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The government wouldn’t have a way of knowing that. USCIS doesn’t physically go to former residences to see who is residing there and there’s no question on the forms asking about who resides in the various properties. Only way USCIS or the consulate would know is if it was proactively disclosed, which it isn’t required to be and shouldn’t be. I agree it would raise questions if the government became aware of it, but there’s really no reason they should. Even in the interview it’d be easy to discuss “we plan on living with his sister until we’re more established.” if the residence question comes up.

Interesting since you wouldn’t expect it because they wouldn’t meet the IR-1 criteria, which is what AOS is based on under the statue. The new love interest plus the current administration makes me skeptical AOS would be allowed here regardless.

This. OP isn’t going to be able to adjust status, which for reasons already spelled out is impossible (the ex does not have the legal right to sponsor as the familial relationship upon which the I-130 was based no longer exists.) They're talking about a way to stay in the U.S. in some form of legal grey area for years while a consular I-130 and any applicable waiver makes its way through the system. A lawyer may be able to help with that, but I don’t see the current administration finding it cute. They don’t like any of the grey area statuses.

What is the consulate? This seems like a really odd request. Normally minor orthography issues aren’t a problem. Especially for people who were born in the 20th century, where so many records were written out with pen and paper and then *maybe* digitized in the early 2000s My usual advice is “just do whatever the government official says rather than prove you’re right”, but this just sounds odd.

Also to put it in context why this isn’t discretionary: discretionary AOS on weight of the equities is a thing. It’s most common usage is for spouses who arrive with immigrant intent. Despite the doom and gloom people have on that topic online, there’s BIA precedent allowing it, and it’s a power USCIS has even if it’s not always exercised. K-1 AOS after divorce is not a case where USCIS can exercise discretion and grant AOS on the weight of the equities. A circuit court of appeals published an opinion on the topic after BIA held that the IJ could not grant AOS. That means BIA cannot change its position as a quasi-judicial Article I administrative tribunal, because an Article III tribunal has now settled the underlying law, and BIA is bound by it. USCIS has even less authority than BIA. What that means is if AOS was granted, it could very well come back to bite you all because it would be USCIS acting unlawfully. They could revoke LPR status when and deport when time comes to remove conditions or naturalize.

There’s no reading between the lines in immigration law. While immigration law is not as black and white as people sometimes make it out online, what areas are discretionary and what areas are not is clearly defined. This is not a discretionary area. Lawyers will take on difficult cases to find alternate solutions, but that alternate solution isn’t going to be adjusting status.

Sounds good. I’d consider including a listing of all exhibits in the first upload and then a table of contents on each file to make it easier for them to follow, but not strictly necessary.

This doesn’t always get it small enough to fit all in one, and I wouldn’t recommend it on items where the image needs to be seen (i.e. passport stamps), but yes. This should help. Combing will be helpful here though. Yes. You can include a table of contents and section breaks. My suggestion would be to have the passport and boarding passes combined in one PDF in order to maintain image quality. Then try to condense the others into one or two files using lower quality images in the save option in order to save space. Also you can follow Edward and Jaycel’s advice above.

Can you combine some of the exhibits into one PDF and stay within the file size limits?

I found that hard to use with my passport because of the fold, so went with the library a block from my house!

I saw this to, but they said CR-1/IR-1 in their post so assumed the profile was a misclick. Useful confirming either way.

Yes. Do exactly as they say.

By case accepted do you mean approved or that you sent it in? Assuming you mean sent it in, current timeline is a median time of around 13 months with upper 90th percentile at around 17 months. API data dumps have cases being approved faster than being filed, so you likely will see that drop to around 10-11 months median over the next year if nothing changes. Things can change though: a year ago the median time was around 17 months with an upper 90th at around 21 months. If you want the widest range of possibilities for how long you’ll be waiting to hear back from USCIS it’s 10-21 months. That captures pretty much every median time of the last 10 years.

This is one of the cases where they can go straight to denial if not initially uploaded. Typically USCIS is fine with uploading additional evidence later or fixing submissions via unsolicited evidence. The one exception is for required initial evidence — which a marriage certificate is.

Right, but my point was six months is coming up. Tickets are usually relatively cheap the December 21-25th internationally (as everyone has already flown.) Might be a good idea to have them make a holiday trip back if they can swing it.

There are a ton of EAD uses, but the ones that the administration is going to care about would be: C08, C10, C11, C14, C18, C19, and C33. They could exempt some of the codes, but from an administrative standpoint it’s easier just to do a blanket rule. The administration has made it fairly clear it doesn’t see much difference between people here in what’d I’d call the grey area statuses — ones where someone asks for a temporary benefit that is not a change in overall immigration status but prevents unlawful presence from accruing — and those here out of status. Most of the people that would fall into the categories I mentioned above would fall into what they broadly (and incorrectly) paint as “illegal immigrants.” And I think there’s pretty strong overall evidence they want people to leave on their own: the president has said on multiple occasions that people should “self-deport” so they can have a chance at coming back. You also have a lot of that type of rhetoric coming out of the surrogates. They’re not going to come out and say “we’re making this harder in hopes people leave and don’t continue seeking benefits within the U.S.” that’d get them sued. From the State standpoint, they’ve also been providing more guidance to embassies and consulates on vetting, while speeding up embassy and consulate IV scheduling times — doesn’t mean an approval, but wait times to go from NVC to a consulate are down from 6 months ago. The clear trend in everything is to push the responsibility for vetting immigrants to State, who are widely viewed as more competent than USCIS by pretty much everyone, so that the vetting can be done overseas rather than while the person is in the US. The approach of doing vetting outside the US only works if the people leave. And of course they don’t like immigrants, but that also doesn’t mean they don’t have a strategy on this or that they’re not trying to build systems that furthers their goals. Stephen Miller is actively involved in regular calls with the State Department officials that lead visa processing in DC. Do we really think the man doesn’t have a coordinated approach to his plans between DHS and State?

CBP has been documented getting pissy after 6 months. Might be worth seeing if they fancy a holiday trip state side.

“Just give the government what they want, even if you’re convinced they’re wrong” is at least 50% of immigration.

Yes, I didn’t say anything that contradicted myself in either post. The policy is designed to encourage people to leave and come back by another means, whether it be by family (most common), refugee petition outside the states, employer, or any of the legion of other visa classes we have. And you were the one focusing on what presidents can and can’t legally do. I certainly don’t agree with the move. I never once said or even hinted at supporting it. I’m just telling you what they’re trying to do — they want people in the various temporary statuses (TPS, DACA, etc.) to leave and come back via a consular route if one exists, rather than stay here and wait out any change in law or adjudicate any change of status. This is one of the many moves that’s been taken to push a consular-based immigration process over a stateside one.

It affects people in the U.S. who have EADs. That tends to be people in temporary protected status programs and a few other administrative grey areas. There’s others, but that’d be the largest class. The administration has been clear on multiple occasions that it much prefers those people to leave and if they want to cone back, seek another status via the network of U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. Its part of a larger trend of trying to discourage people from seeking immigration benefits from within the United States, and a shift to providing more resources to review cases that originate outside the U.S. You see it most clearly in the family visas, yes, but it’s also being seen in the refugee resettlement realignments, this announcement, and a few others.

So he’s not breaking any laws. He’s using executive discretion to essentially discourage use of administrative grey areas. It’s essentially a policy that encourages people to go the consular route, rather than stay here and wait, whether it be for family-based or other immigrant visas. Consular petitions are speeding up at the same time, which for at least some of us is a good thing. Its designed to make life harder for immigrants in general, which I don’t like, but I’m also not really opposed to encouraging the consular route and making it preferable.

Do you have global entry? That usually cuts down on stupid comments from frontline CBP people. The guys in pre-screening who decide for GE if you get sent to secondary or if the frontline guy asks a question are higher ranking/more experienced and won’t see an issue with someone having a career that requires international travel.

It’s fine, we’re here to help, and I get that you’re communicating in a second language, which can be difficult. You need to confirm with your wife that she has in fact refiled taxes after the initial rejection. If she has, you’re fine. If not, have her consult a CPA ASAP. Your joint sponsor should either file their back taxes ASAP or you should find another joint sponsor.

I’ve already told you the answer to your questions but you keep repeating only part of the story. You’ve also repeated this question in multiple places on this and other websites, which doesn’t help as you keep giving partial information, which means people are giving you different answers since they don’t have the full picture. As I said, if she has refiled after the initial rejection she can use the new 1040 and W-2s. If she hasn’t she needs to file and then use that 1040 and W-2s. The form asks if the joint sponsor has filed all three years of income taxes. They need to be exempt from the filing requirement if they didn’t, which it appears your joint sponsor wasn’t.

I’m not sure who we’re talking about anymore, but: 1) identity theft can make taxes take longer to process; so long as your wife has filed taxes you can use her 1040 and W-2s 2) identity theft is not a valid reason to not file taxes. Assuming he had a filing requirement, he needs to file back taxes. If he doesn’t want to do that because he would owe more (not a valid reason, but some people feel that way) I would recommend finding an alternative joint sponsor.