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W-2 does not say someone owes taxes on those amount to the U.S. government— it is an informational schedule reported to the IRS on your earnings. Tax liability is a different question and that’s one that OP and their tax preparer are responsible for coming up with the initial answer to on a 1040. The complication here is that most countries tax-based on physical presence. The US has a worldwide tax system for natural persons, and FEIE is designed to alleviate the burden of double-taxation on wage earners without having to get into complicated tax treaties. Presumably OP does owe tax to his country of residence due to earning the income there, but that is not a requirement to claim it. OP should talk to an accountant who has experience with the tax laws of both the United States and country of residence to see the tax implications here — I’d suggest a CPA or tax attorney and not just an EA. Probably one of the certified acceptance agents for form W-7 in the country would be a good place to start since they regularly handle both US and country of residence issues. In terms of immigration: if you take the exclusion I’d line up a joint sponsor if possible.

We got married in the U.S. to start immigration before Trump, but it wasn’t because we were worried about our marriage not being recognized. The difference between Roe and Obergefell is that Obergefell is widely popular, has bipartisan support, and all gay rights cases since have only expanded the rights of gay people, and were by-and-large written by conservative justices (Bostock v. Clayton County is arguably more important than Obergefell and it was written by Neil Gorsuch.) Trump is hostile to trans rights, but he’s never really been opposed to gay rights in any of his campaigns of terms. I only mention that as a lot of the angst many gay people feel relates to Trump, and while I get it, he’s never really been anti-gay, at least in recent memory. Anyway even if it was overruled, there’s precedent for this previously — in the 2000s and 2010s when courts would allow gay marriage then states would amend their constitutions to ban it again, anyone who was married before the re-ban was treated as married by the state that had issued the license.

The question is what in the process is judgmental vs. what is verifying a box has been checked. For a straightforward case (no crimes, foreign divorces, etc.) the only thing that really requires human judgment is the determination of if a marriage is bona fide. That’s something that can be handled at the embassy (and de facto is already, USCIS rarely questions on that point. Consular officials overwhelmingly are the ones rejecting visas for fraudulent marriage reasons.) Most if not all of what USCIS does can be automated, and that would align with DHS’ other initiatives to take human judgment out of what it does. Global entry and TSA screenings now are just humans telling you the computer has decided you’re good.

Apologies for not being more specific. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act requires it in every state as a matter of federal law for anyone who has been issued an SSN. My husband didn’t need one either, he showed his Chilean passport. I had to provide a SSN and proof and this is standardized across the states to be in compliance with federal law. It would be trivial for USCIS to match petitioners to marriage licenses with SSNs and then do an automated name match for the beneficiary. The petitioner SSN would be sufficient to locate the license. They already do something similar with eVerify. Would be more difficult for people married in foreign countries, but even then given the information sharing between DHS and many foreign interior departments it probably could be overcome.

Because people get nervous around immigration officials and say stupid things when answering the question truthfully, nothing more, nothing less is all that you need to do 99% of the time to be admitted into any country.

Verification of US citizenship of the sponsor can fairly easily be automated. USCIS already runs eVerify, which works with things as manual as birth certificates. Given that SSNs are required nationally for a marriage license issuance and usually maintained in a database by the state in order to facilitate suing someone for child support, it should also be fairly simple to automate verification of a valid marriage. An easy reform of the process would be to have USCIS handle only the verification of sponsorship eligibility, which can easily be automated, and punt 100% of the manual stuff to the Department of State. Most of the denials for bona fides come at the consulate level anyway, because USCIS does a horrible job of identifying fraud. It likely wouldn’t add to the backlog either. Worst case would be current USCIS wait times would be shifted to NVC. It’s not going to happen though. A lot of what USCIS does is a jobs program, and the congressional GOP is currently getting angsty that the cuts from Musk might start leaving Washington and hitting the non-DMV areas where they were able to set up federal offices. There’s a reason many of the service centers and field offices are in red districts.

Also, OP, your story here is hard to follow. You said you filed your taxes but then are asking if you have to file your taxes if you’re above MA but below federal? The short answer is yes, you have both a federal and state filing requirement any year you made more than $400 self-employed, but also the State Department doesn’t care to see your MA return and the state return won’t have an immigration impact. If you’ve filed a federal return you put in the total income amount from your 1040 and upload the transcript.

@pushbrk is normally spot on I-864, but there’s a detail here he glanced over — you have self-employment income. The $400 is not just a state requirement like you think it is. If your self-employment income was $400 or more there is a federal filing requirement as you owe self-employment tax even if you do not owe income tax. You most likely will not owe income tax, since your taxable income will be zero; but you’ll most likely owe 15.3% self-employment tax on the net income listed on schedule C. Self-employment tax is calculated on Schedule SE before the standard deduction and any adjustments is are applied to get taxable income on the face of the 1040. Just use FreeTaxUSA and file your taxes. IRS page for reference: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center#:~:text=You have to file an,and 1040-SR instructions PDF.

Ask him to go online and download his tax return transcript. That should clear it up and avoid any back and forth. If he has no W-2 and you can explain it, it’s fine, but the transcripts are easy to get and eliminate the need in most cases.

When you say you want to travel back to the U.S., is it permanently because of a job offer or just to visit as tourists? If permanently and you have a job offer, etc. you could potentially see if the local consulate is willing to entertain Direct Consular Filing (DCF) for the children while the spouse is overseas. More experienced posters might have thoughts on how likely this is, but it’s free to ask the local consulate if they’d accept.

That’s what we did as well; in addition to being the right thing to do, it makes future business with the government easier if you have to worry about getting a security clearance in the future or providing/working on government contracts, plus whatever potential future issues could arise when trying to naturalize if a future administration decides to issue guidance on standards of review of people who AOS’d on an overstay. My initial response was mainly to let you know that there’s not much to worry about. You’re intending to follow the law. Currently USCIS and CBP aren’t even prioritizing enforcing the law for blatantly fraudulent spousal overstay AOS cases. If you’re intending to follow the law and you have a decent way to show that’s the intent, there’s a very low chance of there being issues at the airport or when filing a petition.

Sorry for beating a dead horse but your wording here is a bit ambiguous. The requirement isn’t 5 consecutive years. It’s 5 total years in your life, including two after 14. Doesn’t need to be 5 recent years. Doesn’t need to be 5 years before birth. It’s 1825 total days in your life with 730 days being after 14.

I would reach out to the U.S. sponsor and see if they have it. If it’s a government sponsor and they say they can’t find it FOIA them to get the people who are skilled at finding records involved.

If it was a public institution try a state level FOIA request. That’ll get the public information officer involved and lead to a more thorough search (hopefully.) Might take longer, but if you’ve already reached out worth a shot.

If the children are indeed US citizens, depending on the timeline OP could apply for a passport with secondary evidence rather than apply for a CRBA and then a passport. A US passport is definitive evidence of US citizenship and it’s an entitlement of a citizen even if they don’t have previous primary documentation of citizenship. OP would just need to prove presence in the U.S. for five years, two of which after the age of 14. Could be accomplished by social security statements, high school or university transcripts, employment contracts/paystubs, leases, etc. Essentially the same evidence as a CRBA. Obviously getting a CRBA would be preferable first, but if there’s a time crunch that step can be skipped. I’d recommend getting one or a citizenship certificate as well after getting a passport since those never expire, but there’s also other options if there’s a rush to travel.

If their plans change it’s allowed. What’s not allowed is planning to do it on entrance, though USCIS basically overlooks that type of fraud these days. ESTA->Green card and AOS after 91 days and claiming plans changed is averaging 4-6 months these days and is easily the quickest way for a loved one who resides overseas to become an LPR. Under Biden legalizing those overstays became the priority vs. processing consular applications. Like @pushbrk I’m not suggesting that just pointing out the elephant in the room. I’m doing consular processing and I think it’s the right thing to do, but even under Trump USCIS has taken a very lenient approach to AOS for spousal overstays on ESTA, and is approving them at a quicker rate than counselor cases.

Someone on Reddit mentioned to double check the signature sections for online filed I-130s because apparently its been a trend for people to sign them wrong, and while I didn't screw that up, while I was scanning through it I noticed that my response to question 13 (my husband's residence outside the US) was showing up as blank on the PDF (screenshot attached.) I vaguely remember getting an error on the online form when trying to type in SAME because it didn't like for formating or something like that. Since we'd already provided his physical address is leaving this blank something I need to be worried about or should I submit unsolicited evidence clarifying it?

USCIS for the most part hasn’t been hit by those (yet)

Correct. But taking a call while in the United States isn’t working a 9-5. What’s work vs. what’s business is context specific and the one of the key distinctions is whether it’s temporary, and there’s also the nature of the work performed (i.e. are you actively creating something productive or are you taking meetings, etc.) Your situation is more of taking a call once and a while.

For anyone who has worked in the federal sphere — Adobe esignatures are the federal government’s preferred form of signature for doing business and most federally generated documents have one these days. Haven’t seen a wet signature on a federal document in over five years. Now whether or not they’ll accept your electronic signature is agency-by-agency. The IRS in particular has weird rules on it. But a consulate will definitely accept a government generated esignature on a government document because like pushbrk showed — it’s what they use.

No, it does not count as work for ESTA. You are allowed to do the same activities you would do on a B1/B2 visa and conducting business in your home country from the United States is allowed under those. People on the internet always forget that business is a valid use of those visas and it’s not the same as work. Example: a businessman comes to the United States from Chile and takes a call from his hotel in Miami with his Chilean employer while attending a conference at a hotel there. Clearly allowed under the terms of a B1/B2 visa. Therefore clearly allowed under ESTA. Your suegra is visiting you in the United States and takes a call from her property manager to tell him how to manage business in Chile. That’s even less work than the example above — she’s a businesswoman managing a business in her native country while legally in the U.S. permitted under B1/B2; therefore permitted under ESTA. The basic test is “would this be allowed if I replaced [family member] with 'businessperson visiting the United States'”

Ask the CBP or airline “greeters” after you get off the silly Dulles people movers which line to get in. Every airport processes these in a different way and if you’re entering with your spouse the answer might change. You’re not entering on ESTA though and don’t use Global Entry. For what it’s worth Dulles these days is one of the more relaxed CBP stations around. Depending on the time of day it’s also pretty quick. Usually takes my husband 20 minutes max to get through CBP after the plane lands, but he’s always arriving between midnight and 2am.

Printed tax return transcripts from the IRS website are official records and are accepted as definitive proof of what your tax return said virtually everywhere — that includes when dealing immigration.

Even ignoring the gay or the immigration component, getting legally married in the US is significantly easier than in Latin America. If you’re fine with not doing in person Utah is a good way to go.

Oh, it’s absolutely the reason why it’s there. SCOTUS just called their bluff on it and ruled that approach unconstitutional so it’s essentially a meaningless question once you actually are naturalized since there’s a recent Supreme Court precedent ruling against USCIS/DOJ. But that’s the kicker — you have to get naturalized first and no one really wants to be the test case for it being an unconstitutionally vague question before the point of naturalization… If they go over it while reviewing the form mention it then.