JakeChi

Hello @Afgacolor. Do you have any updates on this worked out for you? My wife and I are approaching the NVC stage now, and we're also going to need a Georgian Police report.

12 hours ago, Mike E said:

The law does not waive financial responsibility of the petitioner. So since responsibility is not waived, there has to be a theoretical way to enforce it. 
 

So what you are really asking is why the law requires the petitioner to be a sponsor if there is a joint sponsor?
 

I surmise that law was written that way to

 

* maximize the number of throats the executive branch could choke in the event the beneficiary used public charge. 

 

* reduce the inflow of marginal or fraudulent immigration cases: cases where the immigrant was unlikely to succeed. So for example, someone — whose American spouse is not living in U.S. — is either not likely to succeed or is in a marriage of convenience.

Thank you so much for this explanation. Understanding what the "concerns" are really helps me understand what we'll need to do to assuage them.

1 hour ago, milimelo said:

1. So people don't turn around and use green card as a tourist visa. 

2. Totally normal. Not a contradiction. Rule is that the USC petitioner must be in the US or come to the US when the immigrant comes. 

1. Is that something people would actually try and do? Apply for a green card just to let them visit the US more easily without having to apply for a tourist visa on each visit? Why would the government even worry about that - wouldn't those people just have their green card revoked eventually because they stayed outside too long anyway?
2. I understand that's normal in the sense that "it's the rule", but imho there's still a logical contradiction here.

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

The reason is that if the financial sponsor is not domiciled in the U.S. at the time the immigration visa holder enters the U.S., then the U.S. government cannot enforce the terms of I-864. So new immigrants would be free to illegally enjoy public charge, and the government would have no recourse. This would have a material impact on the federal budget. 

This explanation makes sense - but if that's really the case, I wonder why they would still insist on domicile for the primary petitioner in cases where they have a US-based joint financial sponsor? That joint sponsor already has to prove domicile, meaning that the government already has recourse... even in the hypothetical situation where the petitioning spouse would choose to flee to some other country after their immigrating spouse became a public charge.

My wife (a citizen of Uzbekistan) and I are getting ready to submit our I-130 soon, and as I've been looking into what comes next I learned about the "domicile" requirement that comes into play during the NVC/I-864 stage. I've read a lot of threads on VJ about how people have approached the issue of proving domicile or intent to re-establish domicile, but I still haven't been able to figure out the underlying reasoning behind this requirement.

1. Why is the US Government SO concerned about situations where the US citizen might not have domicile in the US? If a married couple is going through the trouble of submitting a spousal visa application, isn't it kind of obvious that that they want to live together in the US once the visa gets approved? Doesn't all of the proof that goes into the I-130 already demonstrate the couple is in a bona fide marriage?

2. A common suggestion often proposed on the forums here is that the US citizen move to the US several months before their spouse. Doesn't that kind of separation actually call into question the legitimacy of the marriage? Especially if the US citizen currently has the means to cohabitate with their foreign spouse in another country? That is to say, on the one hand couples are expected to provide a lot of proof of being in a real marriage and having spent time together, and then on the other hand they're expected to physically separate for some unknown period of time? I'm sensing some kind of fundamental contradiction here.

For context - I've been living abroad with my partner for the last few years, and we would prefer to not have to be geographically separated for more than a few weeks at a time. In terms of assets and income we're fine for meeting the financial requirements for immigration. Because of all that I prefer not to make overly-binding plans regarding our move back to the US before she actually receives her visa (e.g. signing leases or job offers). Right now I'm just asking these questions so as to better understand the underlying logic of this whole domicile thing, so that we can roughly plan where we need to be in life once the I-130 gets approved.

On 4/20/2023 at 4:55 PM, Misscloud said:

@JakeChi u can check here : https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Visa-Reciprocity-and-Civil-Documents-by-Country/Kazakhstan.html 

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Visa-Reciprocity-and-Civil-Documents-by-Country/Uzbekistan.html

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Visa-Reciprocity-and-Civil-Documents-by-Country/Georgia.html

 

scroll down to marriage certificate. they put in detail which marriage certificate is consider valid by their country. im not sure which country u want to apply the spouse visa so please click the right country if the link that i gave u are wrong

 

u have to make sure that the marriage is valid and legal in the eye of the country that u are going to get married to, make sure that 2 foreigner can legally marry over there. does ur future spouse is resident of georgia ? or both of u just fly to get married there but none of u live there.

Yes, Georgia allows any two foreigners to get married in the country (though they don't allow same-sex marriage.) They don't need to have residency here, they just both have to be in the country on a legal basis. A regular tourist visa or even just an entry stamp in the passport (for people who come from countries with visa-free entry privileges) are sufficient proof of being in the country legally.

21 hours ago, powerpuff said:

It’s a personal choice, I’d say 5 (?) should be sufficient. Various institutions here (banks, DMV) ask to present an original at an appointment, after which they give it back to you. Even when I submitted documents for my adjustment of status to USCIS, I only submitted a photocopy. When I went to the interview with my husband, the IO asked for an original after which it was given back to me at the end of the interview. The only place I had to give away my original certified copy was when I had to renew my passport at the embassy of my country in the US and wanted to change my last name.
 

Have you considered Utah Zoom marriage? Many, many members here have used that option. That way you will have access to certified copies any time at a lower cost and you don’t ever have to be worried about translating it since it’s an official US marriage certificate.
 

 

Thanks for the detailed reply! Yes we thought about the Utah marriage at first, but after consulting with a couple of immigration lawyers none of them seemed too enthused about the idea and they said they didn't have much firsthand experience with it because of how new it is. We're probably going to get married in Georgia in any case (we're already in the region and have made plans around that) but I'm just curious for future reference - do you know people who already went through the entire CR-1 process and arrived in the US successfully off the basis of a Utah Zoom marriage? Also, does Kazakhstan recognize the Utah Zoom marriage? From our cursory check it seemed like Uzbekistan might not recognize it as valid, and so we thought that might create difficulties for me/us obtaining visas to visit family in Uzbekistan in the future.

I'm a US citizen getting married soon in the country Georgia with my fiancé who is a citizen of Uzbekistan. We plan to start the CR-1 application process shortly after that, and I wanted to know how many copies of the marriage certificate you would recommend we request from the Georgian Public Service Hall? A single translated copy with an apostille costs around $50, and each additional certified copy costs another $10. We'll be leaving Georgia after the wedding, so we don't want to have to come back here just for the purpose of issuing additional copies in the future.

More context: I'm still learning about the CR-1 process but I know there are a lot of stages (USCIS, NVC, Embassy Interview) and I imagine that once we arrive in the United States we might be asked to present marriage certificates for various other bureaucratic purposes too (bank accounts, insurance, etc.) I just don't know if the tendency among the authorities in the US is to take the original certified copy and keep it for themselves, if they usually return it after verifying it's authenticity, or if they typically just accept photocopies.