US Immigration from Canada

My spouse is a US Permanent Resident and I am a Canadian Citizen.

We are living in Canada together temporarily as we wait for my Green Card Application to continue.

We are eager to return to US ASAP.

As we believe I qualify for an I-601 approval on the basis of a Religious Vaccine Waiver; we are wondering if we are to file this prior to the Visa interview.

We have only received a receipt notice thus far, should we file I-601 now?

Also if we do file I-601 and are approved will this second as an exemption to the current US-Canada Land Border Restrictions in place for those whom have decided not to accept a C-19 Vaccine?

Thank you!

I'm Canadian, and for three years my American fianc e has lived in Buffalo and drives across the border to visit me every week. I received my NOA1 back in September and would like to make sure I have enough evidence proving the genuineness of our relationship once we get interviewed later this year.

The problem is, we don't have the usual sorts of evidence that most K1 applicants have. Here are some common examples of evidence that other K1 applicants use, and why I don't have them:

1. Visa stamps. Canada does not stamp American passports when they cross.
2. Phone call logs. We don't call each other (what year is it anyway?).
3. Mail deliveries. We don't mail each other stuff. She visits so often anyway that we just give each other stuff in person.
4. Flight bookings, boarding passes, etc. She drives.
5. Hotel bookings. She stays at my residence when she visits.
6. Pictures. We don't really go out and do anything. What would be the occasion for which we would take a picture? I suppose we could just take selfies in my home, but that's... odd.
7. Credit card or bank statements of our purchases at the same time and place. Again, we don't really go out and do anything. Besides, I usually just pay for anything (e.g., pizza delivery). If we suddenly started paying for things together now after three years, wouldn't that be suspicious?
8. Engagement ring purchase. I never got one (I was intending to just get a wedding ring when the time comes; engagement rings never made sense to me.) We sent our I-129F (along with a letter of intent to marry, of course) back in August. It's now February. I suppose we could buy rings now, but wouldn't that look even more suspicious than not having rings at all? ("It says here you bought rings in February, but your letter of intent to marry was from August. Why would you buy engagement rings so many months after your stated intention to marry?")
9. Chat logs. We do indeed have 91,000 messages sent between us on Discord. But does that matter? Anyone can manufacture chat logs, and she doesn't use her real name on the application we use (Discord).
10. Names on lease. This one has never made sense to me. The whole point of immigrating is so that we can live together. Obviously we don't currently live together; we're in different countries!

I'm fine with doing some new things to get some of this evidence, but it seems so... obvious... that I would just be doing it for the sake of the K1 instead of organically. Like, there's little evidence of these things for years, and then all the sudden a few months before the interview we start doing all this stuff together? I don't know... Am I wrong to be concerned about that? And is there any sort of evidence I haven't mentioned above that might be compelling?

Thanks!

Hello,

My wife (US Citizen; born/raised Philippines) has her mother here (visiting on B2 visa from Philippines; she's 63 years old), living with us and our 2 children the last 4.5 months, we've been having an amazing time each despite being cooped up at home under the Omicron surge. Her I94 expires March 26th 2022 (basically 5 weeks from now). This is her 3rd time here in the USA (1st visit was 2018 - 3 months. 2nd visit she came November 2019, right before COVID -- stayed till July 2020 due to Philippines being locked down).

We've been talking about possibly extending her visa. We filed I-539 during COVID back in March of 2020 (her 2nd visit to the US at the time), peak of the huge US COVID surge at the time -- it was filed before her I94 expired then (Philippines was locked down and she couldn't travel back). Everything was filed timely and properly; the application was denied way later that year long after she left the USA (denied due to no-show on Biometrics, as she was already in the Philippines). That denial was expected since she was long gone from the USA. She flew to the US September 2021 again, no problem on entry, no questions about the I-539 we last filed during the COVID times of 2020 or anything of her last visit.

We are considering filing I-539 again this year because once again, we got screwed with Omicron and haven't done much. She's staying with us and our 2 kids, we're having an amazing time just spending time as a family although with summer coming up soon and the COVID cases dying down bigtime (so far it seems...), we'd love to venture out and spend more time together. We are 50/50 on whether she should just "Go Home" and come back in 6-12 months again, OR, file the I-539 like we did last time.

My questions are:

1. Anyone know of (or had) any "Successes" with the I-539 and extending a B2? I know we had no issues with it the 1st time, but i'm wondering if that was because USCIS/CBP were just "gracious" during the COVID times and understood people couldn't travel back to their home country (which happened to her). I know USCIS had published guidance about it during those times due to border lockdowns and countries shutting down, so those were extenuating circumstances at the time.

2. I researched a lot already and checked other posts... it seems for I-539... its *OK* that your reasons for extending are tourism, pleasure, spending time with family, travelling within the USA, etc. I'm correct in thinking those are VALID reasons, right?

3. Would you think having -TWO- I-539's filed on record (last visit 1.5 years ago -- and this visit), would be an issue on the -NEXT- entry to the USA in say...1-2 years? Anyone ever hear of someone having multiple I-539's on a B2 visa record (1 per visit)? Apparently she does this with Canada and its never an issue (extending each visit), but that's Canada...

Any thoughts/questions/advice? Thanks so much!

Theoretical question and wondering if anyone has experience with this?

I'm doing some math in my head with dates. If we are approved for the CR-1 visa on our estimated timeline, we will likely be about 4 months short of our 2-year anniversary.

If we wanted to wait 4 months for the 2-year mark to cross the POE with the packet (assuming it is within the visa expiration date) to officially activate the green card as IR-1 rather than conditional, could we still cross the border as a visitor's visa since we visit family almost monthly? Or does it not work that way?

For background, we live in Canada, so we regularly cross on NEXUS.

Hello all,

Just a quick question, I've two citizenships/ passports (one is Chinese, another is Canadian). If the Montreal Post issued an immigrant visa to me after interview, which passport they'll affix the visa? Is it possible to request the Post to affix the visa to my Chinese passport?

PS: I'm still waiting for IL from the Montreal Post.

Thank you in advance!