PGA

OMG, thanks for the laugh but now I'm somewhat concerned we are married to the same woman. 😂

Has anybody used any of the apps available to help prepare for the exam/interview? We haven't downloaded any yet but I thought I'd check and see if anyone had recommendations, preferably free ones but we're open to all.

First (something I always recommend to people), offer to move to Mexico and see how that plays out. Other than that, I have some questions: have you ever met her in person? How did you meet? How long have you known her? Do you have any legal issues in your past? Does she? Does she have any prior travel history? Does she have a record of overstays of her visa anywhere (US particularly)? That is all important information to better judge the situation.

Good point. Though I can drive a few miles from my house and probably meet someone else from Peru, Mexico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, or about a million other places.

10+ years is a pretty long time and I'm sure they see relationships that dissolve much quicker all the time. However, did the spouse just recently become a citizen (if so, that may be more concerning)? Also, the whole meeting another individual and having a child together while still being married to current spouse I'm sure will raise an eyebrow. That said, is the United States completely out of potential spouses? I have been married to my spouse going on 15 years now and, God forbid something ever happened to our relationship, but I would NEVER EVER do the immigration thing again; too much work, too much stress, and too much money.

Yeah, got that. Thanks.

My wife is technically eligible to apply for N400 under 3 year rule but we are waiting because we arrived in Aug 2022 with her IR1 but stayed just a few weeks and then went back to Peru to terminate our lease and take care of loose ends, arriving back in the US in Dec 2022. We will be applying for the N400 around Sep (90 days-ish). Currently, my wife wants to assist her mom in applying for a tourist visa so she can get in what we assume to be a long line and come visit us here (absolutely no intention of staying long term). Are there any people with experience or suggestions. Is this a good idea? bad idea? Any pitfalls we should consider? Thanks.

Yeah, this happened to my wife as well and they cancelled her tourist visa when she went to the interview. In relation to the other things you were talking about though I understand. I was born and raised in the US but lived with my wife in Peru for 12 years; we had our daughter there in 2012 and then we all moved here at the end of 2022. Look, the US is great and has a lot to offer but it can (for most people in general and immigrants in particular) also be extremely difficult and sometimes perceptions particularly among friends and relatives back home, are hard to overcome; as my wife says - a lot of Peruvians think the streets here are paved with gold and the money falls from the trees. That said, one of the biggest regrets for both my wife and I was taking our daughter out of a decent school in Peru and putting her in the public school system here. And yes, you can definitely do more there with the same amount of money and honestly, even though Lima is pretty crazy, I do miss it sometimes, as does my wife, especially her family. Funny, the other day I was ordering something for my mother-in-law from Oechsle and I suddenly had that "homesick" feeling, it was weird. Anyway, in the end, you and your family are the only ones that can make the decision but it's also important to address some of the other things like, if you did move back to Peru, would your job go back to allowing you to work remotely? and, would your husband be able to get his job back? You just don't want to end up going from bad to worse....In either case though, don't feel guilty or apologize and good luck with whatever you decide.

I'm sorry but this individual should be on a poster for "Unqualified Candidate" for any job but barista.

Ok. I've never been more convinced that this phone number and the IRS phone number all go to the same place. 🧐

I think what I would do in this case is try to combine your military book into one pdf and then using a pdf compression tool (if you didn't do this already) to reduce the file size (I did this for a bunch of my larger documents and it worked pretty good). However, if you can't, you can't. The IRS thing, First you have my sympathies-I'm still waiting for an amended return to process and its been 1 year and 2 months and it's still "processing." Second, I would upload a copy of the actual filed tax return in lieu of the transcript and maybe include a cover letter with a brief explanation along with your IRS letter (should be a 4883C Identity verification letter) all in the same pdf. If the IRS processes before your interview then you can add that as well but at least you've done what you could. In my experience, the IRS isn't going to move any faster no matter how many times you call. Good luck!

I did mine online in 2020 from Peru without any issues. As for the I-130A, I remember it was signed, scanned and uploaded somewhere in the evidence section, and yes as a pdf.

Funny, I had to search this guy up just to find out he was a Democrat. If it had been a Republican, the words "Republican" or "GOP" would've been squeezed right into the headline.

Yes, and it seems that the story is that every single visa holder that gets questioned is now "interrogated" and "treated like a criminal."

Man, they really had to crop that picture up nice and tight to avoid showing the other attendees that were, in fact, also wearing blue suits.

Oh you must be old school like me, pre Dept of Education, when a history/civics class was actually history/civics....

Maybe I'm wrong but I think there is a much bigger play going on. I'm starting to believe that Democrats feel that if they can make the case for this guy in court or even just in the court of public opinion, it will be very difficult to deport anyone in the future. Immigration with all its complexities that the general public has very little familiarity with has long been an issue that Democrats like to conflate; for example, rarely do I see a distinction in most media between "illegal" and "legal."

This right here👆. If the mere mention of moving to their country sends him or her into a panic and/or results in an argument, you'll know what's up. I tend to believe a lot of folks don't make this suggestion because they are afraid of what will be revealed.

Just to add: we filed with FreeTax USA because it was the only one of the three that was, in fact, free (if you didn't need to file a state return and being in Florida we didn't have that issue).

Ok. I'm going to keep this short. My wife, the beneficiary, moved to the US in December 2022. In January she received a job offer which she accepted - it offered very few benefits. We signed her up for ACA. After reading the information about the program, me, with an advanced degree, had difficulty figuring it out. First, there seemed to be little information provided on what the tax consequences would be if A happened or B happened. That made me suspicious right away. There was absolutely no way to figure the tax burden without knowing a ton of information that wasn't available. I immediately told my wife that we needed to put money aside each month to cover the full premiums because, as any American knows, or SHOULD know, government programs or government subsidized programs sound great on the sale but are never as good as what you were sold. In October of 2024, my wife changed jobs. It had great benefits, including health and I was ecstatic. I was dancing on the roof with glee because she was no longer on that awful ACA. Now, I predicted it would happen and it did. I was grateful we put that money aside for the premiums because at tax time came the screw job from the government. For only 10 months of ACA our taxes skyrocketed and only because of the ACA. I was hoping at first it was a mistake, sweating, and waiting for every tax document to arrive; I ran all through FreeTax, TaxSlayer, TurboTax: all came back with the same result. If you do meet with a CPA and he/she tells you that the calculation is wrong, please update as I would certainly be willing to file an amended return for my wife and I. However, and most importantly, I really want to make clear to everyone, when the government subsidizes something it is very rarely a good outcome for the taxpayer and you need to prepare for what will come down the road.

Turns out they are super smart about all of this grift as well; tie that grift into something that at least sounds good, for instance, "feeding the poor" and then you take that and rent an office space (most likely in a facility owned by a spouse, or child, or cousin, etc (I'm sure in the name of a mysterious LLC) of some mostly Democrat representative, but I'm sure more than a few Republicans have gotten their bite at the apple as well - at astronomical lease terms. Then, of course, the whatever organization it is administration officials (my guess is also fairly close relatives to said representative) must get paid something just shy of a million dollars (don't forget all the benefits -401K, health) a year to run this operation while leaving just a grand or two to feed those poor people. Then we have the media: "Donald Trump and Elon Musk are Cutting Funding to Feed the Poor!" while neglecting to mention any of the corruption. I remember growing up in the 70's and 80's and always hearing about the $7.00 hammer that the government pays $10,000 for. That hammer story pales in comparison to this kind of corruption.

My personal recommendation: Get married and file for CR-1.

My wife checked the box but just in case we went to the SSA office on our arrival. I mentioned to the very nice young man that we checked the box, he said it wasn't in the system and I said "I heard it was hit or miss with checking the box." His response: "oh, there are hits?" First time I ever laughed at a government office.

Just be patient. I believe our 221g took a few months to process: Bureaucracy moves slowly.

My apologies for having no information to offer, but please do report back with what/anything specific you discover as to Ft Myers as this will be our office when we file the N400 later this year.