Pleasework89

If the intending immigrant has never lived outside of their country....the certificate of noncriminal activity has to cover their whole life there? From birth to now? It might be a silly question, but we are looking into getting this and they can only issue one going 3 years back. So what do we do? Is this one okay?

Go to the US embassy/consulate website for the country your wife is and look up the requirements to see if you qualify. The basic requirement is that you are a US citizen with 5 years of physical presence in the U.S. I successfully applied for a CRBA (consular report for birth abroad) for my child. DS-2029 is the name of the application and can be downloaded from the consulate/embassy or state department website. I also included it so you can see what you need. You should definitely email them too because certain places have extra requirements. Good luck! ds2029.PDF

Okay so I am at the NVC stage and I am living abroad with my spouse. I am planning on submitting a lot of stuff to prove I maintained domicile in the US while abroad and if that doesn't work, a detailed plan of reestablishing domicile but I have an issue with my name on certain documents. I have two last names and my passport and California Driver's license has both my last names on them....but my US bank and credit cards have only one last name....I called to see if it can be fixed but they need me to go to the 🇺🇲 to fix it. I can't leave until my spouse comes with me. It's not a plausible plan. Will they take an affidavit stating my usage of those names? Will it even be an issue? When I filed for the I-130, I wrote those names as other names used. Thanks for any helpful feedback. Hopefully someone here has a similar experience to mine.

It all depends on how lucky you are to be honest. I have heard different answers from different people. I applied for an expedite in October 2022 and got the response Feb 2, 2023. It was granted... and when I researched online some people with expedite didn't really get their case looked at right away. So I wasn't really expecting to hear anything soon. HOWEVER, in my case, I received a decision the day after. So just check on your case from time to time. Good Luck!

For the assets I mentioned I meant, our money in the foreign bank. We understand that foreign income doesn't count since it will not continue. I am talking about money we have saved over the years.

Okay...thank you. I am just a little lost here. We never intended to do it to avoid reporting it. We just thought since we have a LONG wait ahead of us we can afford to send it to the U.S. bank account. Also to reestablish residence on my part. Showing how we are moving our assets stateside. But with the recent headlines we think we might need to send a big transfer before...in case I am forced to leave if worse case scenario happens. Thank you again for your reply.

So I screwed myself over on that one? The reason I mentioned that we are transferring under the limit was not that we are doing it INTENTIONALLY... I was just responding to the people who mentioned that after 10k it is reported. The amount we were sending monthly was basically what our projected monthly income would be once we move and find a job in the US. Like I mentioned, we want to buy a house and because of our zero US income, I read somewhere online that if you do not have a US income, you might be able to qualify based on your bank statement deposits. The only reason I ever mentioned red flags is not on the US side but on my spouses country because of the situation going on here. Thank you for your reply. I am going to have to talk to my spouse and figure out what we will do. This is so tricky here. Traveling to and from here to USA is already restricted and if it gets worse, we don't know what will happen. All our money is here. We do NOT want to do anything illegal so thank you for letting me know.

Really???? I didn't know that. It's our money. We just thought since we have a long wait we might as well start transferring little by little. So we have money here and there. This might have been a really bad idea? But I was hoping to use these monthly deposits for a mortgage application when we arrive since we will have zero US income. So we should stop monthly deposits? We are not doing it maliciously....we sent WAY below the limit....no where near 9,999 (I know about the 10,000 that needs to be reported). Thanks for your reply.

Hello and thanks for taking the time to read this post. So I (US Citizen) am living with my spouse in their home country. We are trying to move our foreign money from here to USA but with the CNY to USD exchange rate getting crappier and crappier we don't know what to do. We originally planned on moving money monthly because we were afraid of setting red flags and getting our money frozen...things have gotten worse here. We are still at the USCIS stage so we can't move all of our money. The USD to CNY is now at 7.3....when we started moving money the exchange rate was 6.3. My spouse wants to send a one time big transfer (the max amount allowed per year) right now before the USD to CNY gets even worse. My question to all you money and financial savvy people is...should we do it? What are your predictions on the future of USD and CNY currencies? Also another question here....sort of random but can we just convert the cny to euro as the problem is the usd to cny exchange rate? We would send the money to my PayPal account in euros and wait for the usd to lose value? Is that a possibility? Thanks again for reading and I hope to get some opinions on this topic.

As a spouse, you should be able to have a visa to visit her. Family and business travel is allowed. I have just renewed my family reunion visa. You should apply for it in the states, it doesn't hurt to try? Also make sure to have multiple ways to contact her. A couple a weeks ago I had a hard time getting on my usual form of communication and was unable to contact my family in the U.S. Good luck!

What are your reasons for not being able to live together? Why are future visits to her home country not possible?

Also, if for any reason you do end up doing it a year after make sure to document her growth with pictures. I applied 4 months after my child was born and I brought photos of my child's growth. The embassy worker asked, looked and kept them.

I applied this year and so mine says 6 months for estimated time...but I think that feature is useless. My dad applied for his I-90 to renew his green card and he had something similar...there was a countdown sort of thing that said "your next milestone: receive your case decision" and before that it would give a week by week countdown...the "receive your decision" has been there for MONTHS...so I don't really know what the purpose of this is.

Hey, so what you should do is go to the US embassy or consulate website and look up the country's specific CRBA requirements. The application is the same, but some countries require more supporting information. For instance, for me, they had me include pictures of not only me during my pregnancy but my child even though I registered her when she was a few months old. You mentioned that you are a naturalized citizen, where you one BEFORE baby was born? If you are applying in Frankfurt, Mexico City, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, or Toronto, you may be eligible to apply for your child’s CRBA online. They need your child's original birth certificate just to see an official record of you and your spouse listed as the child's parents. If you are married to the child's other parent, submit your marriage certificate and your divorce papers from previous partners. (You know, so they know that your current marriage is legal and your aren't committing bigamy)

Do you have to be fully vaccinated to transit through Canada to the U.S.? The layover is about 2-3 hours...same day flight. I got a really bad reaction to the first vaccine a while back and never got the second shot. Also, with the immigrant visa on their passport, does my spouse still need to get a transit visa on their passport? They come from a country that requires a visa to enter Canada...but I read somewhere that if they have a u.s. immigrant visa, they don't need a transit visa from Canada. We are traveling with our pet and Air Canada is one of the few airlines that allow us to have our dog with us in cabin...and as a result, most of the flight plans include connecting flight in Canada.

If your English is fluent and not basic, you don't need to worry about the vocabulary list. The interview is done in English. As long as you can understand and answer the questions, you have nothing to worry about. For me, at least, it was almost like a conversation with a stranger. After they asked me all the questions they had, they gave me a piece of paper which had the written portion of the civics test (about 10 questions from the us test). As soon as he saw that I answered enough of the questions correctly he told me to stop writing my answers and approved my petition. The vocabulary list they give you to download in pdf format on the uscis website is more of a guideline for people who's English is basic. My mom was one of those people who had to memorize those words so that when she had to pass the English part of the interview she could form English sentences. My mother understands English a lot better than she can speak it.

I don't know if you will...but I am sending you my best wishes. It might not be granted. I applied for an extreme hardship expedite request because I live here with my spouse and our USC kid. When the reports about parents being separated from their kids came out and people being denied entry to hospital or purchase of medications....we feared for our safety. My family reunion visa was also expiring...the travel ban and reports of green cards/passports cutting and...just all the hysteria going on... The tensions between these two countries are not cooling but getting hotter. Making an expedite request can't hurt to try? Would you ever consider getting married online? Do you know if he could get a Q visa as your spouse with that marriage certificate?

The CRBA is about $100 and can only be attained before the child turns 18. Afterwards, if the child wants proof of US citizenship it would be the n600. The CRBA is through the state department and you don't have to wait a year or more to get it. The N600 is $1170 and through USCIS with a processing time of over a year. These are proof of US citizenship that do NOT expire. A lot of people prefer to just apply for a U.S passport for their kids and have that as proof of U.S. citizenship because it is cheaper but the passport needs to be renewed. You can apply for a ssn with a U.S. passport. Your 16 year old must apply in person at a social security office.

Your wife, if approved, can change her name to WHATEVER she wants....one of my mom's friend changed her first name to Cookie. My mother also changed her name..just shortened her first name and dropped one of her last names. They don't ask you for any justification for changing your name. When you receive the certificate of naturalization, if you changed your name, behind the certificate is the official name change.

If you read the instructions of the passport application it says that you can use your certificate of naturalization as both proof of US citizenship and ID...but there was a fellow visa journey member who was asked for another form of ID. I only provided my certificate and it worked out for me.

You ONLY file I-824 if the I-130 is approved AND needed for consular processing. So you should make your choice for consular processing BEFORE the I-130 is approved. Wait time for I-824 is a long time and expensive too. Let them know that you are doing consular processing and write down the consulate or embassy your sister will go to for her immigration visa interview when the time comes.

Once you take a picture and you go to your photo gallery select the picture and choose the print option. Once there, you change the printer option to SAVE AS PDF.

You applied for N400 (naturalization) and you were approved. You became a U.S. citizen, congratulations! As a naturalized US citizen, your children are now US citizens. If you ever want to get them a certificate for proof of US citizenship, you will need to apply for a N600 NOT N400. You are right with the hefty fee for the n600. It is expensive but a cheaper alternative is the U.S. passport. The reason to get an N600 for their kids after the parents naturalized is because just like the certificate of naturalization, the certificate of citizenship does NOT expire. US Passport for minors (under 16 years old) are valid for only 5 years. Just making sure that if you ever want to apply for citizenship proof for your child, you will apply for n600 for them, not n400. Again, congratulations!!

Congratulations!! If you don't mind me asking what additional evidence did you submit for domicile? I am in a similar situation but in a different country. I have driver's license, us bank/credit card accounts for proof of domicile.

If you want to, you could apply for your child's N600 which is the certificate of citizenship. But, with the uscis backlog, you could be waiting for a while to receive it. You CAN apply for your child's US passport if you have the documents listed on the passport application. You do not need the certificate of citizenship.