US Immigration from Philippines

OK, so we want to retire to the Philippines in about 2 1/2 years. We have filed I-751 and my wife's provisional green card was created June 2021, so I believe she can apply for citizenship 90 days before the same date in June 2024. I'm thinking that we should make her and her child (my stepchild who I plan to adopt) dual-citizens before we retire to the Philippines because we will want to visit the USA whenever we like. If my wife and step-daughter only have green cards, then we will have to return to the USA every year and renew their green cards in 10 years (after they receive their 10-year green cards). Has anyone here dealt with the same situation? My plan is to have her apply for citizenship when eligible which would confer citizenship on the child as well, then apply for dual citizenship at the Philippines consulate in the USA. I also plan to adopt my step-daughter because she would be eligible for Social Security benefits until she reaches 18. I will be applying for Social Security in the next few years. Does anyone here have experience with this kind of situation? Is there anything I am forgetting, or any flaws in my plan? Is it very important for her to become a citizen, or is it possible to deal with the challenges of the green card? (wife is worried about the citizenship test).

This is probably common knowledge to so many folks who have petitioned, but.... In the event you are about to make the mistake I did, here you go:

I filed MFJ for 2022. When we hit the NVC stage, we were prepared, man. Ready to rock CEAC. I uploaded my tax return transcript and other required documents. We uploaded my wife's civil docs.

10 days later, we get a message that says to please upload my W2(s) and any 1099s.

Okay. We uploaded that.

10 days later we get another message to please upload my tax schedules.

I started getting irritated. If you provide your tax return transcript, you are not required to provide your tax returns or schedules. Right? Sort of. (I can see CCat, Mike E, etc., laughing about right now.)

Because I'm so busy during the week, I generally don't have time to make personal phone calls during the day. So, today, I was going to pop an inquiry off to NVC to ask some questions about why they keep asking for more documents, which is delaying the process for us.

As I was looking up the exact USCIS language to quote, I realized.... Oops. My mistake.

AoS instructions state: "If you provide a photocopy of your Federal individual income tax returns, you must include a copy of each and every Form W-2 and Form 1099 that relates to your returns. Do not include copies of these forms if you provide an IRS transcript of your Federal individual income tax returns rather than a photocopy unless you filed a joint income tax return with your spouse and are qualifying using only your income." ....Which is our exact situation.

Read. Everything. Carefully. And then maybe read it again. I read those I864 instructions a dozen times, but I glazed right over that last part. So far, due to my error, we will have wasted at least a month's time in this process. At least it's not COVID timeframes each time we get bumped back to the beginning of the queue, but it's frustrating nonetheless.

I hope this helps someone else avoid this mistake.

:)

Hi everyone good day to all, my wife a us citizen just petitioned for her brother his wife and 2 young kids to come here I would like to know how much do I have to make in order for them to come here my family size is 3 so with them it would be 7 people

I need to report my marriage to the Phil Embassy. However, I saw that one of their requirements is a valid passport:

"Valid Passports or IDs of Husband & Wife

Submit one (1) original and 3 notarized copies or 4 notarized copies if the original is not available

Valid passports or IDs of HUSBAND and WIFE who is filing the application."

Unfortunately, my passport is expired (which is why I needed to do ROM first THEN renew my passport. Does anyone know if I should just go ahead and submit the expired passport?

Thank you.

Hi all,

Today, NVC updated the case status. When I logged into CEAC, I see they accepted the AoS documents and civil documents, but there was a message to upload all W-2, 1099s, and tax schedules for the petitioner (me).

Previously, on 08/03, when they updated case status, they asked for W-2s and 1099s, which we uploaded. They already have my tax transcript from the AoS documentation.

So, on one hand, I'm growing a little irritated. They have my 2022 tax return transcript. They now have all W-2s (there is only one). And all 1099s (there are only 2). We will upload my entire tax return tomorrow so they stop asking for tax documents, delaying my wife's case by 2 weeks at at time, and so I don't miss any schedules.

If the CEAC Home Screen shows AoS and civil docs have been accepted, does this mean they are passing along to the consulate and just want us to upload the tax schedules before her interview? Or does this mean we need to upload the tax schedules and then wait another 2 or 3 weeks for NVC to review?