JakeChi

Hello @Afgacolor. Do you have any updates on this worked out for you? My wife and I are approaching the NVC stage now, and we're also going to need a Georgian Police report.

Thank you so much for this explanation. Understanding what the "concerns" are really helps me understand what we'll need to do to assuage them.

1. Is that something people would actually try and do? Apply for a green card just to let them visit the US more easily without having to apply for a tourist visa on each visit? Why would the government even worry about that - wouldn't those people just have their green card revoked eventually because they stayed outside too long anyway? 2. I understand that's normal in the sense that "it's the rule", but imho there's still a logical contradiction here. This explanation makes sense - but if that's really the case, I wonder why they would still insist on domicile for the primary petitioner in cases where they have a US-based joint financial sponsor? That joint sponsor already has to prove domicile, meaning that the government already has recourse... even in the hypothetical situation where the petitioning spouse would choose to flee to some other country after their immigrating spouse became a public charge.

My wife (a citizen of Uzbekistan) and I are getting ready to submit our I-130 soon, and as I've been looking into what comes next I learned about the "domicile" requirement that comes into play during the NVC/I-864 stage. I've read a lot of threads on VJ about how people have approached the issue of proving domicile or intent to re-establish domicile, but I still haven't been able to figure out the underlying reasoning behind this requirement. 1. Why is the US Government SO concerned about situations where the US citizen might not have domicile in the US? If a married couple is going through the trouble of submitting a spousal visa application, isn't it kind of obvious that that they want to live together in the US once the visa gets approved? Doesn't all of the proof that goes into the I-130 already demonstrate the couple is in a bona fide marriage? 2. A common suggestion often proposed on the forums here is that the US citizen move to the US several months before their spouse. Doesn't that kind of separation actually call into question the legitimacy of the marriage? Especially if the US citizen currently has the means to cohabitate with their foreign spouse in another country? That is to say, on the one hand couples are expected to provide a lot of proof of being in a real marriage and having spent time together, and then on the other hand they're expected to physically separate for some unknown period of time? I'm sensing some kind of fundamental contradiction here. For context - I've been living abroad with my partner for the last few years, and we would prefer to not have to be geographically separated for more than a few weeks at a time. In terms of assets and income we're fine for meeting the financial requirements for immigration. Because of all that I prefer not to make overly-binding plans regarding our move back to the US before she actually receives her visa (e.g. signing leases or job offers). Right now I'm just asking these questions so as to better understand the underlying logic of this whole domicile thing, so that we can roughly plan where we need to be in life once the I-130 gets approved.

Yes, Georgia allows any two foreigners to get married in the country (though they don't allow same-sex marriage.) They don't need to have residency here, they just both have to be in the country on a legal basis. A regular tourist visa or even just an entry stamp in the passport (for people who come from countries with visa-free entry privileges) are sufficient proof of being in the country legally.

Thanks for the detailed reply! Yes we thought about the Utah marriage at first, but after consulting with a couple of immigration lawyers none of them seemed too enthused about the idea and they said they didn't have much firsthand experience with it because of how new it is. We're probably going to get married in Georgia in any case (we're already in the region and have made plans around that) but I'm just curious for future reference - do you know people who already went through the entire CR-1 process and arrived in the US successfully off the basis of a Utah Zoom marriage? Also, does Kazakhstan recognize the Utah Zoom marriage? From our cursory check it seemed like Uzbekistan might not recognize it as valid, and so we thought that might create difficulties for me/us obtaining visas to visit family in Uzbekistan in the future.

I'm a US citizen getting married soon in the country Georgia with my fiancé who is a citizen of Uzbekistan. We plan to start the CR-1 application process shortly after that, and I wanted to know how many copies of the marriage certificate you would recommend we request from the Georgian Public Service Hall? A single translated copy with an apostille costs around $50, and each additional certified copy costs another $10. We'll be leaving Georgia after the wedding, so we don't want to have to come back here just for the purpose of issuing additional copies in the future. More context: I'm still learning about the CR-1 process but I know there are a lot of stages (USCIS, NVC, Embassy Interview) and I imagine that once we arrive in the United States we might be asked to present marriage certificates for various other bureaucratic purposes too (bank accounts, insurance, etc.) I just don't know if the tendency among the authorities in the US is to take the original certified copy and keep it for themselves, if they usually return it after verifying it's authenticity, or if they typically just accept photocopies.