US Immigration from Australia

Wondering if people think our case is straightforward enough to handle ourselves? Otherwise, we have been in contact with a legal team that can help us. We'd obviously like to save the several thousand USD if possible, but also don't want to risk my husband being rejected.

Relevant points:

• Him: Australian, 35 / Me: American, 41
• Both living in Thailand together (dating) at the same residences for the past 6 years (known each other for 9 years)
  • plenty of evidence of bona fide relationship
    • I can easily get the lease from our current location (3.5 years here together)
    • Many trips / pictures / social media interactions / joint bank accounts / mutual friends / my visits to Australia / etc.
• Married via Utah Zoom wedding together from Thailand on Sept 7 2021
• Me: on Thai work permit / Him: on a spousal visa in Thailand based on my work permit (he recently left his job and gave up his Thai work permit)
  • We plan to continue to reside in Thailand until the issuance of the CR1
• Him: 1 DUI from 2015: no person or property was injured (Australia) - record clear except for this
  • Me: clear record
• Him: one minor overstay (resolved by paying fine of about $15 per day) on his Thai visa due to misunderstanding when leaving his work permit (did not involve arrest or charges, he simply paid a fine of less than $200 to rectify the error once realizing the issue) - I strongly (100%) doubt it will show up on his Police Record for Thailand
• Me: finances currently below minimum requirements while we reside in Thailand (although I have 2 graduate degrees and am employable in the US / He has a BA degree);
  • My parents will be our co-sponsors (they have ample income for the requirement)
  • Me: I have filed taxes abroad for the past two years, owing no federal taxes (I admit to being lazy for a couple years prior to that, since I didn't owe taxes).
  • Me: student loan debt of $100k+, currently on pause from payment.
    • In January when loans go back into repayment after the Covid emergency deferment, I'll likely continue to defer my loans until our return to the US due to my current low income.
• We plan to reside at my parents' house when we return to the US until we can secure employment and housing.
• Me: married once prior / divorced in 2011.
  • Him: never previously married
• Him/Me: 1 AZ vaccine received, second AZ vaccine scheduled to be received around 14 weeks after the first
  • Due to a local covid outbreak, health officials have postponed our second dose and we now will not have it within the recommended maximum 12 week space between doses - so it could hypothetically be considered our second "first dose"
  • Thai manufactured Astrazeneca vaccine (not currently recognized by the USA)
  • We are open to receiving additional booster shot(s) if recommended for his entry

I realize some information (like our degrees or my student loans) may not be important, I wasn't 100% sure on a few things, so I included them to be safe while trying to keep the summary brief.

Is this straight forward enough to tackle on our own or would people generally recommend we hire a lawyer for our situation? We're in the process of gathering documents right now and hope to file by the end of October.

Much thanks for your insight and advice!

Hi everyone! Long time lurker first time posting - hopefully this hasn't been answered before but I couldn't find anything!

On the 8th of September we received an email from NVC stating that they have once again updated the status of our application - logging into CEAC everything is finally showing accepted!!
(We had to re-submit my AUS Police Cert June 30th)

We still haven't received our qualified email - I am wondering if this is normal? How long should we be waiting to receive this email once everything has been accepted?
I would have assumed we would receive that DQ email rather than another showing our case has updated again?

We have contacted our attorney and he hasn't really helped much - told us to give it a week and let him know if nothing yet and no further response from him.

Any insight you might have would be great - we are unsure if we need to contact them or not at this point.

Thanks!

Hello!

Me and my partner are in the process of filing for AOS (marriage based, from ESTA VWP). I am a little confused with the i864 though and have some questions.

We are both young (both over 18 but under 21) and my husband has had 2 surgeries already and a third surgery next week so he has not been working. I live with my husband and his parents.

- My question is, does my husband fill out the i864 and one of his parents fills out the i864a?

- When we are calculating the household size, what should we state it as? I just want to clarify that anyone over 21 or married is no longer a dependent person?

- Also, is the most recent years tax return and a letter confirming employment/salary enough proof of financial support? If its not enough, will they issue an RFE or just straight up deny the case?

Sorry if these are dumb questions (I haven't done too much work on the i864 part of the application yet) but I just need to know before getting started. Thanks for any help guys!

Hi everyone,

I recently submitted all my docs to NVC. My husband is active duty military and has an upcoming deployment.

We have submitted an expedite request to NVC but have not yet heard anything back.

Do you think calling and explaining the situation will help? Or I should call my embassy? Will that help speed things up?

This whole process has taken so long and we are on a really tight deadline with deployment looming.

I didn't see a September filing thread so thought I'd start one. We sent our package off via Fedex yesterday (it hasn't been updated on the tracking for 24 hours but I'm trying not to worry haha!)

Anyone else?