US Immigration from Ecuador

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22. Have you resided at any other address since you became a permanent resident?

If you answered Yes to Item Number 22., provide a list of all addresses where you have resided since becoming a permanent resident and the dates you resided at those locations in the space provided in Part 11. Additional Information.

My wife got her conditional permanent residency in September 2021. However, during the past two years she has spent a significant amount of time in her home country due to a complicated situation that was only finally resolved last month (July 2023). The situation had to do with being able to leave her former employer (a university) without them clawing back a large sum of money that was given in financial aid during an arrangement made years earlier. We of course did not anticipate this taking as long as it did, otherwise we might have opted to let the case sit at NVC for longer during the spousal visa process.

So for much of the time since she became a permanent resident, she was still working in Ecuador and returning to the U.S. as frequently as possible until coming back full-time in July. Throughout, she has maintained significant ties to the U.S. including being on our shared lease, shared insurance plans, shared bank and credit card accounts, joint tax returns, etc.

Given all this, my inclination in answering the question above is to say "Yes", list the family address in Ecuador in the Additional Information section along with a brief explanation, and find ways in the rest of the package to put this into greater context. That could be through a cover letter, timeline, and perhaps even relevant translated documents/correspondence related to the employer situation.

From this group I am trying to get a sense of whether this sounds like a good approach and how much of this information is truly relevant for USCIS. We have been together for 13 years now and I don't doubt our ability to demonstrate that this is a bona fide marriage, but at the same time these circumstances are different from a lot of cases out there and I want to be able to present them in an appropriate way.