US Immigration from Canada

Hello all,

I've found the questions and answers posted on this forum to be really helpful - thank you! However I have 2 questions that still confuses me:

1. I became a green card holder and immigrated to the US in Sept 2021. My husband (US citizen) was already living here. I want to make sure that we can indeed file jointly and treat me as a US resident for the entire year. I see forum posts that all say YES, but the IRS instructions seem to say this is only allowed if one spouse is not physically in the US at the end of the year? ("If, at the end of your tax year, you are married and one spouse is a U.S. citizen or a resident alien and the other is a nonresident alien, you can choose to treat the nonresident as a U.S. resident.) Is there another qualifying scenario that I'm missing in the instructions?

2. In my case, can I indeed qualify for foreign income exclusion for my salary earned before I immigrated to the US, if I left my previous home country before December 2021? Again, the posts in this forum all seem to say YES, but IRS instructions says you must live abroad for the entire tax year (bona fide residence test) or at least 330 days (physical presence test).

Thank you so much!

Hi all!

Okay so I am stressing out. I'm the beneficiary and we applied for the visa in less than a week after we got married. I thought I had done a bunch of research about name changes and was under the impression that I should apply for the visa in the same name that all my docs (passport, drivers licence etc) is in which was my maiden name and then come time for the interview, I would be able to bring my old passport with the maiden name and new passport with the new married name to confirm the name change and the old docs they had on file.

I still have not changed my last name legally but I wanted to. And now I'm hearing that I should have applied for my I-130 with my married name even though none of my documents would have matched name-wise. I'm still only in the NOA1 stage so I don't quite know where to go from here.

Thanks so much in advance everyone. I am really stressed out about it.

Hello everyone,

I m just preparing my docs for IV interview in advance and haven t received IL as of today. I m F2B and my mum is the petitioner.

Just wondering, do I need my mum s original birth certificate for my IV interview?

Thanks in advance.

I was planning to take a trip for March break today and I denied entry! anybody had the same experience?

I had my visa (IR1) interview on Monday (March 14, 2022). My wife (USC petitioner) lives in Canada with me. She doesn't have any income so we opted in to qualify for the Affidavit of Support (I-864) based on assets alone (we showed more than enough assets).

However, They CO refused my visa under section 221(g) - Proof of US income or assets in the US to meet the Affidavit of Support requirements - or - Joint Sponsor (I-864, recent taxes, and proof of status). He stressed enough that the assets need to be in the USA to qualify.

The CO asked me to get a joint sponsor. I am working to a joint sponsor. looking at the I-864 form for the joint sponsor option. I need clarification on the FORM I-864 for the joint sponsor :

Part 5:

Item Number 6. If you have sponsored any other persons on Form I-864 or Form I-864EZ who are lawful permanent residents. enter the number here:

The join sponsor has sponsored other family members whose visa application is still under processing. Do I need to include the number of other family members at Item 6 or not. As I read the instruction which clearly stated to include only lawful permanent residents.

Any help is appreciated.