Hi everyone, this situation might be a little complicated but I hope the group can give me some advice. We are US citizens, and we adopted 2 relatives from my spouse's birth country (not naming for privacy reasons). I know about the requirement to have legal and physical custody for 2 years before we can apply for immigrant visas/green cards. We had been living in the birth country (which is a developing country) for almost 1 year when we got a good job offer in Canada and we decided to move. (Crazy that Canada will welcome us as a family but the US will not!) We applied for tourist visas for our kids so we could stop over in the US to visit family on our way of moving to Canada. They refused the tourist visas under Section 214, did not have strong ties to home country, and the consulate interviewer made some comments during the interview questioning why we waited so long to go get the kids and live together (the process took several years because of COVID, court in birth country, and some bad advice we got along the way). I was so shocked at the attitude/condescension, and while I understand the kids didn't have strong ties, we had proof of job offer etc. They didn't even look at it. From reading others' stories, it seems this is not that surprising.
Anyway, we've moved to Canada and establishing our life here. At some point in the future we will apply for immigrant visas but for now we just want to visit family in the US. I would like to re-apply for tourist visas for the kids but I'm worried about how it will go. By the time we interview, we will have reached the 2 year custody point. Our ties in Canada will be (if these count?): our 2 jobs, 1 child will be starting school, the other child will be in daycare, and we are renting a home. Any advice on things we can do to prepare or what are our chances of success? It also worries me that being in a 3rd country might weaken our chances. We are on work permits, not permanent residents.
Thanks for reading!
