GeekyGuy

Thank you all for the good information.

She is, in fact, required to return to the Philippines once her Visa is expired.  The contract that she signed with her agency requires this.  Otherwise, she will be deported back to the Philippines and prevented from re-entering the U.S. for a 10-year period.

No, she does not.

My stepdaughter, from the Philippines, is here in the U.S. working under a J-1 visa.  She's scheduled to return to the Philippines sometime in July 2017.  She's now met a wonderful man and they will be married prior to her departure date.

Does anyone know if she can apply for a CR-1 while her J-1 is still active?  Or does she need to wait until after her J-1 has expired and she has returned to the Philippines?

Hi to all ! My daughter who came here in Iowa, USA on a K2 visa is only 11 years old. My question is do I need to file for an EAD to obtain her SSN ? I have already filed my fiancee's ( her mom ) SSN, and we're still waiting for it.

Call the embassy and check on the status NOW, if they can't tell you anything then call St. Luke's and ask them if they've sent the results to the embassy. You should be all over this instead of just waiting for them. Remember, while it may be very important to you, it's only daily routine to them and they really couldn't care less until you make an issue of it. They should be able to tell you if they've received/sent the exam results or if your fiancee needs to get them from St. Luke's and deliver them herself.

My fiancee has called them, a couple of times. The only answer she can get out of anyone at the call center is, "you'll just have to wait, ma'am". I did ask her to call St. Luke's today, which is how we found out that her daughter's medical exam results were submitted to the embassy on 4/6. At this point, am I required to wait, or can I start bugging the living daylights out of someone?

My fiancee and I are at our wits' end. We are hoping that some VJers here can provide us with some good advice.

The medical exam for her and her daughter (age 11) took place the first week of April. There was some slight complication when her daughter's TB skin test came back positive, but her chest x-ray came back clear. They both received the necessary vaccinations. My fiancee's exam results were submitted to the embassy on 4/5, and her daughter's exam results were submitted on 4/6.

Her interview on 4/7 at the embassy went fine, for both of them. The consular officer informed her at the end of the interview that both visas had been approved, K1 and K2. However, when she surrendered both passports, she was informed that their case was being placed in an administrative review/processing because they had not yet received her daughter's exam results. That to me seemed reasonable, as the results had been submitted only the day before. The notice also said for us to wait until we heard back from the embassy or received a letter from them telling them when to return to the embassy with the indicated documents.

However, I thought that the embassy has to receive the medical exam results from St. Luke's, and that they won't accept a copy from my fiancee?

Also, this was three weeks ago. Surely they have received the medical exam results by now? Also, according to the DOS' web site, we will have to wait 60-90 days for administrative reviews to be completed?

Is this right? Should I not wait, and send an email or contact the call center now?

Now if we can just survive the alleged government shutdown...LOL.

APPROVED!!

The embassy interview, that is ... LOL

You know, I think the next two weeks are just going to absolute drag...just waiting for her and our daughter to get here ...

Just trying to get a feel for a few things.

First, which are the best, reasonable hotels near the Embassy?

Second, how can I reserve / pay for a room? Or does my fiancée need to do that? She's pretty shy and prefers not to talk to strangers on the phone.

John

Don't do it by phone...reserve a room online. Most, if not all, hotels near the Embassy should have a website and allow you to reserve a room online. This is what I did when I visited my fiancee in May of last year. For me, the whole process was pretty much trouble-free.

First, if this isn't the proper forum, please feel free to move this topic.

My fiancee is from the Philippines. We applied for the K-1 visa on 8/27/10 and received our NOA2 on 2/8. I called the NVC a week ago and found out that they had received our case on 2/16 and shipped it to the U.S. Embassy in Manila on 2/18.

However, I (this is Mark, I'm the petitioner) haven't received any notice from the Embassy, which I thought was kind of strange (especially since it's been almost 2.5 weeks), but I read on the American embassy's website that the visa unit got moved to a new building (bigger and better digs, I'm told), and they're closed until this Wednesday.

However, one of my fiancee's friends recently applied for a tourist visa and was told that for the months for March and April, there is no available time slot for an interview. Would this mean interview slots for all visas, or just slots for tourist visas?

Argh...we thought, from reading the guides here, that the visa process moves much faster once our case got transferred to the Dept. of State. Is this no longer true?

Hi everyone ! This is Bambi. I would like to know if the K1 visa interview fee, which is $350, is inclusive of my daughter who is getting a K2 Visa also. Or will we have to pay a separate fee for her as well?

Question as it relates to the K1 process:

As part of the supporting documentation for the I-134 Affidavit of Support, I requested a statement from my bank. My understanding of the instructions for the I-134 is that this statement needs to include the date the account was opened, the total amount deposited for the past year, and the present balance. However, the bank manager is telling me that they are unable to provide the total amount deposited for the last year, due to security restrictions.

If I provide copies of bank statement for the last year, will this be enough?

This process is not good for anyone's mental health...

With that said, I've heard stories of other VJ members who've been assigned to the VSC of waiting for 8-9 months for their NOA2 of their I-129F.

The CSC seems to fare better...just outside of the 5-month standard processing time. We were assigned to the CSC and just received electronic notification of our NOA2 a couple of days ago (so it would have been not quite 5.5 months).

We had pretty much given up hope, also. In fact, I was seriously contemplating a way to move to the Philippines (with no job once I got there and no way of supporting a family; that shows you how depressed we were).

It's tough, and hard. You get to the point, more than once, of thinking that it will never happen and that no one cares if it will ever happen. But, the truth is, it does happen...all the time. That's why VJ is such a great site. Thousands of people here, just like you, trying to get through the same, sometimes dehumanizing, process, just like you. We look out for and support each other when it seems like the whole process is almost too much to bear.

So...chin up, good people. It will happen. You will hear something, one way or the other. The good news is, once you receive your NOA2, and your case is transferred from USCIS to the State Department, things start moving much more quickly.

My fiancee is a Filipino citizen. I have not yet filed the I-129F. Her ex-husband abandoned her some time ago (over a decade ago), but she did not file for an annulment until 2007. We met online in March 2009. The annulment was not finalized until last year, in May 2009. My question is this:

Will the fact that the annulment was not finalized until last year prove to be a red flag to any government official reviewing her case? If so, is there any way that I can minimize the potential impact that this fact might have?