Nathan Alden, Sr.

FWIW (and this may have been mentioned elsewhere) the USCIS has access to expunged and other hidden records for the purposes of immigration benefits.

Success! She came prepared to the DFA office in Dumaguete and she was approved in five minutes.

The CFO confirmed for us over email that the DFA's CFO requirement was pandemic-era and no longer applies.

Thank you. This was the wisdom I was looking for! We were both already aware that the DFA doesn't list it as a requirement.

We found references on several websites, although I am aware that tons of web content is now AI-generated and feeds off other sources that are untrue. Several of the sources have listicle-like layouts, which nowadays tends to indicate AI generation. I was suspicious, which is why I posted here.

Hi, all. My wife (Filipina) and I (US citizen) embarked on the Filipino name change rigmarole just recently. I have an I-130 petition in progress, FWIW. Tomorrow, my wife was scheduled to visit the DFA to change her name on her passport to her married name, which would be the first of several name change efforts. Unfortunately, after booking the non-refundable DFA appointment and hostel stay (she's traveling to Dumaguete from the Cebu area as the Cebu DFA is completely booked out several months), she learned a surprise requirement that isn't found on the DFA website: she has to have attended the CFO PDOS seminar! Now here's the problem: the CFO's scheduling website requires visa number and visa expiration date! She doesn't have her visa yet, so we don't know what to do. We did some additional research and found several non-DFA online references to having to complete the CFO seminar before the DFA allows passport name changes. Has anyone run into this problem? How do we proceed? An additional question is will she have to attend the PDOS again later on when her visa is approved, or can she just go back to the CFO office to get a sticker on her then-changed passport (although I remember reading that CFO doesn't issue stickers anymore)? Gripe: Please, DFA. Please update your requirements to be accurate for spouses of foreigners. We could've saved PHP 1000 plus the hostel booking if you just better documented your own processes. 🙄

Thank you, all.

Interesting. Well, it seems that I'm an outlier in one way or another. I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks.

Yes, I, the petitioner, was scheduled for a biometrics appointment. I thought this was normal based on everything I've read up until this point. In fact, the USCIS' own language seems to indicate that not having a biometrics interview would be the abnormal thing. The appointment letter doesn't say anything suspicious; it just asks me to bring my identification. I have no criminal history (never been arrested, charged, or convicted of any crime) and I'm a normal US citizen.

Well, I finally got movement on my I-130 petition filed on June 20, 2024. USCIS scheduled a biometrics interview for a couple of weeks from now. Is it normal to have the biometrics interview scheduled without having received an NOA2? Can someone explain the usual timings of these two things?

Thanks! I've sent them an email.

I'm not sure how to know if I have transmittal details. The documents I sent to the consulate were returned to me stamped, though. Is it on that?

My wife and I filed the Report of Marriage in September 2024 and the PSA still hasn't processed it as of checking a couple of months ago. I emailed the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco and they are now quoting eight to twelve months for PSA processing. Absolutely insane.

Thank you so much for the details! This helps a lot. As far as the ROM, in your case, what was the result? Did the consulate expedite sending the originals to PH?

Hi, all. My wife and I are still waiting on the approval of my I-130 (filed June 20, 2024). Recently, I've been reading up on any changes to the timelines, procedures, etc. from when I had looked into all of this last year. I feel like I have things mostly handled but I did have a couple of questions. I've read in some other posts that it's difficult if not impossible to get the medical exam scheduled before the visa interview and that the consulate knows this. Should she proceed to the visa interview even if the medical isn't completed? What will the embassy say in that case (e.g., will a rescheduled interview cost us another year-plus of waiting?) Same as #1 except regarding the sputum test. She's currently living in Cebu City but since she has nothing tying her to this island, I've advised her to consider moving to the Manila metro area to be closer to the embassy for when this rigmarole goes down, or to live somewhere very, very cheaply (she's comfortable doing this already) and then travel to Manila for potentially quite some time while the long-running medical testing, interview, and CFO shenanigans play out. Advice on this course of action? One aside for those interested: it has been many, many months since filing the Report of Marriage with the San Francisco consulate. Despite this, the PSA still reports there is no record on file. We're trying to get her name changed. The bureaucracy in this country is unbelievable to me at times. It looks like it might even be six months to a year to get the marriage registered with the PSA. I'm going to have her check again soon. She needs to get her name change taken care of!

I commiserate about the concern over Philippine bureaucracy but if you visit the Philippines they already have your name and a bunch of other information. The only thing you need to worry about having a registered marriage is infidelity due to the strict laws. I have to file a Report of Marriage because one of the requirements for the CFO seminar is a PSA marriage license. No RoM, no CEMAR.

I can't edit my original post anymore, but an update: It is possible to perform a full name change in the Philippines but it requires a Regional Trial Court case, and the judge may just decide (after the long, expensive process) to deny it. This option is pretty much off the table now. Now I just need to learn about what downstream effects her changing her name has on the I-130 petition, NVC, and embassy processes.

Hi, all. It's been awhile since I posted. Currently, my I-130 petition for my Filipina spouse is reported to be "1 week" away from review. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I had filed our Report of Marriage with the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco several months ago, which was soon after accepted by the Consulate. However, I've read that the PSA is pushing seven months to process Reports of Marriage. I haven't yet checked with the PSA to determine if they even have the record yet. I am currently in Cebu City with my spouse. Is it simply a matter of traveling to a PSA office here and checking? Now for name changes: when we married we did not change her name as the historical rules around name changes in the Philippines are onerous and IMO ridiculous. My spouse wants to change her full name, so I had originally decided to wait until she got to the US to do so, even knowing that it would affect several official immigration documents at that point. I did this because to my knowledge, Filipinas are only allowed to change their last names, even though I had also read that a law was recently passed stating they can change their full names. As we all know, determining what the law is and what the effective rules are in the Philippines is a nightmare. I know changing her name now will obviate future changes to immigration documents, but I have several questions: Will this affect the I-130 petition in any way if her new name no longer matches the petition? Does it matter whether the petition has yet to be reviewed or is already accepted? Do I need to notify the USCIS or NVC or embassy (as appropriate depending on the status of my case) if she changes her name before visa issuance? If so, how? Is it even possible for her to change her full name in the Philippines? I won't get into why she wants to change her full name as there are very personal and valid reasons for her doing so. The Report of Marriage lag is extremely inconvenient. One wonders what the heck is going on at the PSA... The Consulate in San Francisco reviewed our documentation very quickly. Here's a website describing the insanity required to change one's full name in the Philippines: https://duranschulze.com/how-to-legally-change-your-name-in-the-philippines/

I wanted to get the 13A so I could legally get a motorcycle license, legally work, etc., if I wanted to. Plus, it didn't seem that difficult to acquire--at least until now. 😛

I'm originally from Massachusetts, USA and my wife is originally from a tiny farming village called Bagumbang in Misamis Occidental, Philippines.

I had a half-hour call with a Philippine visa specialist yesterday. I explained my situation--that I'm a US citizen married to a Philippine citizen and, due to insane immigration timelines here in the US, I've decided to live in the Philippines for a couple of years. I was advised of three things: The SRRV minimum age is now 50+ when all published information I could find says 35+ The Bureau of Immigration is rejecting online marriages--which my wife and I did through Utah County, even though we were both together in the Philippines--as illegitimate for the purposes of 13A issuance My wife and I should get remarried in the Philippines and then use that marriage as our "official" marriage for PSA and BI purposes (yes, she actually suggested this) This was the first time hearing any of this from any source. This leaves me in a tricky bind. I'm already legally married to her through Utah County. Aren't I technically breaking Philippine law by getting remarried there? Given how bureaucratic and incongruous these various Philippine government agencies are, I'm not sure what information to trust. The PSA will apparently honor my online marriage through the Report of Marriage form, but the BI won't. It makes no sense. I'd rather not get married in the Philippines illegally, have some bureaucrat in the BI discover that, and then get my 13A revoked and be banned from the country. I'm also now apparently too young for the SRRV. Has anyone run into this? Is my visa specialist trolling me?

Since I filed my I-130 petition electronically in mid-June, my "wait time" (scare quotes because who knows the ridiculous database query they're using to generate that number--or maybe it's just RNG?) has gone from 16 months to 18 months to 5 months. We're talking about a 20-day span. Sorry for your frustration, OP. I decided to move to the Philippines to be with my wife to survive these insane wait times. I'm in the process of selling everything here, even my car, and taking my cash there. Sure, the quality of life isn't as good at the US, but at least we can, you know, love each other in person. Thanks, US immigration! 👍

AFAIK that is not a thing in the US. We also don't have the equivalent to CEMAR/CENOMAR since marriages are registered civilly at the county level. The Philippines is basically forced to go on the honor system to some extent. Providing divorce decrees is necessary, though.

Yes, that's our plan. I'm going to mail the San Francisco consulate the packet from the Philippines.

There are a couple of annoying things about doing it this way: I will lose access to my marriage license apostille for the duration of the processing (several months, last I heard). I'll have to order a second one to take with me to the Philippines in case I need it. I already had to order a second certified copy of my birth certificate for the same reason. The return envelope will have to be addressed to some other mailing address in the US (probably my parents' house). Something to think about.