, and no, you do not submit your I-130 to the USA first (there is about a year backlog of processing I-130s so that would make a DCF rather pointless). DCF is fast and easy, maybe lawyers don't get involved in it much because they aren't needed and he's not familiar with how it works?

If you fill out your timeline, you should get an accurate estimate of when your case will be processed. You can also search for recent approvals and see what their application date was. The VJ site combines data from multiple US agencies, the various lockbox processing offices, and live user info, and for us the estimate was accurate to within a few days. Plus you are helping out other users here. But yes at this point I'd expect your petition will wait in line for about a year before they process it. FYI, the US gov time estimates are just one of several items we encountered that were misleading, contradictory, or outright WRONG from the US immigration offices. There were 3 or 4 specific cases where if we followed the US Gov instructions our case would have easily taken 6+ months longer, but the forums here gave us the correct info. (For one, they tell you to wait to be scheduled for a visa interview by the embassy, when actually you have to log on to a website and schedule your own interview--how long would we have waited to be scheduled before we realized this? Could have easily been another year!) There is some outdated data here in the guides, but searching the forums for posts within the past year gives you good, current advice.

The US Immigrant Fee was $165 when we began the process, as listed here Our Fees | USCIS: Immigration Benefit Request New Fee ($) Old Fee ($) USCIS Immigrant Fee 220 165 Water under the bridge, I know, but I work in finance and have been tracking / planning this to the penny since day one, including which visas are cheapest/fastest/best (boohoo for the once ubiquitous DCF!). Total cost of CR-1 Visa filed in 2023 and obtained 3/2025: $1,215 to US Gov, $1,704 total including required medical exam. Yikes! I expect total K-1 visa costs are well over $2,000.

Haha!! Crazy! I thought you were nuts but you are right. Even though the instructions say the system will add a zero if and where one is needed, and it does so, visible on screen, appending "A-0######" to what you just typed, if you go in and type the zero yourself, it works! GOVERNMENT I.T. AT ITS FINEST! haha thank you! (Note, don't type the A just type the 0 in front of your 8 digit number, The system appending the A is ok but appending the 0 breaks things... good grief!)

Blasphemy! Don't ever say this to a southerner! Exist? You can even buy their uniforms and wear them at home. Welcome to the Piggly Wiggly Swag Store!

The system is automatically appending a 0 when I type in the 8 digit registration number printed on our visa. Guess I'll have to call them next week. Thanks.

Thanks! So there is no sealed packed used anymore? I've read in numerous places about special packets you are not supposed to open, but you carry to the US border agents when you enter the country. Is that needed for a CR-1 visa immigrant?

I'm confused about this fee. The instructions state: You must pay the fee online. The U.S. embassy or consulate will give you your: A-Number (the letter “A” followed by 8 or 9 numbers); DOS Case ID (3 letters followed by 9 or 10 numbers); Instructions for paying the USCIS Immigrant Fee; Immigrant Data Summary; and Sealed immigrant visa packet. We received nothing from the Manila embassy when passing the visa interview. The only thing which arrived in the mail was my wife's current Philippine passport with an immigrant VISA stamped inside, expiring in 5 months. We have no "A-number" We have an NVC case # beginning MNL2024 which may be the DOS case ID (which we have had going back to the beginning of this process) We received no instructions for paying the Immigrant Fee We received no "data summary" whatever that is We received no sealed packet. In fact the only way I even knew this fee existed is from the forum here. Are we supposed to receive any of the above? Are we ok to pay the fee without those things? Will we have any issues entering without the above and only a CR1 visa? FYI we also received nothing when she passed her medical test and my wife is worried about being asked for proof of a clean medical when she enters the country. Another confusing step in this process where the government rules aren't intelligible. I'm hesitant to pay when I am missing 4 of the 5 items the government says we should have for this fee, as it is considered nonrefundable. (PS as for the fee amount, I wouldn't expect it to increase any time soon as it just saw a substantial increase over 40% to $235 a few months ago).

I'm in the same boat as OP (self employed, no health insurance). Is there a possibility for your wife to work somewhere at least part time that would provide health insurance for your family? Health care in the USA is extremely expensive and is tied to the workplace, due to arcane rules put in place in the 70s. So your best bet is getting it from the workplace, if you can. Plenty of places don't require a lot of experience and provide health insurance for part time workers (Starbucks, Trader Joes, etc.) This is probably what we will do when we have kids (that's also the time I most need the wife at home so I realize it's a catch-22!)

The K3 thing is ridiculous and needs to be called out when it is "recommended" here. I think they have processed something like 3 in the past decade. You have FAR better odds of winning the powerball (and then you probably wouldn't care about immigrant status!) But remember, there are plenty of non-immigrants who meet someone while in the USA and decide to get married. A completely normal and even expected way for things to go. My neighbor met his Colombian wife when she was here on one of these summer work visas working at an amusement park (lots of national park area jobs are staffed with these 20-somethings as well). It's very normal and even expected that a significant percentage of 20 somethings would meet their spouse while living and working overseas for months or years, and then adjust their temporary visa into a permanent one through marriage. Heck, I briefly dated an au pair here. If we stayed together, marriage was definitely on the agenda. But especially around college age--If I was a parent and my child went overseas for a semester abroad or temporary work, I would certainly anticipate a marriage is a strong possibility... Trying to put yourself in the shoes of someone else and conclude how and what (and WHEN!) their feelings are is almost impossible. Of course, marrying someone in less than 3 months after you arrive or something.. that's a red flag ( I assume this is where the waiting 90 days advice comes from). But I think this will always be a gray area that can be exploited. And it's not hard to understand why some look to cut corners when the legal route is so absurd.

The nicest grocery store I've ever visited in the USA is a Wegman's. They might be limited to the northeast / midwest. I heard about them for years and stopped in when I was visiting Lancaster, PA. The prepared deli foods are gourmet and incredible. They serve fresh cold pressed juice made daily. All the fresh fruits and veggies you can imagine (lots of international). Other than that, everything else (including Whole Foods) is a big step down. Publix is nice in my area, but I don't really have a preference. I go wherever is convenient and/or has a good sale. There's always Costco. I frequently go with my neighbor, and the prices are slightly cheaper, but ONLY if you end up consuming the giant package of whatever you bought before it goes bad. I'm not sure I would pay for my own membership, but if you have a bigger family, it's worth it. Their products are high quality and their policies are very consumer friendly. Aldi / Trader Joe's (related companies) are small but carry nice products at a good price. Aldi's is more rotating stock where you see a variety of new items every week and TJ is more the same popular products every week, but they have good fresh produce, fresh flowers and great potted plants. (TJ and Costco are both a great place to work by the way--if ours was closer I would consider getting my wife a job there!) The health insurance alone would be worth it! My general plan at the grocery is buy almost everything along the outside walls--the refrigerated items, which are REAL FOOD, and skip items in a box, jar, or can.

Oops ignore this advice... this is related to a form DS260, a different form that what you asked about and also a different visa type... looks like you have some good advice in the thread here or can call the embassy at the #s above.

We had our DS-260 form "re-opened" (I think it is locked after they review and approve it) so that we could change my wife's listed name from her maiden name, which we originally applied using, to her new married name. (This is not strictly needed--the embassy officer can do it at the interview--but the embassy advised us they could open the file for editing and we could go ahead and fix it so we did. Interview passed successfully by the way) There was no "new" barcode generated. All our info was the same, including our case #s, etc. They just updated an old DS-260 form with a new one. My advice would be to call the new embassy office which recently opened at (+632) 7792-8988 or (+632) 8548-8223 or (703) 520-2235 (1=english,option 3, 3, 5) - [the phone contact as of March 2025] and ask them what to do. In my experience, they answer promptly, and would give you the most timely advice.

The VAST majority of your time in this process is simply waiting months and months for anyone at US Immigration to even touch your application. And while I haven't heard of US staffing cuts, most federal agencies are currently being trimmed, so this could be even worse going forward. The marital visa process is the same regardless of where and how you marry. BUT the Utah marriage allows you to file your paperwork (US Form I-130) IMMEDIATELY (they email you a copy of the marriage certificate) instead of waiting weeks or months before you get the Philippine certificate in hand. Of course, you could also go to any country, say, Taiwan or Japan or even the USA, and marry there and you would be in the same immigration situation. But the thing about the Utah marriage is it's so fast and easy, (only requirements are provide a witness, state everyone's name and pay $50). You could I'm not sure it will be any faster. The reason to hire an agency would be because you can't or won't fill out the forms yourself. My advice would be download the USCIS I-130 form, look it over, and see if that looks like something you could easily fill out yourself. In my case, I've lived at the same address for a decade, never been married, and file all my taxes on time, so it was something I could fill out in about an hour. Then you wait like a year and a government agent spends a few minutes looking at your forms and approves or rejects them. But the key is getting in that paperwork ASAP to start the clock.

After investigating further, Philippine visa-free travel to Ecuador was revoked during Covid. It is rumored to return within the next year or two (?) Until it is, they want a face to face interview and $50 for a Filipino visitor visa. Normally I would skip it, but we have the opportunity to book an Ecuador tour this year at an extremely reduced price. It would cost us several thousand to wait until next year, so we might get the dadgummed visa. We can schedule a visa interview upon arrival in the US, as there is an Ecuador embassy in our US arrival city so it won't be a huge inconvenience.

The Utah online marriage seems like the best option. You can apply within a day or two of the marriage, as they email you a copy of the marriage certificate. It's a legal marriage just as if two Americans marry each other in any American state. I haven't heard of any difficulties with it, other than some brief confusion years ago when it was first announced, which was quickly clarified. Even if you already are planning a PH wedding as your post hints at, I would probably do the Utah civil marriage, followed by a PH religious ceremony. That's what we did, and it allows you to apply immediately, bypass some marriage regulations (Utah only wants your name and $50, much easier than my state or the PH), and lets you pass the time by planning a nice ceremony and celebration there. Then you end up with the superior (and much cheaper) IR-1 visa (not to mention the peace of mind holding an immigrant visa over a non-immigrant K-1 visa with all the uncertainty in the US now). The only thing out of the ordinary / more difficult than a "standard" visa if there is such a thing, is your past divorces. You need additional documentation for each of them. But otherwise, it shouldn't be hard to do on your own. Most people here are DIYers. I actually think a lawyer can slightly slow down the process, as they will not do things like file forms within 24 hours of eligibility as we did, as they have a backlog of clients and a review process, but it may give you peace of mind if you don't mind the additional expense.

So we were allowing foreigners to enter the US without being vaccinated, and then months or years later requiring the vaccination? Haha that's not how diseases work. The whole point of requiring innoculations at border entries is to stop global transmission of exotic pathogens. Getting a shot after you already arrive somewhere does nothing. Sounds like an utterly silly rule that served no purpose. Good to see it removed, but at this point anyone planning to emigrate to USA has probably already gotten the shot and it's a 4 year old pandemic so pretty much water under the bridge... I mean, can one even GET a covid-19 vaccine at this point? Sounds like a meaningless requirement. AFAIK immigrants could opt for the Sinovax or Sputnik which were traditional vaccines, as risky as getting the annual flu shot, and not the AngloAmero-RNA-modifying gene therapy injections masquerading as vaccines. But of course those were made by people from "bad" ethnic backgrounds so they weren't options for American citizens lol.

We had good luck finding appointments on 3 different times at midnight Philippines time (we had to reschedule because the new system is NOT at all clear that you are booking multiple appointments for multiple purposes--they will present vague acronyms and expect you to know that one means biometrics and the other means personal interview and we didn't realize we had booked different appointments on different dates for different things). We checked 4 different times and on 3 of those days they had appointments open up right after midnight. Good luck!

I realize this forum isn't the best place to ask about Ecuador's immigration rules, but A) The website listed for the Ecuadorian Embassy in the USA ecuador.org is down or hacked and B) No one answers the Ecuadorian Embassy DC Phone (there appears to be an Atlanta number also which had a suspicious recording when I called it). I am planning a trip to Ecuador with my wife, who holds a Philippines passport, and a US Permanent Resident. Normally Philippine passport holders require a visa to enter Ecuador. However,I know there are often exceptions, where those who hold US permanent resident status are often treated as US passport holders for immigration purposes (IE Canada allows one to freely travel as a USA citizen would if one holds USA permanent resident documents). Does anyone know what rules apply in Ecuador? The visa costs to visit Ecuador are pretty ridiculous, and we won't travel there if they are collected.