Which visa for my situation?

[meauxna 15]

I beg to differ with you. I know of thousands of ex-pat Americans living in the Philippines who have given up all hope of ever taking their Filipina wives to the United States because they have forsaken all ties with the U.S. territories. They have not had a "Stateside" address for years, don't pay State income taxes, don't have any bank accounts in the U.S., don't have a State drivers license, and haven't even been to the U.S. in many years, etc. They have given up their "domicile" status in the U.S. and have faced rejection of petitions for spouses by U.S. Immigration because of it.

Those are all deliberate acts--I should've qualifed my comment to apply more specifically to this OP. It's hard to accidently give up your domicile.

I lived outside the US for nearly 3 years and never abandoned my US domicile.

To clarify again: US domicile has ZERO bearing on the ability to petition a spouse or other family member. Zero.

[homesick_american 1]

I beg to differ with you. I know of thousands of ex-pat Americans living in the Philippines who have given up all hope of ever taking their Filipina wives to the United States because they have forsaken all ties with the U.S. territories. They have not had a "Stateside" address for years, don't pay State income taxes, don't have any bank accounts in the U.S., don't have a State drivers license, and haven't even been to the U.S. in many years, etc. They have given up their "domicile" status in the U.S. and have faced rejection of petitions for spouses by U.S. Immigration because of it.

Those are all deliberate acts--I should've qualifed my comment to apply more specifically to this OP. It's hard to accidently give up your domicile.

I lived outside the US for nearly 3 years and never abandoned my US domicile.

To clarify again: US domicile has ZERO bearing on the ability to petition a spouse or other family member. Zero.

But beameup said that some US citizens in the Philippines couldn't get their Filipina wives into the US because of the domicile issue.

[Yodrak 7]

homesick_american,

Yes he did. And he is wrong about it, or he is simply mis-understanding something. beameup wrote, "If you are giving up your domicile status in the United States you will lack the ability to "petition" anyone from any country to "join you" in the U.S." Domicile is not required to petition for an alien relative.

Domicile is required to sponsor an alien, and the petitioner is required to sponsor in order for an immigrant visa application to be approved. A petioner who has given up their domicile can resolve the problem quite simply - re-establish domicile. This does not have to be done before the petition can be submitted and approved, but it does have to be done before the visa can be issued.

Yodrak

I beg to differ with you. I know of thousands of ex-pat Americans living in the Philippines who have given up all hope of ever taking their Filipina wives to the United States because they have forsaken all ties with the U.S. territories. They have not had a "Stateside" address for years, don't pay State income taxes, don't have any bank accounts in the U.S., don't have a State drivers license, and haven't even been to the U.S. in many years, etc. They have given up their "domicile" status in the U.S. and have faced rejection of petitions for spouses by U.S. Immigration because of it.

Those are all deliberate acts--I should've qualifed my comment to apply more specifically to this OP. It's hard to accidently give up your domicile.

I lived outside the US for nearly 3 years and never abandoned my US domicile.

To clarify again: US domicile has ZERO bearing on the ability to petition a spouse or other family member. Zero.

But beameup said that some US citizens in the Philippines couldn't get their Filipina wives into the US because of the domicile issue.

[homesick_american 1]

homesick_american,

Yes he did. And he is wrong about it, or he is simply mis-understanding something. beameup wrote, "If you are giving up your domicile status in the United States you will lack the ability to "petition" anyone from any country to "join you" in the U.S." Domicile is not required to petition for an alien relative.

Domicile is required to sponsor an alien, and the petitioner is required to sponsor in order for an immigrant visa application to be approved. A petioner who has given up their domicile can resolve the problem quite simply - re-establish domicile. This does not have to be done before the petition can be submitted and approved, but it does have to be done before the visa can be issued.

Yodrak

That's what I thought; I thought for sure he had to be wrong, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sponsor my husband. The information on the Manila site does seem to clash with the info on the London site, though maybe I'm just not reading it closely enough.

[beameup 0]

That's what I thought; I thought for sure he had to be wrong, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sponsor my husband. The information on the Manila site does seem to clash with the info on the London site, though maybe I'm just not reading it closely enough.

I am just relaying to you the information on the U.S. Embassy Philippines (Manila) website.

There are "exceptions" such as: "Petitioners who can show that they had a domicile in the U.S., but who are now living temporarily abroad because of certain types of employment, shall be considered to have retained their domicile in the United States." This of course includes members of the U.S. military stationed abroad.

Proving Domicile - US Embassy Manila

I would like to hear from someone who is petitioning from S.E. Asia.

Anyway, had I submitted the I-130 with a Philippine address instead of using my U.S. address I'm sure that it would have been REJECTED.

The issue of DOMICILE also has also come up in regard to filing taxes and submitting a W-7 for ITIN. For example, I am required to file a California Tax Return even though I have no California income because I have a California address. Many ex-pats retired in the Philippines wish now that they had not cut-off all ties with the United States.

[homesick_american 1]

That's what I thought; I thought for sure he had to be wrong, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sponsor my husband. The information on the Manila site does seem to clash with the info on the London site, though maybe I'm just not reading it closely enough.

I am just relaying to you the information on the U.S. Embassy Philippines (Manila) website.

There are "exceptions" such as: "Petitioners who can show that they had a domicile in the U.S., but who are now living temporarily abroad because of certain types of employment, shall be considered to have retained their domicile in the United States." This of course includes members of the U.S. military stationed abroad.

Proving Domicile - US Embassy Manila

I would like to hear from someone who is petitioning from S.E. Asia.

Anyway, had I submitted the I-130 with a Philippine address instead of using my U.S. address I'm sure that it would have been REJECTED.

The issue of DOMICILE also has also come up in regard to filing taxes and submitting a W-7 for ITIN. For example, I am required to file a California Tax Return even though I have no California income because I have a California address. Many ex-pats retired in the Philippines wish now that they had not cut-off all ties with the United States.

Bizarre. I used my UK address on the I-130 and I use my UK address on my tax returns for the IRS and we had no domicile issues whatsoever.

I will make again the point I made earlier, i.e. it appears that the USCIS is applying different rules in Manila and London. Whether this is deliberate I don't know, but it does seem rather suspicious that the restrictions are so tight in the Philippines, a country that sends over so many immigrants that it blazes through its quota of non-immediate family visas in a heartbeat. It almost looks as if they want to restrict Philippine immigration still further while giving every concession to UK immigrants. It's weird, though; the UK sends over too many immigrants to qualify for the green card lottery (and is one of the only European countries that doesn't qualify) but it does appear that British applicants have it easier than Filipino/a applicants. I'm not basing that on anything concrete; it's just a hunch. It isn't as if the US is struggling to attract UK immigrants; they send over 50,000 immigrants to the USA every five years and it's in the top 5 destinations of the 300,000 UK citizens who emigrate every YEAR. (There are so many people migrating TO the UK that they still have a net gain every year, and right now there are more Americans going to the UK than Brits going to America, but they're counting members of the US military in that figure.)

I have to say that my immigration to the UK was easy, easy, easy, easy, EASY. My visas were processed in a matter of weeks, not months; my fiancee visa was processed in a matter of HOURS. I think the Home Office probably either prioritizes applications from certain countries as an unwritten rule, or does not subject white, English-speaking, university-educated applicants to as much scrutiny as other applicants. That's my suspicion anyway; I used to work with a guy from Zimbabwe who waited about 10x as long for his indefinite leave to remain visa as I did.