US Immigration from Australia

Journey thus far: I (Maple F48) am American and my husband (Acacia M49) is Australian. I hold dual citizenship, having aquired Australian Citizenship in 2009. I have been living and working as a trained Primary (Elementary) Teacher for the past 20 years, having immigrated to Australia in 2001. My husband and I have been married since March 2013, together since August 2011. Due to aging parents and my only sibling is also living in Australia, my husband and I have chosen to move to the US to spend time with my parents (both retired, under the age of 70). I applied for the i-130 from Australia (as I'd read applying while overseas is a much quicker turnaround). The petition was filed on May 5 2024, we are now 6 months waiting for that next step, the online system basically now says "taking longer than normal".

Affidavit of Support Query: If I am working and living in Australia, how does this work when submitting an Affidavit of Support? The forms don't really seem to take into account people who are living and working abroad, who can't leave and start working in the US yet. I could leave and move ahead of my husband, awaiting his approval, but the timeline is super sketchy right now and we could be appart for a long time, which is NOT ideal in the least! If we have a more set timeline, knowing it would only be for 3 months - that's doable, but otherwise...it's frustrating. The plan was to be able to be in the US just after New Years. Being a Teacher in Australia, I would be paid until the end of January, and then will be taking my entitled Long Service Leave for 6 months at halfpay, which would equate/convert roughly to $2000 USD, from Feb 2-Aug 12th 2025.

Any experience or ideas would be great! I have not approached my parents yet for joint support, as looking to hopefully not have to go down that route. But I suppose on that note brings another question, would any pension or retured SS income be acceptable on an Affidavit of Support if it ends up going down that route?

G'day All,

I had My K1 interview on Tuesday 29 October and they have asked for Additional Documents, Original of Certificate of Marriage for me, and Death Certificate for former Husband for my Fiance.

We are getting the documents in order, would have been great to know we needed the originals before the interview but on got the Check list last week, too late to get them in place so only had copies on hand for the interview.

Does anyone have a rough idea of the turn around time once I get the Docs up to Sydney?

Thanks

Darren

At one point during my interview the CO brought up a copy of my I-129F (printed in black and white) and pointed out a photo where I was kissing my fiance at my friend's wedding and said seriously 'This photo looks like wedding, you didn't get married right?'

In the photo, I was holding bridesmaid flowers and my fianc was wearing a suit. I was wearing a light blue bridesmaid dress and so were the rest of the bridesmaids in the background on the chapel seats, but because it was printed in black and white, the dress looked white so I could totally see where the CO was coming from.

Of course I said 'no I was a bridesmaid at my friend's wedding and said I had the original I-129F in colour'. But the CO didn't want to see it and moved on to other questions. ( I had front loaded and sideloaded and brought everything I could possibly think of being relevant to the interview. I didn't get to show any of it lol but I'm still glad I came prepared)

It went well and I got approved verbally after the interview, but wanted to let people know how certain photos might look in black and white ><

I'll be filing an i485 today and have some questions.

1) Should I put anything in the MEMO field of the personal check for the i485 check or the i765 check?

2) Is it a major disadvantage to not file the i693 now? I know they can ask for it later, but how much will that delay the whole process?

3) If I do an examination today to file the i693 with the rest, do the results of that evaluation expire? Someone told me they expire in 3 months and if my packet is still processing in 3 months (as I suspect it will be) I'd rather not have to pay for an entirely new examination.

4) Does it matter what order my pages are in? Right now my packet looks like:

- Form i-485 with a check for $1440 paper clipped to the front.

- Paper clipped to the back of the i485 I have: US spouse's birth certificate, immigrant spouse's foreign birth certificate, 2x2 passport style photos of both spouses, copy of immigrant's passport, copy of stamps page of immigrant's passport, most recent I-94

- Form G-1145

- Form I-765 with a check for $260 paper clipped to the front.

- Form I-864

- Paper clipped to the back of I-864 I have: 2023 Federal tax return

I'm Aussie born and have dual citizenship, became a US citizen 3 years ago (started off as a K1, married in the US). My Australian passport expired a long time ago and when I started making plans to get a new one, the pandemic happened and I had a child.
I am looking to travel back to Australia late next year but will need to enter and exit Australia on an Australian passport (as per their rules). Being married in the US, it's a whole complicated (and expensive) process to get a new Australian passport in my married name and much simpler to just get an Australian passport in my maiden name.

My ideal situation would be to just go ahead and get my Aus passport in my maiden name and travel into Australia with that.
I'm wondering if there are any implications I need to be aware of if I travel out of the US on a foreign passport in my maiden name (since tickets will need to be done in my maiden name), even though I am a US citizen.
I still need to get my daughter a US passport, so the plan would be to just go ahead and get mine as well, so I would be able to have that on hand as proof of US citizenship. The US passport would be in my married name. My googling tells me I'd need to carry a marriage certificate and both passports to show the name change, but I'm trying to be extra sure of any problems that could come up when I go to re-enter the US (given that all my citizenship stuff was done in my married name) or things that I need to be extra aware of/would need to carry with me to make this work.

And just to clarify, obviously whilst that's ideal, I'm aware it may not necessarily work so I'm still willing to work through the process of getting an Aus passport in my maiden name. It would just cut down on the added stress of travelling such a long distance for the first time in many years, with a toddler in tow.