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I would just go with everything on the list let them know you’re applying for your children after an IR-2 visa, and that you have all of the secondary evidence listed on travel.state.gov If they object, you can then show them the print out of the links. From brief searches on Reddit it appears most post offices are familiar with this procedure, so you might not need to. I’d still bring it to as a reference to be safe given my experience with government officials. State has an obligation to issue a passport to any US citizen. If you provide that evidence, they’ll get passports.

As they obtained US citizenship by action of law when they physically resided with a US citizen parent in the US, yes, you can apply for a passport under the Child Citizenship Act. It might be worth it waiting for USCIS to mail the citizenship certificates to apply if there’s no travel plans in the next year or so, because that would require less documentation. The link I gave above lists out what is needed as secondary proof when applying for a passport under the Child Citizenship Act; I’ve reproduced below for ease. Anything below with “you” is referencing the person who will be granted a passport (your children): Your foreign birth certificate listing your parent(s) Evidence of your parent’s U.S. citizenship such as a U.S. birth certificate, Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA), or naturalization certificate Evidence of your permanent residence status. Examples include: Permanent Resident Card/Green Card Foreign passport with the original I-551 visa entry stamp Your parents' marriage certificate (if your parents were married when you legally entered the U.S. and before your 18th birthday) Documentation of legal custody when you entered the United States, if your parents were not married at that time. If your parents divorced after you entered the United States, provide documentation of legal custody at the time of your parent’s naturalization Evidence that you resided in the United States in the legal and physical custody of your U.S. citizen parent. Your residence is the primary place in which you live. Entering the United States or temporarily visiting the country - even if on an immigrant visa - usually does not meet the requirement to reside in the United States. As such, legal permanent residence cards alone are not evidence of residing in the United States. You need proof of residing in the United States with your U.S. citizen parent. Please provide at least two of these documents: School or day care records Utility bills Employment records Automobile registrations Deeds or property rental leases Medical records Passport stamps Evidence of your legitimation (if your parents were not married at the time of your birth). Legitimation means a father – whose child was born when he was not married – establishes a full legal relationship to his child. Establishing this relationship gives the father the same rights and obligations as if his child had been born while married to the child’s mother. Examples of legitimation include: Your parents' marriage certificate dated after your birth Certified court order of legitimation This link explains in more detail and this page contains the list I posted above. Note that any foreign documents not in English must have a professional translation with a notarized letter from the translator. If you can wait to get a passport until USCIS automatically mails the citizenship certificate, it’ll probably be more straightforward. If you can’t, then yes, you still have the right to apply now. If you choose to apply immediately, I would print out the two pages I linked above to bring with you in case the local worker hasn’t seen a case like this before. I also might apply immediately for a passport if you get nothing in the mail from USCIS within 90 days or if they mail you a green card instead.

IR-2 generally wouldn’t be granted by a consulate for anyone with a CRBA as it isn’t needed, this has come up here before with people mad the consulate wouldn’t let them go forward with the visa application because the child was CRBA eligible. Consulates can’t grant visas to citizens. Not needed. USCIS automatically mails a citizenship certificate upon entry if eligible (source). If they mail a green card, they would file N-600 to get a citizenship certificate instead, but could still apply for a passport first since State has an obligation to grant if the parents can prove US citizenship and a USCIS issued certificate isn’t required. OP — to your initial question, you can apply for a passport now with the I-551 stamp and other documentation (listed here; secondary evidence -> I became a U.S. citizen through my parent who naturalized or through the Child Citizenship Act of 2000) It lists all the documents you would need. If there’s no immediate need for a passport, I would wait for the citizenship certificate to come as it means you have to send less paperwork to the government as its primary evidence. If there’s an immediate need, the website I linked explains what to send.

Email to be safe, but like pushbrk said, you just need to login. I’d do both.

We filed in January 2025 online and the “hybrid” method wasn’t a thing we could pick when I filed for my husband. The theoretical advantage of the purely online method is that agency checks are automatic so it saves you a week or two. That and there’s no room for error with OCR or data entry even if the form is glitchy (any glitches can be explained in the comments — we did it for my husbands Spanish last names with no comments.) It’s worth noting that multiple ISOs have commented there’s no such thing as paper I-130s anymore. They’re all either scanned or keyed in and the adjudicators won’t touch anything paper. Adds more risk to the mail-it-in method, so for those who aren’t comfortable with the glitchy form this is probably the best option. I’m still a pure online advocate, but glad there’s a middle ground now so people can avoid the inherent issues of mailing things to the government.

Yep; and if you are like me and live in a marriage penalty jurisdiction you might get the fun of doing MFJ federally and MFS on paper single… Anything involving foreign merits paying a CPA at least the first year.

At least for 6013(g) elections the FBAR requirements don’t kick in until after they would stop being an NRA on their own. Example: my husband lives in Chile and we make the election under 6013(g) to treat him as a tax resident. This does not make him a resident for FBAR reporting requirements. 6013(h) (the election you’re discussing) is a bit weirder as it requires FBAR reporting for the period they were residents of the US but not for the period they weren’t. In other words, you ignore the period you elect to treat as tax residents that they were not residents. A professional can help work this out. Typically there is never a tax reason to elect MFS over MFJ. There can be non-tax reasons and in rare cases there can be tax reasons. NRA/Dual status foreign spouse with partial year business income might be a rare case. Since we’re dealing with self-employment income from a foreign country where it may or may not have had taxes withheld or paid, a professional is all but certain to be needed to work out what qualifies for the foreign tax credit. Short of this is that you (OP), probably have one of the more complicated tax situations of people who come on here and really should hire a CPA who is experienced in this. Go ahead and file an extension for both of you now (also with the caveat that an extension to file is not an extension to pay.)

Yes, agreed on that. The easiest thing is always to give the government what they want.

Yeah, if the income is the same or higher it definitely doesn’t hurt to include additional proof to preempt. I was more pointing out that the public adjudication guidelines operate under the assumption that W-2 income included in a tax return continues in the next year unless the CO has reason to believe otherwise. For a white collar job making over $100k, looking at the tax transcript on its own without additional proof would likely carry the day on its own, since those style jobs tend to be stable and the CO wouldn’t have reason to doubt. Doesn’t hurt to include a current paystub at all to preempt like you suggest. Just wanted to reassure OP that under the guidance they’re very likely going to be fine based on the transcript, and everything else is icing on the cake.

The tool is very accurate based on the reports online. They’re probably just in early October.

For what it’s worth, the Foreign Affairs Manual instructs the consular officer only to request paystubs and proof of current income if they have reason to doubt the income on the tax return continues beyond solely passage of time (9 FAM 601.14-6(3)) and specifically includes salary in that. Basically an engineer with $137,000 in wages on their transcript has a presumption of being a well qualified unless the CO discovers something else to raise doubt. Of course there’s zero harm in uploading recent paystubs and other proof of employment, and that’ll strengthen it, but want to reassure OP that they’re in decent standing based on the guidance in FAM. The CO if they’re following the guidance should approve based on the transcript and any recent paystub is even better. The main thing at this point is to accurately answer all the I-864 questions as written and as instructed by the instructions.

3rd to recommend a CPA; also would suggest proactively filing for an extension given that it’s relatively late in individual tax season and you have a complex return where you probably want someone familiar with the foreign reporting rules, so giving yourself time to shop around is useful. An extension is free and automatic, but worth noting that its extension to file, not extension to pay. The reason it’s worth consulting a CPA on a foreign business is there’s all sorts of rules about what qualifies as a valid expense to deduct. They’re relatively straightforward for rental properties in the US, but when you throw in the foreign aspect it’s worth consulting a professional because that can change whether something qualifies or to what extent it qualifies. As a general example, foreign medical insurance paid is only deductible after the medical expense haircut is made. That means even if it was taken out tax free in a foreign paycheck, you need to pay tax on it in the US most of the time. Stuff like that is why you hire a CPA. Knowing the definitions of what qualifies is really important with foreign items.

Unlimited from a practical standpoint. You just have to log into CEAC once a year. Every log-in resets the clock for how long since you last contacted them. Recommendation is to also send NVC an email once a year saying you want the case to remain open so there’s a paper trail.

I’m not misleading anyone: the 40% “unprocessed” every month where almost always the more difficult cases for USCIS to process one reason or another. Almost every time anyone comes on here or another forum with a complaint about being significantly delayed past the other approvals around there date, there’s a reason. That graph doesn’t show what you think it does. It shows that USCIS prioritized the straightforward cases, and cases that took more processing time were deprioritized in favor of clearing more cases that were straightforward the next month. USCIS has now started going back through the deprioritized cases, which should be a positive for people who are in that group. It will also likely go slower and not be at the same pace we saw a few months ago, because yes, the cases that got skipped were the more difficult cases that take more time for USCIS to process.

The 40% that you’re referencing are the not straightforward cases… the ones that are more difficult for USCIS to process. ”Still pending adjudication” just means they haven’t made a decision yet. Not that it hasn’t seen an officer. You haven’t shared anything about your case, so we can’t give you much help, but in almost every case online of someone processing more than a month behind the same PD, there’s a complicating factor.

The standard response to these from USCIS when inquiries are given by Congress is pending background investigations. That can either mean they found something, there was a mismatch on a name, or they’re having difficulty with the background investigation. Others come from countries with higher fraud rates and get greater degrees of scrutiny even in the consular process. Your profiles doesn’t list a country, but your first post was on a thread about Nigeria. Nigeria is arguably the highest fraud risk country in the world for spousal visas. That essentially makes every case from there not straightforward. It’s also worth noting I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt the background check reasoning. From everything that has been publicly revealed by USCIS and/or leaked by IOs, pending background checks and resolving things that might come up in them is one of the most common delays.

Other piece of advice is that consular officers are reasonable people who live in or near the countries they’re assigned to process visas for. If it’s happened to to your wife, it’s probably happened to someone else, so they’ll recognize it.

There’s been a slow down in new months being approved. They are now apparently prioritizing the difficult cases they put to the side when they were prioritizing speeding things along.

Also, on FBAR, does she have a government sponsored retirement account? A format called AFPs is popular in a lot of Latin America and it does trigger FBAR reporting requirements (they’re the equivalent of mandatory 401(k)s.) We’ll have lifetime FBAR requirements because of the Chilean AFP my husband has and can’t touch until his 60s as it has more than $10,000 USD after the mandatory contributions for the time he’s been working. A lot of people only look at bank accounts and don’t think about how different retirement accounts impact it. In the case of Latin America, multiple countries have these government sponsored 401(k) equivalents that are mandatory and since the format is investments, it triggers FBAR. No one thinks of the mandatory account you can’t touch being reportable, but it can be.

This doesn’t even matter for spouses as you can always elect to treat a foreign spouse as a tax resident under 6013(g) if they’re not resident or 6013(h) if they became a resident that year. In this case 6013(h) allows the treatment of an NRA as a tax resident the year they become a permanent resident if they are married to a US citizen as of 12/31. Technically you have to attach a signed statement to the return by both spouses, but unlike 6013(g) I can’t ever imagine them enforcing that part of their internal procedure since it’s a once in a lifetime election and if they ever decided to audit you ever all you’d have to do is file an amended return with the signed statement. OP — if you want to cover all bases upload a statement signed by both of you stating that you’re married and the LPR started the year as an NRA, ended it as a resident, and you’re jointly electing to treat the LPR spouse as a tax resident for the entire year under Internal Revenue Code 6013(h) for the purposes of filing a joint return. OnlineTax, FreeTaxUSA, TurboTax, etc. should have a section where you can upload statements/attachments with your return. I don’t think it’s necessary just because of how impractical ever enforcing that part of the IRS regulation would be, but it’d cover all bases. The short answer is: you can definitely file MFJ. This is not tax advice and you should consult a tax advisor if after your own research you are unsure how to proceed.

Did you get a refund and if so how substantial?

Yes, that’s almost always the best outcome, but some of them like to know you’ve done something first. Best is to call them and see what they need.

Even if the earlier petition was closed by NVC, theoretically an I-130 is valid until withdrawn or revoked by USCIS. Also looks like it was a pre-adjustment of status I-130 where they never filed the I-485 based on some of OP’s responses, so it might be floating around somewhere in the USCIS ether since it never would have left them. Its probably worth sending USCIS a formal letter withdrawing the previous I-130 with all identifying information available just so the old I-130 is officially dead within their records. Can even include phrasing like “if not already closed by USCIS…” before the withdrawal. OP can file a FOIA request for the I-130 records as well, which USCIS has historically been pretty quick at handling. I’m sure there’s some identifying information they could use to find it, even if only a social. They were able to find my mom’s hard copy A-file 35 years after naturalization in a district court when they had previously lost all information except her maiden name, parents names, date of entry, and A# in the great USCIS digitization of immigration records of the early 2000s 🙄 USCIS is surprisingly good at finding records they misplace once you force them to.

What @rbv_shard explained. First time you owe there’s no penalty, but otherwise $999 will guarantee no penalties and interest. Speaking from a purely economic standpoint the “perfect” return would be to owe $999 every year in perpetuity because of time value of money. I’m sure someone could figure out a better way to go from owing $0 one year to the optimal amount owed the next, but takes too much thought for my brain before coffee and would be a bit too cute. The other safe harbors also exist, but $999 will be your most consistent one. Of course, everyone should follow the law and aim to pay estimated taxes/withholdings so $0 is owed as payment of refund on 4/15.

Mine was ready next day. I owed less than $500; which I count as a win, time value of money… in case anyone is interested the “perfect return” from an economic standpoint is owing $999. That’s the amount you’ll never owe penalty and interest on. Government is giving you a $999 interest free loan instead of the other way around. Can’t say I don’t like refunds, though 😅