Yes, and a competent tax preparer can, and will, file. I know a couple who were in the middle of the spousal visa process and their tax preparer, an H&R Block franchise owner, filed their MFJ tax return for them, and everything turned out fine. It didn't matter that the beneficiary spouse wasn't in the U.S. IIRC, the US citizen spouse wasn't in the US either at the time of the filing.