garebear397

Do you know roughly how long it takes in Thailand to get an interview? Because it will be even longer than 6 months of proof by the time you get to the interview (where your spouse should show most recent pay-stubs, etc.), which depending on how long that is, might be plenty. I was in a similar situation, where I was living in Chile with my wife and only moved to the US with a new US-based job about a month before we sent in the i-864 to the NVC. So they documentarily qualified us, but they put in the comments that we might need a joint sponsor. So we got my father to be a join sponsor, but we didn't submit it to the NVC, and just brought the signed form to the interview, basically just in case they required it. But by the time we got the interview I had closer to 6 months of employment, so they didn't end up requiring a joint-sponsor. All that to recommend that you send in to the NVC with just your income, and then just have ready the joint-sponsor documents ready for the interview if needed.

Yeah agreed, notarized letter along with proof your fiance owns their house in the district seems like it would be good to go. In the school's view, I can't imagine it is uncommon to have a student who lives with one of their parents and the parent's partner who is not a parent of the student -- seems like exactly what the notarized letter would be for.

While I do think they will have time, and as @centric23 pointed out kids have a right to education, "plenty" might be a bit much as many schools start mid-August, so it is something that OP should work on pretty quickly after arriving. But @Nywoek, are you all buying a house? Renting? Staying with family initially? And have you asked the school what they require for proof? I am asking, because when registering my child for school this year, right after moving to the US, we did have to show more than just a utility bill or something -- we had three options to show residence: deed/mortgage for a house we owned, lease/rental agreement, or notarized affidavit from someone if your child lives with someone else that lives within the district (so if you are staying with family, that might be the option).

Yeah we did this for my wife as well, though more for licensing and grad school requirements, was never needed for any job applications/interviews. The university she applied to required her foreign transcript to be certified by a member of NACES (National Association of Credential Evaluation Services). We went with Global Language Services, which translated her documents for like $100, and then evaluated and certified them for an additional $100. And yeah, they went class by class and reflected the respective US course name, credit hours, and grade (A-F, GPA).

Yes, this is what I was going to mention. Definitely mention you legally able to work, and maybe even put the city or address you are living at on your resume. Because if not it will look like someone is applying from a different country and may need sponsorship. But my wife never put an explanation for her breaks in work and it didn't seem to hurt -- she actually currently has a 2 year gap on her resume due to kids + immigration, yet she just got an interview on the first application she put out. One thing I will say, and this happened both when my wife immigrated to the US, and when I immigrated to Chile (both of us with advanced degrees) -- be somewhat prepared to take an initial (hopefully small) step back on your career trajectory. You are somewhat at a disadvantage because your education and previous experience may not be as recognizable, plus lack of local connections. It doesn't happen to everyone, and even in our case after about a year that step-back corrected itself with good work, but just don't get too disappointed if there is an initial setback.

Already answered (definitely fiancé), but just to point out why it is clear that you are to select fiancé. Section 2 is labeled "Application Type or Filing Category", so these questions are to assign your application a "category", it is not a biographical or background section (unlike Parts 1, 4,5,6, etc.). I mean it is possible, background-wise, to be multiple of the options under Part 2, item 3.a. I mean you could be a spouse, former fiancé, parent, child, sibling, widow, etc. of US citizen's all at once. But since the Part 2 isn't asking your history/background instead it is assigning your current application a category, and since you know IR1/CR1's is a completely different category than K-1 -- "entered as fiancé" is the only option. Not trying to beat a dead horse, but just trying to make sure it is clear how you or anyone needs to think about these applications and their questions.

Just wanted to share experience getting my wife's Ohio driver's license after recently immigrating with a IR1 visa, in case it is helpful to others. In Ohio driving is very necessary to live regular life (no good public transportation), so we wanted to make sure my wife could drive soon after immigrating. I am still not 100% if she would have been able to drive with her foreign Chilean license before getting Ohio license -- because visitors are permitted to drive for up to 90 days with a foreign license, but she technically is not a "visitor". And even if legally allowed to drive, there is also a question if my insurance would cover her, because they require everyone living in the same household to be named in the policy (and with local a local driver license) -- insurance will typically cover someone borrowing your car, but again my wife is not "borrowing", she is living with me. All that to be said, that getting her Ohio driver's license ASAP was a big priority for us, i.e. before she would receive her physical green card. So for Ohio, for a new driver's license (no reciprocal agreement with Chile), you need to first get your "temps" (temporary permit) -- which requires passing the written test, either online (proctored) or at the BMV (no typo, it is BMV not DMV in Ohio). Once you pass the test you have to go to the BMV and show proof of the following: legal presence in the US, photo ID with proof of name / DOB, proof of SSN, and proof of Ohio Residence. Foreign passport / US visa works for photo ID, and luckily we had been married a while so we already had my wife's name on bank accounts and credit cards that showed her Ohio residence, because sometimes that can be a bit tricky as a new immigrant. And because my wife had lived in the US previously, we had her SSN before she even immigrated again -- though they even list that requirement as "if assigned", so may not be 100% needed. The big question was how the local BMV officers would handle the I551 stamp with her IR1 visa as "proof of legal residence". For all of us experts in immigration, and for USCIS, it is abundantly clear that the I551 stamp serves as proof of residence, as even on the IR1 visa it says: "UPON ENDORSEMENT SERVES AS TEMPORARY I-551 EVIDENCING PERMANENT RESIDENCE FOR 1 YEAR." But this is not so clear to the BMV workers. The first time we went to the BMV, the first worker my wife interacted with didn't seem sure at all, and kept asking her for her green card. But she was finally able to speak to the office manager, and she was much more familiar with the process and cleared her to get her "temps." After getting the temps, you need to pass a driving and maneuverability test, after which we had to go back to the BMV -- and the fun part is we have to present all the same proof again, for some reason. This second time, again the initial worker seemed to have 0 idea what this visa and stamp was, and spent a lot of time on the phone talking to someone about if it was acceptable. After the phone call she was ready to accept it, but said we needed to mark that my wife was a "temporary resident". I tried a bit to explain that she isn't a "temporary resident", rather the stamp is "temporary evidence for permanent residence" -- but it was no use, and I wasn't going to push it too hard anyway. So after all that, she was issued her Ohio Driver's License, though it does only have validity up until the 1 year mark on her I551 stamp -- which I was expecting. So she will have to go back after a year to renew, with her physical green card in hand to get the normal 4 or 8 years of validity. Again just wanted to share, because there is limited information on this topic state-by-state, so hopefully can help someone in the future!

Just curious, why was it suggest to marry in third neutral country? If they are already visiting China, they can marry there? Or is there something specific about Chinese marriages that complicates.

Yeah that definitely does sound promising. So where are you actually having to show domicile? Because that is usually a part of the I864. Regardless as you are doing I think it would be good to have ready for the interview, since that is a key part of family based immigrant visas. So to answer your actual first question, I would definitely have some additional support of "intent to domicile". Like appleblossom said, most USC keep things like driver licenses, voting registration, bank accounts, while living abroad whether they intend to return or not (I certainly did). Job offers, contract with realtor to find a house, school registration for your kids, etc. would all be good to show you are making concrete steps to move.

It would be helpful to fill out your timeline and be clear who is sponsoring who. Why would the I-864 not be required? And no you haven't filed US taxes?

Posting the last update for our IR1 case! After arriving in the US on March 27th, my wife's USCIS tracking page changed on May 16th to "Card Produced", and then we received her 10 year green card in the mail on May 23rd. So finally all done with immigration departments at least for a few years (until citizenship application)!

How is everyone else progressing? We received my wife's passport back with visa within 2 weeks of her approval, and entered the US last Thursday (March 27th). We entered through DFW airport, we were directed to go through the visitor's line, which did take a long time (they only had 2 officers working and they were asking lots of questions to everyone). But when we arrived the CBP officer was very friendly, asked a couple simple questions and welcomed my wife to the US before directing us to secondary processing. He also let our whole family (us plus 2 kids) pass into secondary (which hasn't happened to me before, so it was a pleasant surprise), we were the only ones in the room and within 5-10 mins my wife had her stamped passport and was ready to go. Overall a very smooth and easy entry.

Wondering if anyone has recent experience / or more information about entering the US (by land or air), and specifically if there were more reviews of phones / social media. There have been more news stories of tourists or people with work visas being turned away or detained based on what they find in people's phones, so just trying to see if there have been recent experiences here.

Not that I recommend doing it exactly in the timing we did it....but we planned a larger wedding in my wife's home country, that was going to be our "second" wedding. Basically the idea was she would arrive in the US on K1, do a quick small ceremony, apply for the GC and AP right away, get her AP or GC before we needed to go back down for the big ceremony. We were planning our wedding out probably a year in advance, and just tried to build in plenty of buffer time if things got delayed -- and we ended up using most of the buffer time. So my wife arrived in the US in August, we got married a day later in my parents house with like 5 other people there, applied for GC and AP right away, and luckily got her GC in time in December, because we had the wedding planned for January in Chile. Like I said....I wouldn't recommend doing it with such tight timing, if you want to plan a big ceremony just build in lots and lots of buffer time, and know that you also basically have 9 months of time once you get the visa (6 months validity of K-1 visa, and have to marry in 3 months).

I mean I think @dd2024dd should obviously talk with a tax accountant that is an expert on filing for "expats" (I have used MyExpatTaxes many times myself for both FEIE and Foreign Tax Credits), besides just trusting anyone one of us. But I am not seeing anywhere on the IRS page where having a W-2 means you can't claim FEIE? Feel free to point it out if I am missing something. Actually here it explicitly says where or how you get paid has nothing to do with it: The source of your earned income is the place where you perform the services for which you receive the income. Foreign earned income is income you receive for performing personal services in a foreign country. Where or how you are paid has no effect on the source of the income. For example, income you receive for work done in France is income from a foreign source even if the income is paid directly to your bank account in the United States and your employer is in New York City. You can absolutely still be taxed in a foreign country if you are earning US income with a W2 while living in that foreign country. Many countries have rules that tax "worldwide earned income" that if you are living in that country, you can be taxed on any income earned while living there, regardless of where that company is located or where you are paid. Now, it is very up to the individual to report that income, but you can and usually will be subject to foreign tax. Just as an example, because I know Chilean tax law the best, from PWC: Chile taxes its individuals resident or domiciled in Chile on worldwide income. Foreigners working in Chile are subject to taxation only on their Chilean-source income during the first three years in Chile, after which worldwide income is taxed.