US Immigration from Chile

Hey everyone, just wanted to make a post about our experience since it was a question we had going into my wife's IR1 visa interview, and there weren't a ton of previous posts about it -- so just sharing if helpful to someone else. So one of the requirements to bring to the CR1/IR1 interview is a police certificate, specifically:

"The original police certificate from your country of current residence and countries of previous residence."

My wife had previously lived in the US (with her green card) for 2 years, so we didn't know if she needed to bring in a police certificate from the US since it was a previous country of residence. From what we could find it seemed like the answer was NO, and even some other counties embassy instructions specifically state that background checks from the US aren't necessary (presumably because they already do a background check during the USCIS stage) -- those reasons plus by the time we even considered it we didn't have time to get a FBI background check (mailing fingerprints and all), my wife only went with her local Chilean police certificate. And just wanted to report that they did not need the US one, and it was zero issue.

Hi Everyone,

My wife and I got married back in September 2024 in the United States when she last visited from her home country of Chile, and she was here for about two weeks. This time around, she booked a round trip flight for nearly a month and is arriving next week. She had no problems getting into the country the last time around, and we had a lot of paperwork to show the customs agent just in case there were any issues (they weren't necessary, thankfully), but this time around there are a couple of different factors and I wanted to get the opinion of others if there is anything else we can do to be prepared for when she arrives and goes through customs. We submitted our I-130 and are at the NOA1 stage since October, so I know this might suggest more intent for someone to want to stay in the country instead of return home. She has ties to her home country, such as her lease contract agreement for her apartment, but she no longer is working right now so we cannot show that she has a job to come back to in Chile as we did last time, which I know is a strong tie. She also has the return ticket home, and will have a copy of our marriage certificate, and I intend to write a letter explaining our situation and that she intends to go back home, as I saw someone else on a different thread had recommended. The only other difference is she is flying into Atlanta for the first leg of the trip, whereas last time she flew from Chile to Bogota, and then from Bogota directly to Dulles. I have heard Atlanta customs can give a little more of a hard time as well. If anyone has any thoughts or feedback for our plan and what we should anticipate, I would appreciate it!

Starting the thread for those of us starting the New Year by filing an I-130.

Looking forward to hopefully seeing a lot of updates in 2026 or earlier

We re trying to gather all the documents we ll need for the process ahead of time. My fianc was saying that in Chile all documents from the Registro Civil are available in a certified digital format.

As an example: certified birth certificates can be downloaded for free. Would uploading the certified PDF to CEAC be sufficient for the NVC/Consular part or would physical copies be needed at some point.

Realize I m asking early but we re trying to have everything we can ready for the entire process when we file the I-130 so it s a more seamless process.

Hi all,

My fiance and I are planning on getting married in the U.S. on his ESTA over the holidays. We plan on going back to Chile together afterwards for about a month and filing the I-130 there before I d return to the U.S. while he waits the processing out.

If I start working on the draft online now so it s ready to submit the second we land in Santiago, would that be something that flags for CBP when he s entering? Don t want to put his ESTA at risk or delay the marriage.