RufusDawes

Finally approved after 90 days of administrative processing, 4 rounds of 221g, a trip to the Supreme Court of Manila, and a call to USEM by my Congressman. Needless to say, my Pinay fiancé and I are ecstatic, and I hope to see her at LAX in three weeks. 1 year and 8 days from submitting I-129F to USEM Approval. We wait anxiously now for issuance, and VOH. I want to thank everyone on the VJ Phils forum for answering my questions, giving encouragement when needed, and talking me off the ledge a few times LOL you admins are the best 👍

If you don't get a direct flight your Pinay may have to transfer the bags herself to the connecting flight or flights! I don't want my fiance having to deal with that... also if any baggage is delayed so is your reunion! Its worth it to me to pay maybe 50% more on PAL to get a direct flight, and I think they have good service, food isnt bad either.

I like Booking.com.

Update - USEM was finally able to call my fiance. They are requiring additional letters of court certification for the court certified copy of her annulment we sent in! Kidd you not, a certification letter for the court certified document. Just goes to show you how much power the visa officer has over these cases, they can pretty much do what they want. So they are sending back her passport and a new 221g. Fortunately we are confident we can obtain these certification letters but this will cause several weeks of delay since we are working in Phils time....

This is for a K1 Visa through USEM, I tried to update my timeline as best I could. We interviewed on 5-13-25 and are under 221g right now, we submitted both documents to USEM listed on the white 221g along with my fiance's passport. One document was NBI under married name aka that was easy to get, the other was a court certified copy of her Annullment which we also got and it was difficult to get. Both documents and passport were went as requested. Yesterday (wed in phils) I got an email from USEM saying they tried to call my fiancé but were unsuccessful and asked us to update her phone number. The number provided is correct, but she lives in southern Mindanao and cell service is spotty and sometimes you can’t get a call through. I suspect this is what happened, they tried to call her and the network was down and concluded the number was not correct. We replied with the email communication link they gave us telling them about the spotty cell service and assured them the cell number was correct. Also asked if they could communicate by email. Have not heard back yet. So, we are not sure why they are calling us and getting nervous LOL... You guys know a lot on here and have seen many many cases… any idea why they might be calling? I am hoping for the best and they are telling us about our approval and issuance, but the case status is still “Refused” and I have a feeling there is more to it.

forgot the link for the track the visa application service: https://***removed due to spam***/

You can track the USCIS application side with this service, its about $15 monthly but it is pretty accurate to let you know when to expect application approval. On the NVC side they give pretty good estimates on turnaround times to send to USEM: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/nvc-timeframes.html As far as USEM goes they seem random, best advice is to find an "interview" group chat on Messenger, several hundred Pinay's checking 24hrs and they send out notice when slots open... that is how I got my interview appt in 13 days.

FBI clearance took me 12 hours and $68. You register and pay online, then take a trip to the post office your area that offers the fingerprint service. They email it to you, you download the pdf, you email it to your Pinay and she prints it off.

Don't have exact numbers but the fiance visa is much shorter than spousal... rn fiance visas is running 8-12 months to approval while the spousal is double that time.... K1 is faster to arrive in US, but spousal has the advantage of simultaneous green card approval. I am in month 10 rn for my K1 and we are almost done, should be completed and on the plane flight in 3-4 weeks.

Any followup on this issue? Was this just a local CFO office one off request or is this standard now? My fiance has her CFO in about 3 weeks, sure don't want to have to deal with this issue, I just got my FBI clearance just in case! We have a small group of fiances who all interviewed on the same day, most have completed the CFO and we didn't hear about anything like this.

You just have to bend the knee and submit to the CFO requirements if you want your Pinay to be with you. Lately I have heard you need an FBI clearance or they will not give you the "sticker" on your visa. This requirements isnt even listed on their website for required documents, but I did it anyway which cost me another $68. I dont want to be held up and have to go back to the CFO to get the approval.

Thank you guys so much I have been freaking out about this, what a relief! Hope to have visa approval and issuance by the end of the month, God willing. Wedding date is 7/19/25 if all goes well.

Yes this is for a K1 Visa. We had the interview on 5-13-25, my fiance was given the "two pamphlets" and the 221g and asked to send back the two civil documents requested along with her passport. Are you sure about this? "Here is the 221g response. We were unable to upload scans of the documents to the CEAC portal because, as a K-1 visa applicant, we were not issued an invoice number." I have looked everywhere for the Invoice ID Number and it seems it is listed on the "welcome letter".

Need some help! We had our interview and we were placed in 221g because of two civil documents they requested. We obtained the documents, and are ready to mail them in, but the 221g says to also upload scans of the documents at the ceac.state.gov website. To login there you need your INVOICE ID NUMBER. This number is listed on the "Welcome Letter" which we never received. I sent a public inquiry to NVC asking for this number and they directed me to ask the embassy. Anyone had luck getting the INVOICE ID NUMBER and know how it can be obtained? We will mail in the original documents to USEM, but if the docs are not also scanned and uploaded with they put a hold on our visa issuance?

Agreed with all above comments.... and the visa officer may not even ask for it. That's what happened during my fiance's interview, I spent all that time gathering all the documents for the I-134 and they didn't ask for it, none of it LOL That is one thing I learned is that the visa officer has a wide range of discretion during the interview regarding "required" documents. But you have to prepare for the worst and get every possible document together with all expected supporting documents.