foofurrah

Additional question: Did you need translations of both marriage certificates? We were issued two (one for me, one for my wife) which have the same information on them except for who it is issued to (one for her, one for me). Did any other China visa seekers have this? Did you have them both translated and certified or just one? Thanks.

I found this on the Philippine's Embassy website:

Sometimes the Consular Officer will ask an applicant for the petitioner’s income tax return and W2s. The reason for this is that your sponsor may have filed his/her income tax return jointly with his/her spouse. The income tax return shows only the total income that both the husband and wife have earned. If your sponsor signed an affidavit of support form (Form I-864), but his/her spouse did not sign a household member form (Form I-864A), the Consular Officer may want to see how much your sponsor made individually. In this case, the Officer would need to see your sponsor’s W2s, showing all the income he/she personally made over the last year. (http://blogs.usembassy.gov/philippines/?p=506)

Information about tax transcripts and records is on page 8 of the I-864 instructions. If you include a copy of this year's returns instead of a transcript, W-2s also verify that your taxes are correct and you aren't distorting your income.

Inspired by the posts above, I tried putting in the numbers before mine too and found most of them were rejected for failure to sign, include payment, or were "improperly filed." Raised my hopes of getting up to my number much sooner.

Hey guys, I'm new on here, just joined today, I am hoping I can get some help on here. I am from the Rep of Ireland and currently live here with my wife who is American, we sent off the I-130 petition on the 12th February. I registered the post so that I could track it, unfortunately I was only able to track it as far as being received in the USA and not as far as the Chicago lockbox on the 14th february. Now the thing is I still haven't received any NOA1 even though the g1145 was filled out and attached. I really thought I'd have an email by now. I'm just wondering if I should expect to wait a little longer or shold I try to contact the USCIS, I don't know what number I'd call and don't really want to end up spending a fortune on a call without getting any real info. Also after mailing my package I realised that on both the g-325a forms we marked the box Status as Permanent Resident as I didn't know we were supposed to tick other and write I-130 so now I am worried about this, I really hope something that small wouldn't hold anything up? Any advice on what we should do would be greatly appreciated..

I didn't receive an email when the NOA1 went out, rather it just came in the mail eventually. I also attached the G-1145. If you're using an international address, my guess would be that it's in the mail. As you don't have a receipt number yet it will probably be difficult to look up at this point. I filed from within the US and it still took almost two weeks to get the NOA1. Sent it registered mail on the 4th, check cashed on the 8th, and the NOA1 arrived in the mail on the 16th. Did others get an email for the NOA1?

I called the IRS office in Beijing about this a week or two ago as I didn't want to go through the hassle of filing for an ITIN. The Rep I spoke to said to choose "married filing separately" and write "Foreign Spouse" where you would usually write the name, then to leave the SSN spot blank. If you file this way though you don't get a deduction for your spouse.

Turbotax allows you to report foreign earned income without a W2, you can input it under the "Less Common Income" section where it says "Foreign Earned Income and Exclusion" (in the 2011 version). It will then guide you through whether or not you can apply an exclusion.

Italy is part of the visa waiver program for visits of 90 or fewer days, but your friend does need ESTA approval to enter the United States, which can be completed online. It's possible that this will be denied since your friend previously overstayed, but it's probably worth trying first, and then taking steps later if it doesn't work out (for example, you can then apply for a tourist visa). Perhaps someone with experience with an overstayed visa from an EU country can provide more information.

Here's an info sheet in Italian: http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/travel/id_visa/esta/esta_2010_fact_sheets/esta_2010_italian.ctt/esta_2010_italian.pdf

Oh, I'm so sorry. I wasn't trying to undermine your letter. Frankly, I liked your letter much better than ours. When I mentioned that we got our approval in four days, my state of mind was that indeed we got lucky despite sending a short mail.

I do hope you understand where I'm coming from. God bless and may you get your approval soon too.

Please don't apologize, no offense taken. The more responses and information the better. Glad you got your NOA2 and I hope the next steps go quickly for you!

I can't argue with a four day turn-around. I think the main thing is just to give them the basic information and introduce yourself a little to explain why they should help you. A lot of the release forms seem to include a space in which you can explain what you are requesting on that page, in which case you could probably even skip the cover letter.

Sorry, changed something in the attached file and can't edit, so re-posting it here.

congressman.doc

The good news is that you should probably hear soon. I wrote my Congressman last week, after the processing time passed the 5 month mark, which at the time was reported as the average processing time. It seems that despite the recent update to Aug. 2, people in mid to late August are getting their approval.

To write your Congressman or Senator, you should first go to his/her website to download the appropriate release form and get the office contact information. You should also call or contact the office first so they are aware of your case and will assign someone from the office to handle your case. You then need to submit the release form, copies of all the materials you submitted to USCIS, and likely a cover letter to your Congressman/Senator. I'll include the cover letter I wrote below, but you'll need to adapt it to your purposes. No promises that it's the best or anything.

Jealous!

I just spoke with a rep from the IRS office in Beijing to clarify the instructions from the 1040. Here are the original instructions (page 12 of 2011 publication of i1040.pdf):

Nonresident Alien Spouse

If your spouse is a nonresident alien, he or she must have either an SSN or an ITIN if:

-You file a joint return,

-You file a separate return and claim an exemption for your spouse, or

-Your spouse is filing a separate return

This suggests that if you are married filing separately AND do not claim your spouse as a dependent AND your spouse will not file a return, then you do not need a ITIN. This is in fact the case. The Beijing Office told me to leave the "Spouse's social security number" box blank, and at line item 3 after "Married filing separately. Enter spouse's SSN above and full name here.->" to write "Foreign Spouse" instead of my spouse's name.

If you're using Turbotax, the 2011 version won't allow you to file electronically without an SSN or ITIN, so I'll file by mail.

Hope this helps some other people, I've been up and down the internet looking for answers on this and everyone seems to have a different one.