US Immigration from New Zealand

My husband recently had his IR-1 visa issued and we re finally able to plan our move to the US after living abroad as a family for over 10 years. We are still trying to decide where exactly we want to live, which is really difficult to do from a distance. I think I read somewhere on VJ that it is acceptable to travel to and enter the US to have the IR-1 stamped and green card issued, and then go back to the current home country for a period of time and re-enter the US later on using the GC. Is there any official guidance on this or is it simply based on the experiences of people posting here? For example, if we entered and stayed in the US for a month initially to check out potential areas and schools, how long is an acceptable amount of time to then go back to our current country to sort out our affairs? 3 months? 6 months? Or is it simply at the discretion of the CBP when we eventually come back in

Thanks in advance

So, we all know about the processing time on USCIS's website, and I know it's calculated in part from the amount of pending applications. My question is, can that timeframe be treated as a 'processing time for if you were to submit something now'? Is it kinda just saying, 'it would take x months to get through the backlog we have now'?

Like, if the processing time at the time that I submitted my petition was 6 months, does that mean mine'll still take 6 months? Or does it end up always taking whatever the current amount of time is?

I hope this makes sense! I'm tryna stay sane cos the timeframe keeps increasing and it makes the whole thing feel impossible.

Hi all,

My wife and I have received a message from the NVC in the message centre that says Please submit every 2020 W-2 form for petitionerName. and we re not sure what we need to do next.

My wife (the petitioner) was living abroad for the entire 2020 tax year and was not employed by a US based company, and therefore has no W-2 to submit. As part of our initial NVC package we submitted her entire tax transcript for 2020 which was generated by the H&R Block Expat Tax Services which includes a 1040 and 1116 (Foreign Tax Credit) form that clearly shows that all of her income declared in the 1040 was made abroad.

All of our submitted paperwork has been given a status of Accepted , including the 2020 Tax Transcript mentioned above, and there are no comments made on the documents directly - we just have that one line message to go off.

Do we just need to submit a letter explaining something to the effect of We have no W-2 because all income was made abroad for the 2020 tax year etc. ? Or should we provide a copy of her overseas tax transcript as evidence of her income? We re sort of at a loss as to what the NVC is expecting.

Thanks in advance for your help!

My Fianc and I are not doing great and im worried it might end. We aren t married just yet. Getting back into New Zealand is almost impossible right now with the COVID restrictions there ATLEAST until April-May.

Is there any other option anybody could suggest for me, changing status of some kind if that s even possible??

Thank you

Anyone from a Visa Waiver Program country on here experiencing issues trying to apply for ESTA today??
My husband has tried 4 times and every time he gets to the review section and clicks "next" (which should take him to payment page) it just goes to a blank page.

Anyone else? Assuming its just a website glitch, will try again tomorrow but wanting know if anyone else has encountered this.