JimVaPhuong

I agree with you. The question and answer are misleading. If the question were rewritten as "What happens if we get married after the 90 day validity of the K1 visa?" then the answer would be correct. The way it's currently written it does give the impression that the alien can submit an I-130 even if they don't marry the petitioner. As others have pointed out, this is not true.
An I-130 is a petition for a relative. An alien can't submit this petition themselves. They must have a qualifying relative who is a US citizen or permanent resident submit this petition on their behalf. A qualifying relative is a spouse, parent, or adult child. A sibling is also a qualifying relative if the sibling is a US citizen.
There are further restrictions on someone who enters the US with a K1 visa. They can only adjust status if the qualifying relative is their spouse, and is the same US citizen who sent the K1 petition.
The only other option is a refugee or asylum application. These are available to any warm body standing on US soil, regardless how or when they arrived. They are also very difficult to get approved.

Yes, you can submit a petition for an IR2. The child is your immediate relative because you married her father before she was 18. However, since you're not the biological parent of the child, and the child's biological parent is an LPR and not a US citizen, your step-daughter will not automatically become a US citizen when she arrives in the US with her IR2 visa. She'll become an LPR. She'll have to follow the same rules as any other LPR to maintain her residency and not lose her green card.
Your husband can also file a petition, but since he's not a US citizen he would be filing for an F2A visa. Family preference visas have annual numerical limits, and there's a waiting line. Currently, the wait is about 3 years. There is no wait for immediate relatives of US citizens, so it would be much faster if you petition for her than it would be if your husband petitions for her.
How long has your husband been an LPR? If he got his permanent resident status through his marriage to you, then he's eligible to apply for US citizenship three years after becoming an LPR, presuming you're still married at the time. Once he becomes a US citizen then his daughter will become a US citizen automatically when she's been admitted to the US as an immigrant (i.e., she enters with an IR2 visa), and she's in the physical custody of her US citizen biological parent. Once she's a US citizen then there are no rules about maintaining residency - she can leave the US anytime she likes, and return anytime she likes.
Maybe you can file for the IR2 now - it takes a little under a year, usually. Your husband can work on becoming a US citizen as soon as he's eligible. That would probably be the best solution for your situation.

Those aren't "guidelines", and they weren't "issued" by USCIS. It's a checklist and apparently an internal document, presumably used by USCIS to refer a case to the Fraud Detection and National Security unit (FDNS). According to AILA, that document was submitted into evidence at a deportation hearing by ICE, and a copy of the document was submitted to AILA by the alien's attorney. Whether USCIS used that form before that specific case is unknown. Whether USCIS still uses that form is unknown. Whether USCIS is currently using a similar form that's been revised since September of 2004 is unknown.
You are most likely correct that the attorneys I cited probably got their information from that document, but your post is not a summary of the USCIS Fraud Referral sheet, but is an almost direct word-for-word copy/paste of the article by Baughman and Wang, yet you cited USCIS as your source.

This list was NOT produced by USCIS. It's from an article by Baughman and Wang, immigration attorneys:
http://lawbw.com/home/why-uscis-might-think-your-application-is-fraudulent/
Please do not try to mislead people into believing advice or information comes from USCIS or any other US government agency unless you know for certain that it does. While the information may, indeed, be accurate, the source is not an official US government source.

It depends very much on the consulate, and what evidence you frontload.
When a consulate denies a visa and returns a petition they are asking USCIS to revoke the approval, essentially saying that the petition never should have been approved. They have only two valid basis for making this request. The first is that they have discovered evidence which they believe would have resulted in the petition being denied if USCIS had known about it. The second is that they have discovered something that USCIS should have noticed, and that they believe USCIS clearly erred when they approved the petition. The second reason is unusual, but USCIS does occasionally make mistakes. The first reason is the most common.
Consular officers sometimes have to resort to dirty tricks in order to conjure up a reason to deny a visa, especially in high fraud countries. They usually do this when they have a strong suspicion that something isn't right about the relationship. When they intend on denying then they will sometimes cite reasons which may actually not be true. For example, the consulate in Saigon expects an engaged couple to have had a traditional Vietnamese engagement ceremony (see my avatar), and they impose some reasonably strict expectations on that requirement, which includes a celebration involving guests that number in the hundreds. It's very easy for a consular officer in Saigon to cite the engagement ceremony as a reason for denying the visa, claiming that this is a violation of longstanding local tradition and customs. In fact, the consular officer may not have even asked for evidence that they had an engagement ceremony, or may have even refused to accept the evidence if the beneficiary offered it.
This is where frontloading comes in.
A consular officer cannot deny the existence of evidence if it was included with the petition. For example, a consular officer in Saigon can't say that a couple never had an engagement ceremony if the petitioner included pictures of the ceremony and celebration with the petition, and specifically labeled the pictures as such. The consular officer also couldn't claim that the celebration was too small to satisfy tradition and customs if one of the pictures clearly shows a banquet hall filled with more than 100 people.
Occasionally, a consular officer will deny on a basis for which evidence to counter the CO's claim was frontloaded with the petition. In these cases the CO usually just didn't see the evidence before issuing the denial. If USCIS actually readjudicates a returned petition in this case then they'll almost always reaffirm the approval and send the petition back to the consulate.
Frontloading can be very useful if:
1. You specifically know what sort of things are cited as reasons for denial at your consulate.
2. You know what aspects of your own case might be considered red flags at your consulate.
3. Your frontloaded evidence proves you've met local customary requirements, or it addresses specific red flags in your case.
On the other hand, if you just start loading up your petition with all of the evidence you've got then you're setting your fiancee up for a difficult interview. For example, if you include 100 pages of chat logs then you've given the consular officer LOTS of evidence the consular officer can use to grill your fiancee.
Consular Officer: On February 14th of 2009 you thanked your fiance for the Valentines Day gift. What exactly was the gift, and what exactly did your fiance say in response?
Would her memory be good enough to know exactly what you said on that day? The CO has the answer in front of him in black and white, so he'll know if her answer is correct.
Frontloaded evidence should either help support your case or specifically address red flags, but it's crucial that your fiancee know in detail everything you've frontloaded. In many cases, a consular officer will ask a question not knowing the precise correct answer - they just want to know if the beneficiary has a credible answer. Almost any believable answer is better than "I don't know". In the case of frontloaded evidence, you've given the consular officer the correct answers, so your fiancee had better know them.

"Mr. Abdul Aloysius Deepak Garcia"
The President has wide authority, under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, to grant pardons.
"and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States"
The Office of the Pardon Attorney (which accepts applications for Presidential pardons) believes that any judgment which may be issued by an authority of the government that has an adverse consequence that can be viewed as a punishment, penalty, or disability, may be pardoned by the President. The President can even preemptively pardon without a judgment actually being issued, as Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon.
In this case, the "judgment" is by the consulate, and the "adverse consequence" is the finding of inadmissibility. And yes, Presidents have issued pardons for people who were not US citizens or LPR's, most commonly to stop a deportation.
There are several law offices around the country that specialize in Presidential pardons. Normally, you have to wait until 5 years after the "judgment" before they'll take your case, but one (Levin and Zeigler LLP, in Philadelphia) will take an immigration related case without forcing you to wait.
http://www.federalpresidentialpardon.com/
Now, let's get real. The odds of getting a Presidential pardon are extremely remote. Most Presidents receive many thousands of pardon applications, but only grant comparatively few actual pardons.

I think you completely misunderstood the point that I and others have been trying to make.
I wasn't suggesting you were trying to get "special favors" from your congresswoman. I was simply saying that what you're asking for is beyond the authority of a federal legislator. You say you want a chance to appeal your case. I say "Bravo, and God Speed!". I sincerely hope it works out well for you. Unfortunately, you can't really appeal this with your congresswoman. She can't grant an exception to the law. If her staff is really good, they may be able to give you some good advice regarding the law. Don't be surprised if they're not very knowledgeable, though. It's really not their job to know this stuff. You may get a more educated answer from someone who deals with this stuff every day, like a good immigration attorney.
I also think you're selling us a bit short. Many of us have spent way more time than we want to admit reading those damn laws. This wasn't by choice, but because we were facing the same boneheaded bureaucracy that you're now having to face. Some of us were also facing consulates that are notoriously good at saying "NO!". I know that I have personally spent more than 1000 hours studying, reading, and preparing for what would ultimately be decided by a single consular officer in a country on the other side of the world. At no time in the process did I ever feel "comfortable", and I was never less comfortable than the 6 hours I spent standing outside the consulate and waiting for my fiancee to emerge, knowing full well that the odds were stacked against us. All it would take for the consular officer to determine my fiancee was inadmissible would be to accuse her of lying about our relationship, and I saw a LOT of applicants leave the consulate that day after having been accused of exactly that. Six hours of denial after denial, with the occasional happy face - it was depressing.
The reason we speak with such certainty about your case is because we've been here for a while, we've read about a lot of cases like yours, and we've never seen anyone find a way around an unwaiverable inadmissibility. If we had, we'd certainly be telling you about it.
Yes, people come to the US after having committed some pretty serious offenses. If those offenses made them inadmissible, and the inadmissibility wasn't waiver eligible, then they lied to the consulate or the CBP, and didn't get caught (yet). People also come to the US for a wide variety of reasons - family immigration is only one category of visa. But the laws pertaining to inadmissibility apply to every one of them, regardless of what kind of visa they get. They don't just apply to fiancee and spousal visas.
Now I'm going to venture off into the realm of possibilities, and guess what would get your fiance here legally. First, a Presidential pardon would do it. The President has the authority to forgive a crime, and any penalty associated with the crime. Second, (I'm less certain about this one) an order from the Secretary of State to the consulate, instructing them to ignore the inadmissibility and issue the visa. Third, a change in the immigration law regarding inadmissibilities. This is not as far fetched as it sounds. The President recently rescinded the inadmissibility for HIV. It's within the realm of possibility (though not likely) that he could waive the inadmissibility for simple possession of controlled substances, or at least make them waiver eligible like violations involving small quantities of marijuana currently are.
There may be other possibilities I didn't cover above. By all means, explore every possible avenue. Best of luck!

The problem is that this tactic is based on a widely held misconception in Vietnam that having a baby together will greatly improve your chances of getting a visa. The Vietnamese mindset is "How can they say the relationships isn't 'real' if they have a baby?".
Make no mistake - the Vietnamese people are not naive. They know darn well that a couple can have a baby and the relationship could still be a sham, but they somehow think that the consular officers are substantially more naive than they themselves are. Countless girls with a bun either in the over or in the basket have left the consulate with a blue or white paper, but somehow this isn't enough to kill this myth. My wife heard it too, from many people.

If your divorce is final (i.e., you have the divorce decree) by the time you have to file, then you can ask for a waiver of the joint filing requirements based on your divorce. Just tick box "d" in part 2 of the I-751. As long as you can provide the normal proof of "good faith" marriage, you should be able to remove conditions and get a 10 year green card.
Note that the divorce must be final - you can't ask for this waiver if you are separated or the divorce is still pending. If you can't get a final divorce in time, then you may be placed in removal proceedings, but you can always ask the immigration judge to postpone until you have your final divorce. These requests are almost always granted.

A friendly suggestion - spend a few moments researching your answers before posting responses that are neither helpful nor accurate. You can learn an amazing amount of information about the immigration laws and processes by researching answers to other people's questions. Besides, it's a lot of fun!

Computerized records maintained in the various systems are retained for a period of time determined by policy for each system. For example, records in the VIS system (mostly having to do with verification of citizenship) are stored for 10 years, which coincides with the statute of limitations for fraudulent or misuse of documents related to citizenship, naturalization, or US passports.
Paper records are sent to the National Record Center for long-term storage of inactive files. A service center or field office can request a file be pulled if it becomes active again; e.g., a new petition is filed. I don't believe files in the National Record Center are ever destroyed. People routinely request documents from the NRC (via FOIA requests) about dead relatives while doing genealogy research. They've got naturalization files going back to 1906, and immigrant visa files going back to 1924.

Yeah, I'm one of those guys who just stopped posting here. You new guys probably think us old timers stop posting when our marriages go sour. Not in my case. Still happily married to Phuong! Just not dealing with immigration much these days, now that Phuong and the kids have their unconditional green cards. I still come back occasionally when I get a PM notice, and lurk a little bit.
Anybody else who was around when there was no such thing as an "I-821D"? Anybody else around who remembers eating at "The Big Grill" in Saigon? Does DQ still troll this forum? C'mon! What's the gossip?

Bruce,
I'm going to share something with you, and you and your fiancee can discuss it.
I knew before I filed the petition that the consulate in HCMC sometimes conducts Stokes interviews. I also knew that they were a relatively rare exception and not the general rule, like at some other high fraud consulates. The consulate in HCMC is one of the busiest in the world - I think I remember them claiming they were the 5th busiest. They don't generally want to spend any more time on any one case then they absolutely have to. They'd rather hand your fiancee a white denial slip and send her out the door then spend any additional time with her. And like I said before, this is the first time I've ever heard of an interview being scheduled after the visa had already been denied, and that required the petitioner to be present. I think there's a good chance this is going to be a Stokes interview.
My wife (fiancee at the time) and I discussed the possibility of a Stokes interview before I ever sent the petition. In fact, we discussed pretty much all of the possible scenarios. We decided how much we would be willing to take and where we would draw the line. Ultimately, we decided that a Stokes interview was crossing the line. We decided that if we were called in for a Stokes interview that we'd tell the consulate to get stuffed, and we'd walk out. We'd deal with the returned petition after USCIS got it back. I'll deal with any amount of bureaucratic delays or any reasonable amount of scrutiny, but I was not going to allow any government bureaucrat to force me or my wife to beg or to humiliate us.
This doesn't mean I would have given up. Far from it. I would have fought tooth and nail to keep USCIS from revoking the approval of the petition. If that failed then I would married her and started again with a spousal visa. If that ultimately failed then I would have gone to court. If I exhausted every possible avenue then I would have said goodbye to my family in the US, and moved to Vietnam.
I'm not telling you that this is what you should do. That's a personal choice only you and your fiancee can make. But you should discuss this with her, and decide where you'll draw the line. A Stokes interview can be very a very traumatic event, especially if you or your wife don't have a strong personality and the willpower to deal with it.

There's a gazillion places you can get passport photos done. Many post offices, and many UPS stores will take passport style photos. The UPS store I went to had an old Polaroid camera specifically designed for taking passport photos. It has two lenses, and takes two photos simultaneously on the same piece of Polaroid film. Of course, like all old Polaroids, the photos are glossy. Talk about "old school"!
Or, you can just take your own photos, size them in Photoshop, and print them on glossy photo paper. They aren't going to directly use the photos you send them anyway. I'm assuming this is for an AOS petition (because of the forum you posted it in). The photo they use on the green card is the one they take during the biometrics appointment. If it's for an actual passport, they scan your photo and print it on the bio page of the passport, and then laminate the page with a holographic film. The photos you send get scanned into a computer database, and then just go into a paper file, probably never to be looked at again.
I wouldn't sent matte finish photos. They tend to look too soft when scanned.

I believe she was talking about the criminal record of the petitioner and not the beneficiary. Her comments were basically accurate, since submitting evidence about the DUI's and assault charges are meant to comply with the IMBRA, and are mostly intended to provide disclosure to the beneficiary. The only time those factors would be used to deny the approval of a petition is if the petitioner was also asking for a waiver of the multiple filing limitations. These also only apply to a K1 visa petition. They don't apply to a spousal visa petition.
However, her comments about terrorism and human trafficking are not correct. I think she's getting confused between what crimes by the petitioner would result in denial of the petition, and what crimes by the beneficiary would result in denial of the visa. A petitioner could have a long and sordid criminal history, including terrorism and possibly even human trafficking, and still have their petition approved. The only sort of criminal history that I'm aware of that makes a petitioner ineligible to submit ANY family based visa petition are those crimes which fall under the Adam Walsh Act, which are primarily crimes involving assault or molestation of children, and violations of immigration law.
To the OP: You need to check "Yes" in part C, question 2 of the I-129F. You need to get copies of all court and police records pertaining to your crimes. The custodian of records (usually a court clerk) can certify the copies.
Your fiancee will need the court and police records of her arrest at the interview. Public drunkenness is not a crime involving moral turpitude, but the panel physician can deny her if they determine she's an alcoholic. Domestic violence often IS a crime involving moral turpitude. She doesn't have to be convicted in order to be denied. She only needs to admit to having committed the crime.

Who is the primary beneficiary of the petition? If the daughter or her husband are the primary beneficiary then the child can be added, as Aaron indicated. If the daughter is a derivative (i.e., one of her parents is the primary beneficiary) then the child cannot be added as a derivative. Only spouse and minor unmarried children of the primary beneficiary can have derivative status.

Yes, she absolutely needed to fill it out. It's required for A, G, or E visa holders.
E visa holders don't get a PID from the State Department. Only people with diplomatic visas get those. She should have written "n/a" in the box. USCIS sometimes gets bent out of shape when boxes are left blank on a form.
I suggest just filling out the form and sending it again.

I think there's a problem of perception here. It seems like you perceive that you have a right to get a green card for your wife, and this immigration officer is making it unnecessarily difficult for you.
Here's the facts, if you'll allow me.
Immigration isn't a right. Your wife doesn't have a right to get a green card because she married a US citizen. You don't have a right to demand the government give her a green card. When you submit an I-130 petition you are asking the US government to permit your wife to apply for an immigrant visa (if she's outside the US) or a green card (if she's inside the US). When your wife submits an I-485 she is asking the US government to allow her to become an immigrant. Her eligibility to ask for this benefit is derived from the I-130 petition you submitted. Make no mistake - what you both are asking for is a privilege.
USCIS has the discretion to grant both of these requests, provided they believe the requests comply with immigration law. There are numerous reasons provided in the law for either of these requests to be denied. Some of the reasons are concrete. For example, if she had been convicted of certain crimes then she would be inadmissible to the United States, and ineligible for a green card. Some of the reasons are discretionary. For example, if the USCIS immigration officer believes the relationship is a sham, entered into primarily for the purpose of securing an immigration benefit. The law gives the authority for making these discretionary decisions to the Attorney General, who delegates that authority to USCIS immigration officers.
A USCIS immigration officer doesn't live with you, so he doesn't know how sincere your relationship is. He has to judge your relationship based on what he sees on paper. USCIS immigration officers are given guidance in the Adjudicators Field Manual for things they should ask for and expect to see as evidence that a relationship is bonafide. If, after looking at the evidence, he concludes that your relationship smells like rotten fish then he's going to deny you. There are only two possibilities that could lead him to this conclusion. Either your evidence was insufficient or not compelling, or he's right - your relationship is a sham. In the first case you would be guilty of not being adequately prepared with the necessary evidence. In the second case you would be guilty of fraud.
The interview is not much different from a trial. The outcome depends entirely on the evidence. It also doesn't help if you go out of your way to annoy the judge.
What happens next is entirely up to the IO. You could receive a letter that the green card has been denied. If they believe they have evidence of fraud then you might also be notified that the I-130 approval is being revoked. If this happens then you've got 30 days (or thereabouts) to file a motion to reopen the case. You have to provide NEW evidence for this to be successful. If it's denied, then your wife will be placed in removal proceedings for deportation. At that point, you'd better get a good immigration attorney.
You could be called in for a Stokes interview. You know now what this entails. I can virtually guarantee that if you give the IO attitude during the Stokes interview then the interview will be terminated, and the green card will be denied.
It's also possible that, after review, the green card may be approved. Based on what you've said so far, I don't think the chances of this are very good.

You generally only get the fees refunded if they reject your application during initial screening. They accepted your application (which they probably should not have done), so your application was considered "filed", and they keep the fees.
Your case was bungled by the interviewing officer, and that caused a snowball effect. When she saw the dates she should have immediately denied your application, and allowed you to submit another. Instead, she tried to juggle your application and shoe horn it through the system. The other USCIS employees who handled your application probably had no idea what to do with it, as there are no provisions for routinely handling something like this. Bureaucracies don't deal well with non-conformity. Some supervisor probably saw your application still pending in the system and decided to have a look at it. "Why is this thing still here? This should have been denied a long time ago!".
Seriously, the amount they're quoting you for an appeal is only slightly less than the total cost of filing a new application. As I said before, there is practically no chance you'll win an appeal of THAT application. You can't overcome the fact that it was filed too early unless you have a Delorean, a flux capacitor, and some plutonium. Just file again and end the stress.

You generally only get the fees refunded if they reject your application during initial screening. They accepted your application (which they probably should not have done), so your application was considered "filed", and they keep the fees.
Your case was bungled by the interviewing officer, and that caused a snowball effect. When she saw the dates she should have immediately denied your application, and allowed you to submit another. Instead, she tried to juggle your application and shoe horn it through the system. The other USCIS employees who handled your application probably had no idea what to do with it, as there are no provisions for routinely handling something like this. Bureaucracies don't deal well with non-conformity. Some supervisor probably saw your application still pending in the system and decided to have a look at it. "Why is this thing still here? This should have been denied a long time ago!".
Seriously, the amount they're quoting you for an appeal is only slightly less than the total cost of filing a new application. As I said before, there is practically no chance you'll win an appeal of THAT application. You can't overcome the fact that it was filed too early unless you have a Delorean, a flux capacitor, and some plutonium. Just file again and end the stress.

Prima Facie is Latin. It literally means "on it's face". What this means is that, at first glance, you appear to have enough evidence for your case to proceed. It doesn't mean your evidence has been ACCEPTED as FACT. It doesn't mean "you're almost there". It means you've gotten past the first step. If the evidence you submitted is subsequently found to be factual, then your case will be approved.

VAWA applications are denied if the applicant can't show enough evidence that the abuse actually took place. VAWA applications receive extra scrutiny because they are frequently used by immigration scammers who don't want to wait it out in a sham marriage to get their legal status, and are looking for a shortcut to an unconditional green card. Most VAWA applications are approved, though.
Most appeals are denied because the applicant usually can't present any new evidence to change the initial ruling.

USCIS and ICE do not prosecute for immigration fraud. If they find someone is guilty of misrepresentation then they deport them - end of story. Many VAWA filers are lying about being abused. If USCIS determines they are lying then they simply deny the I-360 and start removal proceedings. They don't need to accuse them of misrepresentation in order to deny the I-360 (approval of an I-360 is discretionary, and the IO who denies it isn't obligated to prove anything), and they don't need to follow up with an accusation of misrepresentation after the I-360 is denied.
A "no contact" order is usually not sufficient, by itself, for a VAWA filing. Those orders can usually be obtained without any proof whatever that the claimed abuse actually occurred. Now, if she had her boyfriend beat her up and then got a medical report to corroborate this then that would make a difference. If that were the case then you'd almost undoubtedly have been charged with domestic violence.
Another fundamental requirement of a VAWA filing is that the immigrant must provide evidence to prove that they entered the marriage in good faith. The first thing USCIS wants to see here is comingling of finances and debts or other responsibilities. They want joint bank accounts, insurance policies, both names on deeds/leases or other household bills, joint credit accounts, etc. Next they want secondary evidence to support the claim, such as photos at family events, sworn statements from mutual friends, etc. If she doesn't have sufficient evidence for this then her I-360 will be denied, even if she has overwhelming evidence of abuse.
Finally, an I-360 based on VAWA can be approved if the marriage has been terminated, but only if the termination of the marriage occurred within two years prior to filing, and only if the claimed abuse was the primary reason for terminating the marriage. If you filed for the annulment BEFORE she filed the VAWA self-petition, and if the annulment is granted based on your accusation of fraud, then that could be the nail in her coffin. Make sure you send a copy of that annulment to USCIS and ICE.

Look at the notice you quoted in your original post. I mean look at the physical piece of paper. Who is it from? Consulates do not write the type of notice you received. They don't have the authority to tell you that "all USCIS action on this petition is concluded as of the date of this notice". What's more, the notice is virtually identical to notices others have posted that came from the California Service Center.
The person you talked to on the phone is probably misinformed.
If the notice you received previously was from USCIS (I'm betting it was) then this advice is based on bad information. You can file another petition, presuming you meet the two year meeting requirement. You can also marry your fiance and file a spousal visa petition anytime, even if USCIS were readjudicating your returned fiancee petition, which I honestly believe they are not based on the notice you previously received.
Again, advice based on bad information. Further, a USCIS agent (more likely a customer service rep) would have no clue about how to handle a denial at a consulate. There are over 100 US consulates in foreign countries, and each of them have their own policies and procedures. You can't "intercept the notice". You'd have to convince the consulate to hold on to the petition, rather than sending it back, while you try to convince the CO or the visa section chief to reverse their decision. This usually has to be done within days or weeks of the decision. Your fiancee's interview was back in June. I am absolutely certain your petition was sent back to USCIS a long time ago. The notice you received is pretty much proof of that.
Even if you sue the attorney, you're not likely to recover much more than the fees you paid. The cost of the lawsuit will probably exceed that by a fairly wide margin. You've given enough money to attorneys. I don't know what you paid, but I'd guess it would have gone a long way toward paying for another trip to the Philippines.
I assume from this that you haven't made another trip to see your fiancee, so you can't currently meet the 2 year meeting requirement. There is no way, at this point, you can move forward without meeting her again.

It doesn't sound to me like your circumstances are going to be any different if you file for divorce after removing conditions. You'll still lose your job, have no savings, and no friends or family around to help you. The only difference is you'll have a 10 year green card that's no longer dependent on your marriage to a US citizen. Given that those are the facts, it sounds like the only factor driving your decision of when to divorce is that 10 year green card.
I'm sorry, but that smells like fraud to me. Immigration status should have no bearing on your decision to divorce. If you go to the ROC interview and pretend everything is rosy then you'll be lying to the immigration officer and also to your husband.

No US consulate requires the beneficiary to interview in English. The CO's often speak the local language to some degree, and they always have translators available who can speak the local language, though the translators don't always do a bang up job of it. In some countries, they intentionally mis-translate in order to help sink the interview. The language spoken at the interview would generally only be a problem if the beneficiary speaks neither English nor the local language; e.g., a beneficiary interviewing in a country other than their native country or who speaks a regional language not many people speak in that country.
Another potential problem is whether you speak your fiancee's language. If you two don't have a common language then that can be a big problem, especially in a high fraud country.