US Immigration from Canada

My husband and I are a bit confused about next steps. Our I-130 was approved a few days ago, and we got the electronic notice yesterday. I'm the beneficiary. I previously had a conditional green card in 2015, but it expired in 2017 before renewing as we had relocated to Canada so we are doing the process again. I already have a US social security number. We have been married over 10 years now.

The message we got told us to submit the I-485, so we are working on that. But will we get an official I-797 in the mail as an acceptance?

Also, our I-130 happened to finally get approved while we are on a 2.5 month visit to the USA, we are here for 6 more weeks. So for our current address we have put our American address (we own the house, we bought it last year when we decided to relocate back to the States, and we visit for less than 6 months per year currently), and we put our Canadian address (we still own it and live there as our primary residence) as our second/previous address. Is that the correct way to do it?

Thanks for any tips or advice on this next stage of the process. I've found some online info but it doesn't always seem to match up with what we are holding in our hands.

Also, wishing those of you who are living apart from your spouses during the application the best of luck for fast processing and approval. It's so very slow right now.

Hello everyone,

The ZIP Code for where I live in NJ pops up 2 different town names for my bills, license, tax etc.

For ex. My gas bill says town X and water bill says town Y but same street address and zip. My NJ license has a different town name than my utility bill and mortgage statement but again same street address and zip code

I am about to file for my i751 removal of conditions.

Will this be an issue of half my evidence has 1 town name and the other documents have another town name but same zip code and street address. Not sure where to explain this to them to be honest.

"USCIS has temporarily skipped cases filed between June 28th and July 11th, 2024. While we cannot predict when they will return to this date range, a similar delay occurred for cases filed between February 23rd and March 6th, 2024, and USCIS eventually resumed processing those cases. We will continue to monitor this situation closely. In the meantime, we recommend keeping an eye on the Recent Status Changes section for updates on USCIS activity."
It seems that USCIS has skipped a batch of cases again as referenced here so I am starting a thread to track things with other people in our group.

Personally we filed on July 3rd, got our NOA 1.
No NOA2 or other movement as yet.

Hello! This website has been a very helpful resource for our Visa journey thus far, so I figured I'd make an account to ask some questions:

The status of my Visa application on the CEAC website has been set to "Ready" since October 3rd, it is now November 23rd and I haven't recieved anything in the mail or by email regarding Packet 3. On top of this, the CEAC website hasn't been allowing us to check the status anymore and doesn't load anything following pressing the submit button. Not even a message telling me that anything was filled out wrong or they couldn't find my case. I can confirm it's set to "Immigrant Visa" and I am entering my MTL number correctly. We've tried multiple devices on different internet connections as well.

I do have all the documents for Packet 3 ready, and I've seen that some users on here have successfully received Packet 4 by emailing their documents to the Montreal Embassy before they recieved Packet 3. Some users never even received Packet 3 at all and followed through with this. Is this a good idea? If so, what email should I send my documents to?

It's almost been 2 months and I'm worried that my Packet 3 has been lost in the mail, and not being able to check the status of my Visa case is worrying me. Is there anything I can do?

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to get my ducks in a row for the upcoming 2024 tax season and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction on where to look and any other helpful resources.

Background:

- I'm a Canadian Citizen who recently immigrated into the US on Oct 30, married on Nov 5 and filed for the AOS/Work Permit and SSN on Nov 8.

- I believe I will be considered as a non-resident alien as I don't meet the green card test nor the substantial presence test.

- I received my last paycheque from my Canadian employer on Oct 31

- I still have an RRSP with more than $10k in it (it has mainly Canadian but some US ETFs that occasionally pay out dividends), but I did liquidate my TFSA and Non registered accounts before moving to the USA.

- I didn't have any property or substantial assets that I had to sell before moving.

My Understanding of the process:

- My understanding is that I have to file my Canadian taxes first and let the CRA know that I am no longer a Canadian Tax Payer and have moved to the USA. My first question is does this still apply based on my Visa status. Secondly, how do I go about paying my departure tax/if the departure tax is relevant to me?

- Once I have my Taxes filed in Canada, I then move onto filing them in the USA with my partner. I know there are two options to file, Married jointly or Married but separately. The overall consensus is that it is generally better to file jointly, but depending on circumstances that may not always be the case. My yearly income was <$100,000 CAD, so I am wondering if there is a tool where I can see how to maximize our returns.

- Since I am a non-resident alien, I would not be required to file an FBAR.

Other Questions:

- Has anyone been in my shoes, and if so, was the filing process straight forward or am I better off hiring tax help?

- My fellow Canucks, which tax software did you use when filing and how did you go about navigating the departure tax?

- Would my investments that I liquidated count towards my income when I am filing in the USA? Even if they were in a tax protected account?

I am all ears and would love any help I could get!

Cheers!