No name 88

I thought leaving the country with an AOS and AP filed was abandonment of the AOS and you couldn't return. Is that wrong?

This week my wife is going for the B2 interview at HCMC. The consulate web site says no extra people at the interview but I'm going with her with our baby. Does anyone no if the baby and I will have to wait outside or will they just let us in at this consulate.

Don't responded telling I'll get denied. That's not what I asked. It's only a $160 and I don't see the harm in trying. I got a new baby and the family in the US doesn't believe that the CR1/IR1 takes a year. At least a denial will keep the family in the US quiet for a while.

You can take as much additional evidence as you like beyond what they ask for but don't be surprised if all they ask to see is a half dozen photos. They've already decided if your approved or not when you walk in the door. They place more emphasis on the interview and the photos than anything else. You can practice your interview questions but you can usually tell if people are a real couple or pretending to be a real couple with just a few simple questions in 5 minutes.

This was my experience last month when I did a CRBA. It maybe different at the non citizens section. I'm trying for a tourist visa for the wife next week in Saigon. I'll let you know how it turns out.

If your daughter was born out of wed lock you may want to wait until you are there. Odds are good that without both parents present in this case you will be denied. There is only one interview. If your not approved you have to start over. Or if they request a DNA test you'll have to travel down there anyway.

If you want to proceed a notarized copy done in the US should be fine. You can just send your passport with fedex or dhl. They ship passports all the time.

They are looking for the dates that you were inside the US to build up 5 years physical presents. They don't care about your travel after the baby was born.

Were you married? If you were married when the baby was born you don't need the affidavit. I filled one out for my kid as the website says to fill out all forms and the embassy just shredded when they got it. Wasn't necessary.

If your from England that maybe difficult to understand. My wife was a refugee during the third Indochina war when she was a child and seen real hardship. When our relationship became serious there was never a doubt that she didn't want citizenship in the US.

Also we want to travel together as I'm a foreign worker. Try traveling on a Vietnam passport and see how far you get.

If you have a Western passport travel problems with immigration or police rarely occurs.

First off you went to a post office asking about a passport and your not naturalized yet. They told you a line to get rid of you. You don't need a driver's licensee to get a passport. You do however need to present identification to the post master. The one they always asked for is a DL because it's the most common, it's a photo ID and a post office worker knows what it looks like. After being naturalized you can use the naturalization certificate and your current national passport for photo identification. Or you can just go to the local motor vehicle office and get issued a state identification card which is a Driver license card that says identification only not valid for motor vehicle operation. At least that's what it says in my state.

Second not all post offices accept passport applications or do the passport photo's. You can look at the USPS web site at the link below to find out which passport office to go to. Again they won't even want to talk to you until you have a naturalization certificate.

https://www.usps.com/shop/apply-for-a-passport.htm

Just got transferred.

My real PD is 8/15. Originally I put 8/19 but this was the day I got the hard copy of the NOA1.

What do you mean? If you don't have your 2013 return done yet just submit your 2012 return and the 2011,2010 tax transcripts. When you go for the interview also bring your 2013 return which should be complete by then.

This is very common and can be easily explained to the CO if asked. Most people understand that chain restaurants are under a franchise. Some employers will refuse to give any letter stating anything on the behalf of the employee as a matter of policy. They don't want any legal connection that many come of it.

Personally my employment contract has one company name, W-2 has a different company name and pay stubs have yet another company name. Your fine.

Sorry; I tried to post the marginal tax rates for 2013 on my last post but they didn't copy correctly. But the link works.

Also every time this comes up some one throws out the term perjury. I suggest looking up the legal definition of perjury and the legal definition of fraud.

I've tried to give advice on this before as I have 2 accountants in the family but the bottom line is there is not exactly a "correct" filing status in immigration situations. It depend's on what your personnel financial situation is at the end of the year and that you payed your due tax obligation regardless of status.

If your taxable income was $25,000 for 2013 and your foreign spouse had no income you would pay 15% tax no matter what status you filed. The IRS gets the correct tax money that is due to them so they won't care about your status; it wouldn't even trigger a red flag.

My own personnel situation I'll be in the same bracket as single or married filing jointly. My wife is still overseas and has no income as she is a homemaker. I looked at getting an ITIN but that seemed more trouble than it's worth for my situation. This year I've decided to file as single status as it wouldn't matter for tax purposes and it simplifies my return filing for the 2013 tax year. My accountant family members told me I could do this as well as my over paid expat accountant. In the end make your own decision on how you wish to file your taxes; if you feel the need to get an ITIN for a lower tax bracket do it. In my case it doesn't matter. To just say married is married and that's it is ill informed. There must be a lot of stupid accountants because I've seen at least a dozen posts from other VJ members that were told to file single while married.

For those of you that will angrily reply that I'm wrong and doing it the "incorrect" way I don't care as I've made my choice so I won't respond; to each his own and good luck in your case. If the IRS gives me a problem at a later date I'll file an amended return. If I go 3 years without any issues from the IRS it's a non issue.

As far as what the USCIS and Consulates have to say about your filing status it's been posted on here many times that they don't care what your filing status is and are only using this information to see your above 125% poverty level.

Marginal Tax Rate^[13][14][15] Single Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow(er) Married Filing Separately Head of Household 10% $0 – $8,925 $0 – $17,850 $0 – $8,925 $0 – $12,750 15% $8,926 – $36,250 $17,851 – $72,500 $8,926 – $36,250 $12,751 – $48,600 25% $36,251 – $87,850 $72,501 – $146,400 $36,251 – $73,200 $48,601 – $125,450 28% $87,851 – $183,250 $146,401 – $223,050 $73,201 – $111,525 $125,451 – $203,150 33% $183,251 – $398,350 $223,051 – $398,350 $111,526 – $199,175 $203,151 – $398,350 35% $398,351 – $400,000 $398,351 – $450,000 $199,176 – $225,000 $398,351 – $425,000 39.6% $400,001+ $450,001+ $225,001+ $425,001+

No you don't have to petition for your daughter. But she does get counted for household size.

You need to wait for the letter issued from the consulate for the medical reviewer. It will have instructions of were and when to go. This is after the NVC stage. You can get the vaccinations up to date so they don't have to get them all in one day.

What the hell! Why was there a bunch of I-130 petitions from November and December approved yesterday in Texas and Nebraska. The time waiting wouldn't even bother me if the applications were processed in the order they were received.

Thanks for the help people but I've figured out my solution with a little collaborative brain storming. On a side note I don't need a lawyer to file paperwork.

Thanks guys I think I got my answer.

Student Visa?

That hadn't even occurred to me to look at. I'll check it out but I always assumed that was for college age students.

Todd,

I understand the situation in VN and I also understand the legal issues with trying to bring your niece here to the US. I don't have many good suggestions for you, other than maybe thinking about finding a Buddhist pagoda where she could live and go to school in the event your wife's parents are not able to take care of her.

Good luck...I know it is not easy.

I didn't think of that. If needed I could relocate to VN for a while. I kinda like Saigon.

Too often girls in my wife's niece's position end up being trafficked. I couldn't live with myself if that occurred. If you know the region you know what I'm talking about. It never "officially" happens but I keep hearing the stories. I didn't put much stock into it until the wife's neighbor had their now pregnant 14 year old daughter returned to them by an NGO. The girl went missing when she was 6 years old while the mother was in the hospital and the father was returning from a work assignment. The missing girl had been in a Cambodian brothel since 2 weeks after she disappeared and reportedly had given birth several times since she was 10 years old. They now know the girl was sold by a relative who's now dead so no justice there and the family won't even acknowledge she went missing. The wife gets really spun up on stories like these but I don't blame her.

As the child is an orphan your path is easier than for people trying to sneak relatives in around the law. However it seems there is some issue with adopting there at the moment . See here http://www.uscis.gov/adoption/country-information/adoption-information-vietnam Hopefully it si tempory

That complicates things. It sounds like if needed the wife will have to adopter her.

I have searched high and low and simply cannot find the definitive 100% correct answers to these questions regarding DS-11 (application for U.S. passport):

#7 Primary Contact Phone Number:

It's a 7 month old child. The phone number to get in contact with his mother is a filipino phone number, yet there is no where on the form to indicate the country of the phone number. Should I put my U.S. phone number, even though me, the wife, and the baby are in the Philippines?

#8: Mailing Address: #17 Permanent Address:

It's a newborn child. Do I put my address in the U.S., or do I put the address where we are living in the Philippines? In the event of putting the mailing address of the child in the Philippines, the boxes are for a US address and I can't put the Philippine address in there, it's not possible. For example, the state. But where it says country, it mentions "if outside the US". It mentions a mailing address and a permanent address. What do I do? Scrunch the values in as best as possible? Provide the information on a separate sheet? Or just use the US information, even though the baby hasn't left the Philippines yet. I simply cannot find any official documentation on this whatsoever.

If you DO know where I can find the exact answers to the above questions in cold hard official print, please point them out to me and I'll eat my words. Otherwise, I'm looking for suggestions as to which values I should use, what I should leave blank, etc. based on your experiences with this.

Thank you very much

If your primary phone # is a filipino # put that. Just include the country code.

You can't fit the address in the PDF copy? Leave it blank, print it and hand write it in. That's what I did.

Agreed. Hand Philippines both; they have some strange specific rules on this. When entering the US just give them the US book unless asked.

I got sent to a room at Newark years ago for 4 hours because I mixed my 2 US passports in with 6 merchant seamans document books which look exactly like national passport books. When I took the stack out of my bag still standing in line a CPB agent saw I had what looked like 8 different passports and pulled me out of line. After 4 hours in the penalty box they finally got to me and cleared me in 2 minutes. I learned to only show them what is required for them too see. Nothing more.

You would only owe more taxes for mfs if you were in some of the highest tax brackets. Most people on the board seem to have trouble meeting the poverty guidelines. You do have 3 years to amend taxes filed mfs or single (only 6 months for mfj) but if the CO looks at your tax transcripts and sees the you are filing as single when you're married, that can throw up a red flag that your spouse may have a hard time answering. In essense, why are you trying to hide your marriage from the IRS? Im not saying that will happen, just that it could. With a high fraud embassy it's certainly something to think about!

Wrong. You have 3 years to file an amended return from the April 15 or the date you filed; which ever is later. This includes MFJ. I says it right on the instructions of the 1040X for filing an amended return. What you can't do is change status from MFJ to MFS. At least in Saigon the CO doesn't care what you checked for status; I asked. They only use it to establish that you have funds to support the beneficiary. Maybe this is different in other embassy's.

We have people here that can tell how to get your spouse and former North Korean spy into the US as a citizen but no one has a clear answer on tax law. My point is there is no correct way to file as long as you get a return filed on time or at least within the extension time.

Remember that the IRS can usually only audit three previous years of filings. If you didn't file returns for 10 years and then filed all 10 returns at the same time they can audit all 10 years worth of returns for three years. Get your return filed. Even if you screw up and don't get audited in three years it won't matter.

I had the same problem, I told my husband I cant send my national id card or passport somewhere for 2 months, I am required by my country law to have it on me all the time. And I didn't live in my country anymore so I didnt really have chance to get certified copies. So my husband got extended dead line to submit taxes, but when I came in states in September we got wrong information and didn't file taxes 2012 because of it, and now uscis giving us hard times about it, even tho we explained everything. When we went through NVC and explained it they had no issue and approved I-864. I wish I would have sent my national ID card to obtain ITIN number and have taxes done. So if I can give you advice try to get ITIN number for your husband. We spoke with IRS and they should be certified in February that they will certify the passport in their office and you don't need to send it anywhere. Same HR block is supposed to be certify to process ITIT number soon. Good luck

Of course if you don't file a tax return for a tax year you'll have a problem. The biggest issue with tax returns that you can have is not filing one. If you file one and screw it up it can be fixed.

I remember reading this recently in another forum. Your using the electronic copy? There are different PDF copies that have the phone number blanks unlocked to put as many numbers as you want. You could try searching for one of these. Or you can leave it blank, print it and write it in by hand. You are allowed to fill out the form by hand.

I did this with the wife's application because her address wouldn't fit in the box provided.