US Immigration from Bulgaria

Hi, everyone! I am an American citizen. My husband went through immigration process in 2012. That's when he got his Permanent resident card. He lived and worked in the US. He bought a house in Michigan. Then we came back to Bulgaria and because of medical reasons he stayed more than one year and lost his Permanent resident status. His green card is valid and up to date. It expires in 2024. But he lost the resident status for staying more than a year outside the US. So we went to the US consulate here in Bulgaria. He went to an interview for Returning Resident Status but was denied because of lack of evidence. Then the consular officer said we have to file I-130 again and go through immigration process again. And now after 2 and a half years of waiting we are getting denial from USCIS because of duplicate of I -130. I don't know what to do anymore. USCIS denying, Consulate in Bulgaria denying to return status...I don't know where and who to turn to so I can bring my family to the US. We are now living in Bulgaria and don't have the chance to go back with my husband and daughter. Has someone been through this kind of problem?

Is there anything else I can do?

Hi all, my fianc and I are getting married next Sunday and want to send in our I-130 and adjustment of status application as soon as possible after that. Most of our paperwork is already ready. Is there any problem with having his I-693 medical exam done prior to his actually being married? We re hoping to schedule the first appointment for this week prior to the wedding, since it will need to be done in two appointments. I m assuming it s going to be fine, but I thought I d check anyway.

Relatedly, it seems like the rule requiring the medical exam be done within 60 days of filing for the actual immigration benefit is waived through the end of this month. Assuming that is not extended, does that apply to *medical exams* conducted prior to September 30th, or to *immigration applications* filed prior to September 30th? As in, would the 60 day rule still be waived for us if we had his medical exam done in September, but didn t file the immigration app til October or later? We don t expect to have any issues getting in the application well within 60 days of his medical exam, but it would be helpful to know if we have that extra leeway or not.

Thank you very much!

Hi all! My spouse and I are preparing his marriage-based green card AOS application and the only thing even remotely resembling a criminal record he has is one $100 ticket from last year from going through an open emergency exit door to catch a subway quickly in NYC. He paid it right away. Is this something we need to disclose on his AOS app? And if so, will it cause any problems with his AOS? I see the I-485 instructions say no documentation is necessary for traffic violations and incidents involving fines less than $500, but I assume we still need to disclose that it happened and explain it in the additional information section. I m just concerned because I ve seen that fare evasion has been considered a CIMT before and I don t want it to have any negative effect on his application. Thank you!

Hello everyone, my husband and I are filling out form I-864EZ for the affidavit of support. In the instructions it says only the most recent tax transcript is needed, but then questions 6a, 6b and 6c are asking for the total income from most recent, 2nd most recent and 3rd most recent year.

Do we need to provide the income for all 3 years or only the most recent one, as that is the only transcript we are providing? Just want to make sure we don't make a mistake.

Thank you!

Hi all , my fianc and I are getting married in September, and we've just started preparing our documents to apply for his marriage-based green card. I am a US citizen and he is a Bulgarian citizen. He did two separate J-1 visa summers of work in the US in 2016 and 2017. Both visas on their face say very clearly that he is not subject to the two year home country requirement, and he additionally has the DS-2019 from his 2017 J-1 visa which confirms that he is not subject to the requirement. I just want to make 100% sure here that this will suffice to show USCIS that he is not subject to the requirement - there's no reason for us to obtain a No Objection letter from the Bulgarian government too, right?

Another issue is that he no longer has the DS-2019 from his 2016 J-1 visa, even though he does have the one from 2017. We have contacted his J-1 sponsor to see if they still have a copy, but as it was six years ago I'm not hopeful. Will not having the DS-2019 form from his first J-1 visa be a problem, or will USCIS overlook that given that the 2016 visa on its face, which we do have a copy of, clearly says he is not subject to the two year requirement?

Final question: he renewed his passport last year and the Bulgarian consulate took his old expired passport, which had the original J-1 visas in it. Luckily he took scans of the J-1 pages before he gave it in, but we just noticed there are watermarks from the scanning app at the bottom which can no longer be removed. They don't obscure any vital information, just a bit of the visa number at the very bottom of the visa. Will this be ok? Since we don't have the old passport anymore we unfortunately can't take a new photo of the visas. Relatedly, is he required to submit pictures of the info pages of the passport he entered the US on, by any chance? He never took a photo of the old passport's info page. Hoping that isn't necessary.

Thanks! Sorry for all the questions, just want to make sure we get this right the first time.