Japan to America, Completely new to this...

[Ishmael J. 0]

Hello everyone! Pleased to make your acquiantance! And happy to have found this very knowledgeable forum!

Ok, so here's our situation. Looking forward to your kind help and advice!

My wife is Japanese and I am a US citizen.

We have been together for fifteen years total. We met in the US in 2000, but lived in Japan together from 2002-2004 and again from 2007-until July 2015. After July 2015, I returned to the US.

We were married in 2008 in Hawaii.

Our son was born in 2009 in Japan.

My son and I returned to the US in July 2015 and my wife remained in Japan temporarily. Now we are preparing to apply for a visa to get her over here.

I still have a valid spousal visa in Japan.

However, it looks like there is no longer any DCF at Tokyo Consulate, and that I might not be able to file that way anyway since, although I'm still a resident of Japan, I'm not actually residing there.

So what is our best option? What do you recommend?

And a few final concerns. I was a student for my first few years in Japan and got into the bad habit of not filing my US taxes. After completing university I worked in Japan and paid taxes there, but did not file US taxes. I didn't make much money so I doubt I owe anything here. I was the primary caregiver for our son.

I am back in the US and will be paying taxes from next year but I'm afraid that not filing taxes in the past might be a problem for getting my wife over here now? And also, I currently only make about 20,000 a year (grad student) and I'm also concerned that this low figure might be a problem? Will I need a co-signer?

Look forward to any advice!

[Darnell 8,478]

I say file the i-130 this week and sort out the financial stuff later.

[awaywego 28]

You will be following the IR-1 process, as you have surmised: http://www.visajourney.com/content/i130guide1

You will need the last three years of taxes for the I-864 (Affidavit of Support).

There is some income threshold under which one is not required to file taxes; the IRS site can help with this. If you were not required to file during a year on the I-864, the instructions say to attach an explanation. If you were above that threshold, look into filing back taxes (and into the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion).

Sponsorship level is 125% of the poverty line for the household size. If you do not earn enough, you can use assets to make up the difference (at 3x income requirement) or you can look into a joint sponsor.

This is months away, though, so I second the suggestion to worry about sending out the I-130 packet first.