Free US immigration self-help guides, example forms, community discussion, case tracking & estimated approval dates!

My fiancee (Chinese) and I (American) have been in a long distance relationship since 2018. Since the COVID lockdowns finally ended, we have been back and forth to visit each other 4 times and want to secure a visa so we can be together in the states. Unfortunately, she is a member of the CCP for work reasons, so I had retained a lawyer to help with the fiancee visa process and issues around her party affiliation. However, information here and elsewhere made us reconsider whether the K1 route was best for us, since we might rather wait longer earning our separate incomes and with our own freedom of movement than have her be stuck in limbo before her status is adjusted / advance parole granted.

We are currently leaning towards getting married and filing for a K3 / CR1 visa, but the lawyer's advice has been less than clear. For one thing, he has repeatedly stressed the idea of her coming on her tourist visa, staying for at least 60 days, then for us to marry and adjust status after that point. This doesn't seem appealing both because it seems to entail at least a certain degree of fraud at the point of entry, and would also exacerbate her being in limbo / vulnerable as the status was being resolved. She also has a cat that she dearly loves, so abandoning him for months to maintain the pretense of arriving on a tourist visit is not appealing. The lawyer doubled down on this advice recently after the Munoz supreme court case, I'm guessing for the sake of having the application be processed domestically rather than by a consulate, but he didn't clarify further. He also said some things that seemed off about K1 visas de facto allowing people to work on arrival, since it is understood they are stuck in administrative limbo... Developing some trust issues with this lawyer..

My fiancee has some time to come visit this October, during which we are considering a marriage in California where I live, after which she would return to China and we would file an application. I wanted to ask

1. Are there any potential issues with getting married in the USA while she is visiting on a tourist visa? Is there a reason it might be potentially more advisable to get married in China?
   
2. Are we likely to have any issues with her visiting on her tourist visa later on once we have filed for a spousal visa?

Since I haven't gotten clear advice on these ideas from the lawyer, I wanted to ask for advice here. Thanks so much for your help!

I am currently filling out the online 130 form and there is a question that asks "when is the last time you and your spouse lived together?" Does visiting them count? Because I've been staying with my husband and his family since May and don't leave until August but the online form doesn't allow you to put a future date or write present.

My petitioner doesn't make any income. Do I also need to include his tax transcripts? He has not filed the past 3 years tax transcripts due to not having an income.

My joint-sponsor makes $32k/year for a household size of 1 + 1 (including me). This seems to be above the $25,550 requirement listed on the website. Is this enough or is another sponsor needed? Also, do I need to include the last 6 months paystubs?

Hello everyone! My grandma filed I-130 for her daughter (my mother), my father and me under F-3 category, Priority date is October 2010 which just became current as per the latest visa bulletin. The file was approved in December 2014 and was transferred to NVC in Feb 2015 ( we got the letter from NVC with case number). So, as of today we emailed NVC for further steps for invocie ID and they emailed back saying that our records do no show that we received your petition. So we all are worried that what has gone wrong here. We do not know who s fault it is here, is it USCIS that messed up on their end or it is NVC or are we missing something. Anyone faced similar problems or situations, please help. We called USCIS and they said the file was approved in Dec 2014 and transferred and nothing is wrong with the case. I am so confused and anxious. Please help, thanks

I'm using the latest (4/24) version of the I-129f and note that you cannot enter "PRESENT" for employment date on 16.b. (end date). If you're still working for that employer, it seems they force you to either make up a future date, which is incorrect, enter the current date, which is also incorrect, or leave it blank.

Thoughts?

Edit: also note that you can't enter a number in fields like 17. That is problematic if the company name actually has a number in it, such as G2IT. Do better, folks. Tell me it's better for your folks to interpret GTWOIT instead. Kinda dumb.