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Noting while this is technically true if under the filing threshold, it is almost always better to file anyway as the FEIE would wipe the tax liability to zero. It has benefits outside of immigration and if a consular official isn’t familiar with the filing limits (it happens), it saves time explaining it to them. There’s virtually no reason to not file a return if you have the time. Even if the income is zero, someone can just write in $1 in interest and file.

I’m assuming married filing separately as filing status since you’re likely claiming the foreign earned income exclusion and will owe nothing. On this assumption, just use freetaxusa.com’s prior year software (here) to do 2022, 2023, and 2024. You will need to do a paper return for 2022, and because your spouse presumably doesn’t have an SSN and you’re already filing paper for 2022, you might as well do it paper for 2023 and 2024 as well as it’ll be easier (and might be required for 2023.) For the years you are married you will select “Married Filing Separately” and write in “NRA” (for non-resident alien) in the spot where it asks for SSN/ITIN. Mail these in (using the registered mail service of your country; not courier) to the the addresses listed on the IRS website that best describe your situation. This all need to be mailed (not courier) separately. Take a photocopy of all signed returns and proof of mailing you received from the foreign mail service. Depending on timing, rinse and repeat for 2025. I would also suggest doing 2021 and any missing within the last 7 years for other reasons, but your last three years until tax filing opens up in a few weeks is what’s needed for immediate immigration purposes. Also I ordinarily would not recommend paper returns or MFS, but given your situation it’s the absolute quickest way to get it done unless you want to pay a certified acceptance agent to handle it for you, which would be costly and time consuming. If you don’t qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion your best bet is to talk to a certified acceptance since multi-jurisdictional taxes not covered by FEIE it become really complicated really fast. Disclaimer that is neither tax or legal advice and if you’re uncomfortable following the instructions on Free Tax USA you should consult a competent tax advisor licensed to practice before the IRS (this goes for any other tax software of your choice; not endorsing FTUSA, but they are usually considered the least scammy tax software.)

I’m 1/1/25 NSC. I’m bothering my dear husband to find his childhood vaccination records because best guest would be late January/early February for him. Some of the API scraping sites are less great now thanks to very recent USCIS policy changes, but it’s still pretty easy to see where the bulk of the approvals are from on the immigration Reddits/Discords/Facebook groups. VJ approvals tend to lag behind for some reason (like I said, my guess is because people with issues come here for advice skewing our data.)

Most recent approvals are from PD 12/4/25. You’re only a week off from that. It’s usually when you’re a month off from the most recent approvals that you’re in for a wait. Also, high fraud risk country so longer wait wouldn’t be surprising if it does turn out to be in the cards. Doesn’t mean a rejection or RFE, just more going on behind the scenes.

I agree completely, I was just thinking of official solutions that could be tried at the same time. They’re in “try all options” space right now.

Whether it is classed as exchange revenue or donation doesn’t really matter — it’s perfectly within the norm for the government to enter into transactions where the a member of the public receives a benefit in exchange for a monetary contribution to the government. OMB will figure out the classification of it as exchange revenue or donation for financial reporting purposes probably around July of 2026 when they issue the annual financial reporting guidance to agencies. It’s definitely not a bribe, and FPCA wouldn’t apply to a contribution to an executive department of the United States government that has no power at all over immigration policy (Commerce.) This is similar to a lot of the European golden visas that allowed contributions to state founded “cultural foundations” and follows that playbook. They could create a wholly owned government entity to handle the donations, but I don’t think that would help with the corruption concerns. They’re also not paying the $1mil to DoS or DHS. They’re paying it to Commerce. I maintain it’s less corrupt than the current EB-5 system, which miserably fails at its stated goals of job creation. It’s a shady visa that really should be done away with. How it works in practice is you pay an upfront investment to a middle man or rich developer who then identifies a pre-existing construction project they were already going to build with workers that probably already worked at another LLC owned by the same group of people, and moves forward with plans that were going to happen one way or another. The Kushners were big into using it with foreign investors during Trump 1.0 Paying the government $1mil directly is a lot more above board than the government subsidizing construction companies and middle men to accept cash from rich foreign investors. Especially when the current government has such deep ties to the real estate industry. The fact we’re even having this discussion illustrates the point: it’s very difficult to see what’s actually going on with EB-5 and track who benefits. $1mil directly to a government agency will be tracked in published financial reports.

I know someone who worked at USCIS legislative affairs for a few decades and recently retired. Apparently there’s a separate system for tracking any case where there’s been a congressional inquiry and that they usually deal with professional congressional staffers whose dedicated jobs is to finding solutions to the more difficult cases. For the standard “my I-130 has been pending less than the standard processing time and I miss my spouse!” It’s not useful, but on anything remotely out of the ordinary such as “my H1-B expires and I need to work while I-1485 is pending because my employer legally can’t renew it thanks to layoffs” a congressional inquiry could help. OP should still plan for the worst, but it’s the best bet.

Not necessarily. A good constituent services office can get things that are high priority approved very quickly. That’s the whole point of reaching out to them. It’s far from guaranteed, but in OP’s specific circumstance it’s the Hail Mary option. Best course of action is to call them and talk to someone while also planning alternatives for it not working.

The government can receive gifts from the public. The Department of Commerce is being listed as the beneficiary. Honestly from a clean-hands perspective it’s less sketchy than EB-5, which is essentially just the government subsidizing commercial real estate developers and directing money to well-connected middle man. It’s wildly unpopular with members of Congress of both parties.

The other option is to see if you can get a representative or senator to work with USCIS to get the EAD expedited. This is an area where a strong constituent services team actually could help get you something. Slightly out of the norm, but a reasonable and sympathetic case. If you have a Republican in Congress, I’d have them make the request over a Democrat based on what I’ve heard. Democrat also works if it’s all you have.

VJ timelines tend to be slower than what is being reported through the API data by 2-3 months. My theory is we get the “trouble cases” so it skews slower. They’re currently processing December 4, 2024, so 13 months exact for around 50% of cases. Whatever is on the USCIS website is the 80th percentile. We were trending towards 11 months before the government shutdown, but October/November really slowed down. Speed looks to be picking back up again since we’re at 13 months exact, which is down two weeks from September.” If the current conditions continue I think people applying today will be in the 11-12 month timeframe we had in 2023 before Biden-era USCIS decided to focus on I-485 from overstays.

Congratulations and Merry Christmas! Seems like a good plan. We had our entire submission drafted and ready to go for the day the exit from the United States processed (he came here to marry in person, and we filed immediately when he left.) Honestly made it so much easier. Process took all of 30 minutes since everything was already drafted. You also have times to ask questions here to get it right when you do submit.

To say it a bit more bluntly: retirees marrying people of a similar age abroad are more likely to need joint sponsors now, which honestly doesn’t change much as they were already more likely to need joint sponsors. Going back to OP, though, a spouse/sponsor working an airline job is very likely to pass the public charge test even when considering health issues. This whole thread is honestly very confusing for both immigration and non-immigration reasons. OP should just continue on with their petition like normal. They’re likely to have a visa in hand within a few months if they do nothing. The more they do around this particular topic, the more red flags there are.

Like most things with this administration it’s likely to be targeted in implementation would be my guess. Argentina you’re likely safe if you have diabetes. Bolivia not so much. It’s also worth pointing out the elephant in the room here: for the overwhelming majority of people living in the US sponsoring a foreign spouse this won’t be an issue. The costs associated with maintaining a cross-border relationship are considerable, and to get to the point where you have enough evidence of bona fides, you’re going to have spent substantial money to the level that your income should qualify regardless of health conditions. We see a lot of the edge cases here, but just by its nature an international relationship tends to weed out people without sufficient funds. This will have more of an impact on people living abroad with spouses, retirees, and college kids applying for AOS than anyone else. Sponsor working a job in the US that can sustain an international relationship likely doesn’t have much to worry about.

Yes, that’s now explicitly part of the new guidelines, actually. We haven’t seen how this plays out in practice and I have a suspicion it will focus on countries the administration deems less desirable but not ban-worthy, but that is now part of the guidance.