S2N

Marijuana has special rules in place vs other drugs on the good moral character question. It’s extremely unlikely that trying it 20-something years ago would make someone ineligible for citizenship. If I was OP, I’d mention it in the interview to be safe and explain their confusion, but it’d also probably fall under the "immaterial false statements" from Maslenjak v. United States. For anyone unaware of the context of that case: the wife of a Serbian war criminal lied on her naturalization application/interview about her husband’s status as a war criminal and SCOTUS unanimously ruled that alone wasn’t sufficient to strip her of her naturalized citizenship without the government proving it had an impact on the decision. Yes, tell the truth, mention it in the interview if you feel that the most honest answer is “yes”, but if a conservative Supreme Court sided with a war criminal’s wife on this, I’m going to guess that someone being confused on how to answer a question about smoking pot in their 20s is on solid legal ground.

Also worth adding that by the time it gets to NVC he’ll have another year above 125%

Note that it costs more to do it that way: $675 vs. $625

Can’t give advice about Atlanta, but tell her not to listen to what the Chilean news says about ESTA if she ever brings it up. Fretting about the U.S. removing Chile from the VWP and denying Chileans entry is a regular occurrence on the news down there. Current trend is stories about Chileans who have visited Cuba being denied entry in local papers. I had to talk my husband down from applying for a B visa because of it (he’s never visited Cuba, and he’d be denied B visa because of I-130 and he has a valid ESTA.)

Is there a reason you aren’t using tax transcripts? If you filed single or married filing separately uploading those and not the full return might be easier.

The financial evidence is more convincing if you have it and is viewed by USCIS (and just about every other federal agency) as the primary indicator that you have ties to someone in a foreign country. See the SF-86 if you want an example outside the immigration context; foreign financial questions are EVER vs. last 7 years on that. And it makes sense. I have friends I’ve visited all over the world and country. None of them are on my bank account and none of them are in my will or beneficiaries on my retirement accounts. My husband is on one of my credit cards and in my will and my retirement accounts beneficiary. Thats for reasons unrelated to immigration. Most of us who are doing IR-1/CR-1 from the U.S. with a spouse overseas aren’t going to have a ton of that evidence, which is fine. The government understands it and doesn’t ask the impossible or for people to go out of the way to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do, But if people do have financial evidence it is absolutely a positive thing to upload. All that to say — OP should be fine with evidence of time spent together and if that’s all they have there’s no reason to worry. But there are also normal financial planning things that you do together as a married couple that they can do now that might further bolster the package.

Yeah, I’ve seen you post it a few times and I get it in theory, but come at it from a different point of view. Government documents are amongst the easiest things to translate as they’re usually designed so someone with an extremely limited proficiency in the language can read them. In most cases where translation is needed at least one of the couple will have the necessary language skills to do a translation and save money in an already expensive process. That being said, I had to translate bus tickets from Spanish to English in my petition and and I think there’s something to be said for paying someone to do something tedious like that to avoid the hassle. Only problem is most charge by the word and a South American bus ticket has 500+

They’re also incredibly easy to translate and certify if you’re fluent in both languages. Takes the guesswork out of it and all you have to do is verify the official translation is accurate.

Correct. I was just pointing out that you can’t file a $0 return electronically if someone wanted to do it. I-864 has a box for no filing requirement.

Consult with an attorney experienced on these matters is the best advice you’re going to get. Unfortunately with the new administration a lot is in flux right now.

This is important to highlight. The AOS rules are often misunderstood. Based on your comment she didn’t enter with the intent to adjust status, which means that if you want to you can get married and she can adjust status now without returning to the UK and it’s perfectly legal. That has a ton of downsides: won’t be able to work or leave the U.S. for a while and it’s expensive. But if being together ASAP is the priority, it’s an option. We decided going for IR-1 over K-1 because of allowing my husband time to tie-up affairs in Chile while we wait and also maintain his professional career rather than sitting around the house for months on end. That plus all the legal advantages made it a no-brainer for us. Based on your post though being together quick is important for you all, so marriage and AOS on this trip remains an option.

The usual advice given is to declare $1 in interest income since it makes it easier for the IRS e-file computer in $0 income cases. If someone truly wants to put in $0 they have to paper file.

INA 212 (q): q) Academic honoraria Any alien admitted under section 1101(a)(15)(B) of this title may accept an honorarium payment and associated incidental expenses for a usual academic activity or activities (lasting not longer than 9 days at any single institution), as defined by the Attorney General in consultation with the Secretary of Education, if such payment is offered by an institution or organization described in subsection (p)(1) and is made for services conducted for the benefit of that institution or entity and if the alien has not accepted such payment or expenses from more than 5 institutions or organizations in the previous 6-month period. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1182&num=0&edition=prelim My assumption given it was expenses only and there’s an O-1 visa pending is that it was related to a conference sponsored by an academic, not-for-profit or governmental body (most have some connection to one of those.) Congress permitted this in 1998 because it’d be next to impossible for universities to be competitive if every VWP-eligible professor or researcher had to petition for a work visa to present at a conference and get expenses and speaking fees covered. You can Google 9/5/6 rule and a ton of university finance office pages will give a more detailed description of the specifics. If there’s filing requirement they’d have to get an ITIN and file. Never applied to me personally so not familiar with that side of it.

Allowed under VWP and B-1 visas. OP could even be paid for the speech. Applicable rule is the 9/5/6 rule — no more than 9 day visit and no more than 5 total payments in 6 months. Bigger potential issue if they don’t have an ESTA already is question 6 on the ESTA questionnaire given the O-1 sponsorship: whether they’re seeking employment. I’ve always read that question as including people awaiting work visas, but I guess you could read it as “are you journeying here for the purpose of working this trip?” Never applied to anyone I’ve known.

Reddit has a bunch of stories where it’s no big deal and there’s not a one-year ban (and plenty of stories with the ban as well.) On VJ from my lurking the idea is that it’s more common. My attempt to reconcile all the online stories and knowledge is that it’s probably a consulate-by-consulate thing on how much either the CO or the doctor cares.

4-8 months are accurate historically and it’s impossible for anyone to say that case times are “creeping up already” as the election was only 3 months ago so we literally have no way of knowing what the timeline will be of people who have filed since then. Also for what it’s worth, it’s a myth in online forums that USCIS speeds up in election years. It’s that it takes 2-3 years for new political appointees to change the bureaucracy of any federal agency, and USCIS is one of the worst run. That gives the perception of the government working faster in an election, but it’s not. Immigration officers are apolitical civil servants and the people with the theoretical motivation to hurry along citizenship or immigration petitions don’t have enough power to make their employees work harder.

The general rule of thumb with government agencies is if you’re upfront with them and clearly explain mistakes when asked about them, they’ll assume it was an error and move on rather than assuming you’re lying. Immigration officers, consular officers, and investigators for background checks read thousand of forms. They’re pretty good at distinguishing between “checked the wrong box, needs to clarify, issue RFE” and “is lying to us, return to USCIS for revocation and ban from the U.S.”

Depends on the consulate. If it’s an actual visa with work permission, it’s not guaranteed but more likely than if a visa that doesn’t have clear work authorization. If it’s a legal grey area in the country where you’d be working (as a lot of digital nomad stuff is), don’t expect the consulate to take a kind view of it.

More likely they just don’t understand taxes than tax fraud (you’d be surprised the number of people who heard from a friend they could do XYZ with their taxes…) Regardless, if they’re trying to claim multiple people on their taxes while having a foreign spouse with a pending petition, they should seek out professional help if they think there might be something in the law they’re misunderstanding. Taxes are more complicated than the I-864 is and feed into it.

And based on what I’ve heard from friends in the consular world the assumption by most foreign service employees is that a significant percentage of K-1s that make it to them are fraudulent and that USCIS doesn’t do sufficient work there denying obvious fraud and spends too much time processing what they view as low-fraud risk I-130s. We’re all in a guessing game on what the new administration is going to do, but I wouldn’t want to be in a position where I had a future spouse applying for a visa that has a reputation for being extremely fraud-prone at the consular official level.

Yep, online filing. Received NOA1 on 1/1/25

We had everything ready to go and were just waiting on CBP to process the departure record for my husband to file (married in the U.S. over the December holidays.) New Years Day filer here. Can happily say it was one of the first things I did this year.

Starting the thread for those of us starting the New Year by filing an I-130. Looking forward to hopefully seeing a lot of updates in 2026 or earlier

We fly to Santiago within 24 hours. We’ll wait until he leaves and upload the boarding pass/passport stamps as proof of being outside the U.S. together when we land. Thanks @pushbrk, your advice has been helpful as a lurker and now when I’m asking directly.

I came across this while searching for something else. I’m fairly new to going through the immigration process myself, but pretty familiar with the process due to friends and family and professional reasons. The posters who more or less said your use of a completely legal method shouldn’t be allowed should keep to commenting on the actual question raised. Your case is actually a poster child for why Congress permits AOS from ESTA in certain circumstances — humanitarian reasons. Circumstances change and WT admission class is default 90 days. It would be inhumane for the government to require family members visiting and assisting with legitimate family needs to go back to their home country when there might be a family emergency, change of medical circumstances, change of economic circumstances, etc. If anything, in contrast to what was harshly said to you, your case highlights why Congress should act to streamline family reunification visas via consular processing, not why it should repeal good public policy. The caregiver point @EmilyW raised is debatable — if your mother is with you and helping you out without it raising to the level of a full time job, that’s arguably within the intent of B-2. Even if it wasn’t, B-1 permits domestic workers in limited circumstances (business people temporarily stationed in the U.S., different circumstances, but similar principles if you go through the FAM guidance — anticipated limited time working on entry, and motivation is that there’s humanitarian hardship telling a family they can’t bring in their foreign nanny for 2 months, etc.) FAM is limited to visa issuance but the point on permitting domestic workers of businessmen shows the guidance around what is/isn’t work on a B visa isn’t as clear cut as people think — it’s not simply 'could an American be paid for this.' From a purely practical perspective, I don’t think USCIS is going to come down hard on a British grandmother visiting her family and helping care for a grandchild. It’s an overly expansive reading of law/guidance without realizing that there is a grey area on what’s permissible under B visas that’s common in immigration internet sites. The practical reality is USCIS is aware that there’s multiple levels of hearings and appeals they’d have to go through after a denial for your mother to be forced to leave the country and that they’d likely lose at some point along the way. That has an impact on any decision. Finally, the advice that @OldUser gave on the process to follow at the beginning is the answer to your actual question. I’m so sorry your thread got derailed after someone gave you the correct answer. Advice on forums like this helped a lot of people I know and it’s why I’m here too, but its also worth remembering that based on both the TOS and the culture in a lot of online communities, people tend to take a stricter view of the law than the government does on some things. Helps when people are starting from scratch for them to avoid the grey areas, but once someone is already there, it only makes people more stressed out in an already stressful process.