US Immigration from Chile

Posting this here as other places on the internet are raising questions and figured it d be good to have a reference post.

The short of it: the Trump administration has released an executive order banning entry from certain countries as of 4 June 2025: RESTRICTING THE ENTRY OF FOREIGN NATIONALS TO PROTECT THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS

K-1 visas are not included in the exceptions as fianc s are not immediate family members. IR-1/CR-1 is included in the exceptions.

While it is still early, based on previous iterations of this, it is considered unlikely to be struck down by the courts by most legal observers, though there is some discussion as to if individuals such as K-1 petitioners could sue based on the specifics of their circumstances. If this is something you would prefer as compared to refile as IR-1/CR-1, you should contact a lawyer who can provide you legal advice no one on this forum can.

If you want the most practical approach at this time it would be to get married and then file an I-130, withdrawing the I-129F petition as it would no longer be valid after the marriage.

Probably the easiest way for people going the K-1 route impacted by this would be the Utah online marriage route followed by an in-person meeting, but a marriage in your fianc s country or a third country would also work. If you go the Utah route, you must meet in person after the wedding and before filing the I-130.

Edit: edited to be more specific in word choice.

Wondering if anyone has recent experience / or more information about entering the US (by land or air), and specifically if there were more reviews of phones / social media. There have been more news stories of tourists or people with work visas being turned away or detained based on what they find in people's phones, so just trying to see if there have been recent experiences here.

Someone on Reddit mentioned to double check the signature sections for online filed I-130s because apparently its been a trend for people to sign them wrong, and while I didn't screw that up, while I was scanning through it I noticed that my response to question 13 (my husband's residence outside the US) was showing up as blank on the PDF (screenshot attached.)

I vaguely remember getting an error on the online form when trying to type in SAME because it didn't like for formating or something like that. Since we'd already provided his physical address is leaving this blank something I need to be worried about or should I submit unsolicited evidence clarifying it?

This might be getting into the weeds, but just want to know exactly what would count as "work" in regards to visiting on ESTA. My mother-in-law (from Chile) will be visiting us probably quite frequently once we move back to the US. She is a widow, retired, and lives off of her pension and income from her beach rental property. It just occurred to me, that management of her property remotely potentially could count as work and would not be permitted while she was visiting the US -- anyone have advice or more detailed reference of what is permitted and not on a ESTA?

Just for details, she has someone that manages probably 95% of the work of the property (booking, managing guests, cleaning, supplies, etc.). But my MIL every once and a while has to talk to a guest, or reimburse her property manager for some expense or something.

Hey everyone, just wanted to make a post about our experience since it was a question we had going into my wife's IR1 visa interview, and there weren't a ton of previous posts about it -- so just sharing if helpful to someone else. So one of the requirements to bring to the CR1/IR1 interview is a police certificate, specifically:

"The original police certificate from your country of current residence and countries of previous residence."

My wife had previously lived in the US (with her green card) for 2 years, so we didn't know if she needed to bring in a police certificate from the US since it was a previous country of residence. From what we could find it seemed like the answer was NO, and even some other counties embassy instructions specifically state that background checks from the US aren't necessary (presumably because they already do a background check during the USCIS stage) -- those reasons plus by the time we even considered it we didn't have time to get a FBI background check (mailing fingerprints and all), my wife only went with her local Chilean police certificate. And just wanted to report that they did not need the US one, and it was zero issue.