Thanks so much for everyone's reply. You are right about there is more to the story. As the consular office outrightly refused to divulge any more details about why they revoked my wife's already-issued visa, I began to intensely question my wife about that what had happened during these interviews. On August 9, when my wife had the IV interview at US consulate office in Phnom Penh, no questions were asked at all. She was just told to come back on August 19 to pick up the IR1 visa. When August 17 rolled around, my 15- yr old step-daughter whom I adopted as my own through the Cambodian court, had her IV interview. She was accompanied by her mother, my wife. The mother answered all of the questions posed by the consular officer. They questioned her repeatedly about her previous relationship with my daughter's biological father. She had copies of the court adoption papers to back up her answers. But the originals court adoption papers were not with her at the time. My wife told them, she never had a marriage certificate with my daughter's biological father. But the biological father did sign away custodial rights to the daughter in the presence of court officer. They ended up refusing my daughter's visa application on the ground of being a public charge since 2/3 of my income as petitioner is coming from social security. I have more than 10 years of federal service with DoD but later retired on disability. Only 1/3 of my income is pension, but its not enough to support a family of 4 per US Federal Poverty Guidelines. I did have a joint sponsor, and together we more than doubled the required income to support a household of 4. But the consular officer dismissed their gross income listed in the Affidavit of Support I-864 entirely. They also dismissed the bank account balance and the real estate holding we have in Cambodia that I also listed in the I-864.
The issue with my step daughter's failing the iV interview can be rectified by directly applying for her US citizenship since I already adopted her since she was 12 years old. The consular officer also questioned my wife about my actual residence, and she answered truthfully that I sometimes travelled and stayed in Cambodia to visit her and our 7-year old son (already a US citizen) who is our biological child together. They also questioned whether I currently own a house in Levelland, Texas where I currently take up residence, and she told them the truth that I rent and live together with a friend/former co-worker. Since they never released the actual reason why they revoked my wife IR1 visa on September 6, 2022, I have to speculate that the consular officer suspected on several points. First, like I stated earlier, since 2/3 of my take-home income is coming from SSA and that I dont own a house in the US at this time, my daughter will likely become a public charge, as was officially given as the reason. Second, since they approved the IR1 visa without a single question asked, and based entirely on documents submitted on the NVC CEAC website, then the only information they used to revoked my wife's IR1 visa was given to the consular officer was on August 17 during my daughter's IV interview. I suspect they still linger on my wife's previous relationship as not finalized even though she had the copies of the court adoption papers on hands to present to them. The fact that I have a relatively good income and still not own a home in the United States, with no other tangible assets (like US-based real estate or stock shares), and/or that I stayed a few months out of the year in Cambodia could be factor(s) in the negative decision as well. In the revocation letter to my wife, they stated there is no appeal for the decision, and they also suggested that we can apply for another US visa at any time. I would like to hear some suggestions in this forum as to what step should we take next? Should I as the petitioner file another I-130 right away to be followed by I-129F for a K3 visa or a shorter route like a B1/B2 visa? If there is a better suggestion out there, it would be greatly appreciated and followed through.
