S2N

Agreed with this. My comment was mainly if they wanted to avoid a joint sponsor. Some people do. If that’s not something they care about they can upload it before.

You can try it the lawyer’s way and if it works you don’t need a joint sponsor. To be safe, you can have one lined up. If they think you need one, provide the joint sponsor’s I-864 at the consulate. If the consulate doesn’t ask for one, you can tear it up. Avoiding having an actual joint sponsor is a priority for a lot of people, which is why the lawyer probably advised you the way he did.

They have a difficult situation and a lawyer likely has seen the equivalent or more difficult. They’ll be paying for unbiased advice that has recent experience dealing with the immigration system in difficult cases. Most reputable lawyers offer consultations and many don’t take cases they don’t think they have a decent chance of bringing about a positive outcome. It looks like OP had issues structuring their presentation of the evidence last time — that’s also something a good lawyer can help with. To be honest, I think a lot of trips with the intent of accumulating in-person time together with the goal of accumulating evidence is a waste of money if a lawyer reviews the case and doesn’t think even that would help because of the case history. At that point they should consider other options like the wife moving there or moving to a third-country. Speaking personally, as the USC spouse, I’d prefer to be told there’s zero chance of a positive outcome by a professional who has worked in the field before making either of those choices because of perceived difficulties with the visa. On the overall point, it’s ultimately not our choice how OP and his wife decide to proceed. I think he’s received good advice here, and should be able to weigh it when deciding what they want to do.

That’s not really any of our business to say. I agree with the advice that this will be difficult, but there’s no use in time spent here telling OP that his marriage isn’t real, and to be honest it’s uncharitable at best. They need to spend more time together, and this is going to be difficult. If they want to do it, they should consult professional help. Value judgments on their relationship aren’t helpful.

I don’t disagree with anything anyone else here has said, but I also don’t believe in beating a dead horse. If you guys are committed to this the best steps are: 1) Consult a lawyer 2) Your wife should spend every second of her vacation with you and your family. Third countries are also fine, but in countries where family is prioritized time with family also matters. 3)If she’s not already filing joint taxes, she should start doing this in 2026, even consider amending and getting you an ITIN this year. It’ll be advantageous for her financially and will show some degree of commingling (it’s not necessary, and people on this site downplay it sometimes, but it’s usually listed as evidence you can provide in RFEs and NOIDs. I choose to take the government at its word that it helps.) 4) If you have other joint assets that’s a positive, but don’t do anything that looks manufactured Listed in order of importance. Also I can’t emphasize enough that I agree with others this is a tough case, but I also believe in trying to be solution oriented. If you’re convinced this is a legitimate marriage, great. You have work to do to prove that to the government.

Assuming you’re referencing the regular I-130: typing your name in the box is a valid e-signature for that form. For form I-130A, any required signatures need to be wet signatures. If the spouse is outside the United States at the time of submission their signature is not required.

Agree with the above, but if you’re dead set on restarting now, I’d suggesting talking to a competent immigration attorney. You don’t have a straightforward case.

Correct. This is not work, even by the overly broad standards a lot of people on the internet apply to the word

If you’re really curious you can FOIA the CBP entry/exit records and see what they wrote in their record of the secondary screening. They can black out sensitive parts, but you might be able to gather from the overall narrative what their concern was if there was one.

Agree with pushbrk. Approved I-130s never expire. You just need to pay the visa fee within the first year and log in at least once a year to keep it active. The other recommendation is to send NVC an email once a year after logging in noting that you wish to keep the case open and that the email is a record of contact. You don’t absolutely have to do this part, but it will give you a paper trail in case of any glitches. I’d set a calendar reminder every 6 months and log on just to make sure you don’t accidentally forget.

For clarity on timing on my answer: I’d try to time it so that you have enough time to get your taxes ready and the transcripts generate. Assuming you get all 1099s on 2/15 and you or your tax accountant can do a quick turnaround and get everything filed before 3/15, that’d look like: —12/30: upload everything to NVC —1/31: DQ’d with the asset based form, sent to Madrid. —Between 2/15-3/15: file taxes —2 weeks after taxes accepted: transcripts generate —Day transcripts generate upload new I-864 and new transcripts to CEAC —3/31-4/30: interview in Madrid, bring updated I-864 and transcripts. If needed, you could file 1040-X after the beneficiary moves but it might not be needed here if you originally file MFJ — standard dedication is above the I-864 threshold so if you’re at $31.5k or less there’d be no need to amend for tax reasons. Also for the record, nothing in this post is not legal or tax advice.

@pushbrk has a lot more experience on this than I do, but speaking personally, I’d try for both the assets method and since we’re so close to tax season relatively speaking, stalling at NVC and talking a less aggressive approach to taxes this year. My assumption on the latter is that the actual tax inflows are a lot more than $14k as you couldn’t pay the property taxes, utilities, and condo fees in Miami and also have enough money for food on $14k. If that’s the case it’s absolutely possible to claim less deductions and then amend once the beneficiary is here. Taking the “both/and” approach will give you more security in case you run into pushback on the assets or make a mistake in the preparation of the I-864 that makes the CO question whether the assets qualify. You can then present a case that both is above the income threshold and has assets to make it stronger if it’s just barely above it.

The general rule of thumb with the government is that the people adjudicating these forms have seen a lot of them and can tell the difference between a mistake and an intentional omission.

There’s theoretically more on the way, but as I said in another post on a similar topic… I don’t see much changing. USCIS can only take administrative measures. Like making it 12/20 instead of 6/10 and increasing the pool of questions. Small stuff like that has to go through all the standard red tape, but is relatively straightforward. They really can’t really do much more, and while changing the test is an administrative measure, a full revamp of the naturalization exam would take significant time: they’d have to both remake it and then probably have to go through the rule making process and then deal with inevitable challenges in court. Honestly 12/20 is easier than 6/10 because it gives you more room for errors (i.e. bad luck of the draw is less likely to disqualify you.) My read of the noise the USCIS director is making on the changes he wants to see on this and other issues is that he’s making a lot of noise to signal to those in the West Wing he’s ready for the big leagues when the DHS secretary spot opens up in a year or two.

So quick turnaround. Still, that brings us pretty close to tax filing season. If going through your 2024 taxes you see areas where you were being aggressive on deductions that would bring you above the income threshold for 2025, it might be worth stalling at NVC until November/December and then uploading a new I-864 with the 2025 tax return in February if you want to avoid the ambiguity of the assets. How you want to handle it is your choice and not trying to dissuade you from trying to qualify on assets or with a joint sponsor. Just trying to provide options.

IIRC from another post OP was trying to have the interview in Madrid. Does anyone know how long that usually takes? If the issue on income was being aggressive on business deductions, we’re getting around the timeframe where the 1040 for 2026 might be able to resolve the issue. Being less aggressive with deductions and then doing a 1040-X once immigration is complete might be a path forward that makes the asset question not an issue.

The thing is, as much as USCIS might like to try to be more than this, they’re functionally a paper pushing organization within the immigration system that has limited discretion in what they can actually do on their own. What their director wants has limited actual impact on anything other than the administrative levers he can pull because so much of immigration is decided by other parts of the government. Those can impact the timing and process for people in the system, but there’s little substantial policy impact for the system. Most of USCIS’ functions are ministerial or are collecting information to be provided by them to other agencies that actually have power. In all honesty they’re in need of a total overhaul and it’d make the most sense to transfer them and ICE back to DOJ into a unified immigration agency with direct quasi-judicial oversight by BIA. That way the entire domestic side would be all under one roof and you might have an agency that can tackle stuff in a timely and consistent manner. Don’t get me wrong, I read the transcript of this and wasn’t exactly pleased by it, but I’m skeptical there’s much USCIS can do without congressional intervention. They’re an almost powerless agency outside of being the first line customer service people that we all get frustrated with. There’s only so much their director can do.

Ask USCIS for an expedite. Then contact your senator or member of Congress and explain the situation. If you have a Republican senator or representative those are apparently getting preferential treatment by USCIS legislative affairs now from what I’ve heard through the grapevine. USCIS tracks cases with congressional inquiries in a different system than they track cases without inquiries. It doesn’t guarantee approval, but it does guarantee more scrutiny in a positive sense. Also, yes, check this page for the category that describes you and see if you meet the physical presence test to see if your children are already citizens: link

I wouldn’t upload the remittances personally. Chile’s a very low fraud risk country with a stable economy. Remittances can be a double-edged sword on the fraud factor so no need the put them there when you have plenty of other evidence for a country where the consular officer isn’t likely to ask that many questions once it gets to the Santiago consulate stage. We upload plane tickets for every trip I take down there and his I-94 for every time he enters the U.S. with some photos. We filed taxes jointly so uploaded that as well as some additional estate planning stuff. Does your wife speak English or do you speak Spanish? Might be worth uploading some basic text messages showing you have a way to communicate since Chile has a very low English-speaking level. I uploaded some certifications I had in Spanish as well as a few WhatsApp discussions in Spanish (my husband has extremely basic English so we communicate in Spanish.)

Transcripts from the IRS are preferred, but if you need to send in W-2s the downloadable W-2 transcripts from the IRS reflect what the employer reported to them so should be fine.

It’s worth noting there are some cases where MFS vs. single would create a material underpayment when filing single. As an example the options I had were: Single: $50 refund MFS: $100 owed to the government MFJ: $4000 refund. We went with MFJ since Mr. S2N has an approved ESTA and we travel back and forth. All that to say: if someone files single and they live in a community property state or make more than $100,000 they actually need to amend to MFJ and not just forget to do it since in those cases single could lead to underpayment as MFS has some cases where they need to pay more.

At this stage it’d be too late for the transcripts to change; it’d have to be paper filed plus an ITIN if they want MFJ, so you’re looking February since 1040-X takes even longer than 1040. They’d submit the 1040-X plus W-2s and 1099s. For context, we filed MFJ in person applying for an ITIN on 4/26/25 and the transcripts generated on 8/28/25. Like I said, amendments would take longer.

USCIS isn’t populated by political people. ISOs tend to be clocking in for a job and not much more. Yah: the political appointees might change how they distribute cases or the policies, but they’re constrained people enforcing them don’t tend to care about the why behind any of that. Said another way, taking political feelings out on petitioners or beneficiaries takes more time than most ISOs care to devote. Usually the issues people face with USCIS have more to do with incompetence than politics.

It doesn’t help that the guidance is contradictory as to what to do. An accountant that told you to do either would be right. Some states take a hard stance on this, though. My general view is that there are several ways to file things that are accepted by the IRS but not on the forms as written. All 9s, NRA, declaring 1 as interest income if you have 0 in order to file, etc. those are workarounds that the IRS permits as they don’t materially impact tax, but the standard is to follow the form as written. 99/100, this type of thing doesn’t matter, but we’re dealing with the 1/100 where it might. Rather than argue about the theoretical here, it’s best to look at what would help OP. An MFS filing as NRA wouldn’t help OP for immigration purposes as it doesn’t show joining of finances. It also could hurt them for tax purposes, and they’d need to amend again once their spouse is here to get MFJ. There’s really just no benefit to the MFS status for them at all at this point, and it’d be better just to wait to amend.

It’s an approved workaround, but it’s still a workaround. Like entering 1 in the interest income box if you want to file taxes when you have no income. I linked you to the policy on foreign spouses above. It clearly states it’s required on all returns, even MFS. That’s been the longstanding guidance. Just like the publication you linked to provides a way not to do that if the NRA spouse doesn’t have any tax ID. That makes it a sanctioned workaround. Its unfortunately an area where there’s tension in the IRS’ guidance on what people should do. If OP is being told they can’t just write “NRA” on a return or amendment, that’s in line with what the agency has published. Not taking a hard line on that particular issue would also be in line with what they’ve published. Sometimes it’s easier just to do what the government officials say than argue with them which of their multiple sets of instructions they should be following.