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Agreed with @pushbrk, but also providing additional context: that isn’t the current balance due. That’s the amount they owed the government as of the date they filed their return. They could have paid it all in full for all you or the consulate knows.

And sometimes they need something from someone in another government agency that has been furloughed. Fee funded means you can work on your work if you have what you need, not that you can work on things that others who aren’t working need to give you. It’s becoming a big limitation even in agencies that haven’t furloughed anyone at this point. USCIS received $6.4 billion in FY2024 appropriations according to DHS’ financials (p. 230.) Most of that likely doesn’t fund staff salaries and relates to contractor funding, but all that still has an impact. ISOs are working but if some contractors and support staff aren’t they’ll face limitations. Also the data is public. One of the paid websites is showing a decline in processing speed of 900 cases a day for I-130s in October (I don’t pay and can’t link here because they sell services, but they have a great free page that slices and dices the API data.) The obvious answer is the shutdown has had some impact, but even if that’s not the case the data is clear that October has been slower. Still faster than January and 2024, but slower than the rest of 2025.

They are not sponsoring you: you’re a U.S. citizen so the government has certain obligations towards you. Household size would be your wife, the JS, and their spouse: three people. You could use your parents, yes. If they don’t meet the threshold, they can try on assets which need to be 300%; they generally can’t use their primary residence to qualify. In your hypothetical they would need at least $100,000 in liquid assets if they have no income (or if their income is $23k, they’d need $30k, etc.)

For immigration purposes $0 will count as it won’t continue in the U.S. The standard is 125% of federal poverty guidelines for the household: See page 13-14 of instructions. Also see current guidelines by household size. Note the JS has to meet it for their entire houses (immigrant, themselves, spouse, and any children or dependents.) So if it’s a sibling with a spouse and two kids it’d be a household size of 5, current threshold of $47,062

Also contact your senator/congressman’s office to see if they can apply pressure after you request the expedite.

Naples is the consulate that processes IVs for Italy. You put in Naples.

You can still paper file; but the paper filing will then be scanned and/or manually typed in. Some people still prefer it that way. You can also respond to RFEs via mail. Anyway, ISOs are working, but support staff isn’t necessarily and that’s probably the reason behind the slowdown.

They've decreased I-130 processing at a speed of about 1000 a day since 10/1/25 (was ~4500; at ~3500 now.) They're still going because of the reasons you mentioned, but it might be that mailroom workers or other support staff have been impacted, which would impact the rate of processing. Still significantly faster than under in the Biden-era.

I think the person you heard this from might be thinking of K-1s, which have been paused for some countries. Yes, CR-1/IR-1s are still being approved by consulates.

USCIS is still processing I-130s, even in the shutdown.

Don’t think you need to submit English lesson receipts, especially since she speaks English well enough to communicate. In our case since my husband didn’t we felt the need to establish my Spanish abilities since not speaking the same language is one of the “red flags”. I’d just keep uploading tickets and/or passport stamps/I-94s. No need to upload the Chilean PDI tourist slip they give you.

Yah, I was being imprecise. I should have said all work within the U.S. would be cured via AOS assuming no other factors preventing adjustment. I still don’t think uploading a few videos merits disclosure. It’d likely just create more of a headache and would cross the line from full transparency to over disclosing. If they were doing a full business out of it, there might be questions, but continuing a weekly true crime podcast is likely to be fine. If it’s a major source of income where they will be producing substantial work, then I’d check with a lawyer.

Not disclosing something that you honestly do not think is work is not willful misrepresentation. There’s a fine line between overdisclosure and being completely honest to all questions asked. Overdisclosure can also cause headaches. It’s not clear if someone who is a YouTuber uploading a video they then get income from would be considered work by the government. If it’s disclosed as work when it’s not, that can trigger further levels of review, questions, and delays in the process. If OP has a lawyer it’d also be a decent thing to get their advice on if they need the money from new content as advice of counsel can generally be relied on in matters like this if an issue comes up later.

Agreed. It’s a risk tolerance question for a grey area of the law. For AOS I think it matters a lot less practically than for IR-1/CR-1, since everything is forgiven. IR-1/CR-1 it matters a lot more how the government official interprets uploading videos to a streaming platform for cash.

It also doesn’t really matter either way in the AOS situation as AOS would cure it. That’s not advocating for a violation of the law in violation of the TOS, just pointing out that under AOS the distinction matters a lot less. I don’t think the government interpretation of the law on the question of what constitutes work is as set as a lot of the immigration internet seems to think. Otherwise influencers would be facing a ban for uploading videos at Disney they make money on while here under VWP. I haven’t really seen that strict interpretation anywhere other than here or Reddit, and even in cases where the ban does matter (consular I-130), my gut is that it would depend on the CO adjudicating, but in most cases it wouldn’t be interpreted that way by the government. I personally wouldn’t do it in that case because I’m risk adverse, but I could also see a lawyer advising a client not to disclose it as work to the government. Like I said, I don’t think there’s a settled interpretation of this by the government, which is why so many people aren’t sure about what counts.

Sweden isn’t the only country where getting the correct legal document or process can be a headache. One of the benefits of the U.S. is the process is usually very straightforward. Why it’s worth looking up the process in both countries before making any decisions, imo.

I think we sometimes have a tendency on these forums to read bad intent where there is none. I get why a lot of the veterans read it that way, but there are plenty of reasons one could phrase it that way. I know a guy with a foreign husband who has an active clearance. In those circumstances saying “the goal is eventually to obtain citizenship” would be what the government wants to hear 😂 That’s a bit of an extreme case, but you get my point. Many people in relationships do immigrate with the intent of getting citizenship because the citizenship will be useful later. In our case it’s one of the goals because it’ll eventually allow the sponsorship of my husband’s mother, which will help us in establishing a family here. There’s nothing suspicious about entering the process knowing the desired outcome. OP — something to look into is what the paperwork is like in Australia for marriages; we did ours here on ESTA because in Chile there’s a three week mandatory waiting period after applying for a marriage license together, and I didn’t have the time to camp out in South America for 3 weeks. Australia won’t have the problem of not being in English and needing a translation, but there might be other regulatory things that you’d need to consider when choosing the venue.

My read of this response to that question from the IRS is only if resident or adopted. If adopted, I would confirm with your tax advisor first.

I’ve always seen AOS used as Adjustment of Status and never Affidavit of Support, which is why the comment you made was confusing. I-864/Affidavit of Support is obviously applicable here as well.

They’re doing CR-1/IR-1. AOS isn’t applicable. Have to list it on an I-130 for consular processing as well, though.

If possible work on getting a certified copy of her passport so you can file taxes jointly with an ITIN. It’ll save you money and is evidence of commingling.

Have you met in person yet?

Usually they process them fairly quickly, but like others have said, it depends on the circumstances. I would have advised against the money transfers, but that’s done now and the other items are useful.

The odds of a B2 visa being granted to someone with a recent I-130 petition on file are effectively zero. You are of course free to withdraw the I-130. I would still expect the B-2 visa to be denied. Neither of you have strong ties to NZ it seems like, and you’d need very strong ties to overcome a recent immigrant visa filing.

They’ve slowed down a bit with the shutdown (they’re still processing, but went from ~4500/day to ~3500/day) January was tracking to have first approvals around the end of December. Now it’d probably see first approvals around end of January/beginning of February as a best guess.