S2N

Not disclosing something that you honestly do not think is work is not willful misrepresentation. There’s a fine line between overdisclosure and being completely honest to all questions asked. Overdisclosure can also cause headaches. It’s not clear if someone who is a YouTuber uploading a video they then get income from would be considered work by the government. If it’s disclosed as work when it’s not, that can trigger further levels of review, questions, and delays in the process. If OP has a lawyer it’d also be a decent thing to get their advice on if they need the money from new content as advice of counsel can generally be relied on in matters like this if an issue comes up later.

Agreed. It’s a risk tolerance question for a grey area of the law. For AOS I think it matters a lot less practically than for IR-1/CR-1, since everything is forgiven. IR-1/CR-1 it matters a lot more how the government official interprets uploading videos to a streaming platform for cash.

It also doesn’t really matter either way in the AOS situation as AOS would cure it. That’s not advocating for a violation of the law in violation of the TOS, just pointing out that under AOS the distinction matters a lot less. I don’t think the government interpretation of the law on the question of what constitutes work is as set as a lot of the immigration internet seems to think. Otherwise influencers would be facing a ban for uploading videos at Disney they make money on while here under VWP. I haven’t really seen that strict interpretation anywhere other than here or Reddit, and even in cases where the ban does matter (consular I-130), my gut is that it would depend on the CO adjudicating, but in most cases it wouldn’t be interpreted that way by the government. I personally wouldn’t do it in that case because I’m risk adverse, but I could also see a lawyer advising a client not to disclose it as work to the government. Like I said, I don’t think there’s a settled interpretation of this by the government, which is why so many people aren’t sure about what counts.

Sweden isn’t the only country where getting the correct legal document or process can be a headache. One of the benefits of the U.S. is the process is usually very straightforward. Why it’s worth looking up the process in both countries before making any decisions, imo.

I think we sometimes have a tendency on these forums to read bad intent where there is none. I get why a lot of the veterans read it that way, but there are plenty of reasons one could phrase it that way. I know a guy with a foreign husband who has an active clearance. In those circumstances saying “the goal is eventually to obtain citizenship” would be what the government wants to hear 😂 That’s a bit of an extreme case, but you get my point. Many people in relationships do immigrate with the intent of getting citizenship because the citizenship will be useful later. In our case it’s one of the goals because it’ll eventually allow the sponsorship of my husband’s mother, which will help us in establishing a family here. There’s nothing suspicious about entering the process knowing the desired outcome. OP — something to look into is what the paperwork is like in Australia for marriages; we did ours here on ESTA because in Chile there’s a three week mandatory waiting period after applying for a marriage license together, and I didn’t have the time to camp out in South America for 3 weeks. Australia won’t have the problem of not being in English and needing a translation, but there might be other regulatory things that you’d need to consider when choosing the venue.

My read of this response to that question from the IRS is only if resident or adopted. If adopted, I would confirm with your tax advisor first.

I’ve always seen AOS used as Adjustment of Status and never Affidavit of Support, which is why the comment you made was confusing. I-864/Affidavit of Support is obviously applicable here as well.

They’re doing CR-1/IR-1. AOS isn’t applicable. Have to list it on an I-130 for consular processing as well, though.

If possible work on getting a certified copy of her passport so you can file taxes jointly with an ITIN. It’ll save you money and is evidence of commingling.

Have you met in person yet?

Usually they process them fairly quickly, but like others have said, it depends on the circumstances. I would have advised against the money transfers, but that’s done now and the other items are useful.

The odds of a B2 visa being granted to someone with a recent I-130 petition on file are effectively zero. You are of course free to withdraw the I-130. I would still expect the B-2 visa to be denied. Neither of you have strong ties to NZ it seems like, and you’d need very strong ties to overcome a recent immigrant visa filing.

They’ve slowed down a bit with the shutdown (they’re still processing, but went from ~4500/day to ~3500/day) January was tracking to have first approvals around the end of December. Now it’d probably see first approvals around end of January/beginning of February as a best guess.

Put down the month and year you started at the most recent educational institution if the reason for your unemployment was that you’re a student.

We’re agreeing. I was providing extra comments that from a government-wide level, a lot of people view K-1 with suspicion. Being from a country that already has increased risk of fraud doesn’t help that.

There’s an assumption and/or prejudice by some in the immigration/state department world that even K-1s from low fraud countries are fraudulent. India and Pakistan are not low fraud countries. Draw what conclusions you want from those facts. I suspect at some point in the next three years K-1 will likely see significant changes. It’s viewed with suspicion by left, right, and center and the Utah marriages have more or less rendered it redundant at this point.

You’re confusing the “account transcript” and the “record of account transcript”. The nearly identically named documents are both different and poorly named as they’re easily confused. The “Record of Account Transcript” (what I suggested) contains both the “Tax Return Transcript” and the “Account Transcript” in one PDF. It is the most complete transcript you can get from the IRS and contains all the information the consulate would need. Its poorly named as it can easily be confused with the “Account Transcript”, which is definitely not sufficient. The record of account transcript contains everything related to both the return and account status. Anyway — my ping was to check if they could use the simpler return only version as the joint sponsor might have reasons to prefer that vs. all account info. Answer to that appears to be yes.

The one I provided includes the entirety of the return transcript as well as additional data so would be more complete. Just wasn’t sure if they were fine with the simpler return-only version as well. If they’re fine with the return-only version that’s useful to know, thanks.

Try again with the transcripts and not the tax return. I have a hunch that will solve your problem. She can get them for free from the IRS website. The transcripts page has several options. The “Record Account Transcript” contains both the return and filing status/dates. I think they might also accept just the return transcript (@pushbrk would know more), but as the record of account also contains the return plus more information it should be safe. Included a screenshot below.

In you all’s situation MFS likely makes the most sense; the only thing is she’d need to paper file as you don’t have an ITIN. You’re in one of the weird situations where MFJ might actually hurt because it would disqualify you from the foreign earned income exclusion (FEIE) She’d paper file as MFS, manually write in “NRA” for your SSN, and mail it off to the appropriate IRS office. She would need to claim the FEIE and would likely owe $0 in taxes. I’d recommend mailing any back taxes in soon as paper can take a minute. This is not tax advice, and if you have specific questions it’s worth consulting a CPA with experience in expat filing.

Sure, but as with all things it’s a question of risk tolerance and the amount of effort and money one wants to put into the perceived risk. The risk of being denied for domicile while applying from deep South America is not high. Someone could spend a lot of money establishing proof even to the extent of moving to the U.S. ahead of their spouse or they could do all the normal things one does when moving countries and use that as proof. Speaking personally, if there’s an additional cost to doing things overseas vs. the U.S. for a non-English speaking country where there’s not a cultural history of people splitting time between countries, I wouldn’t pay the extra cost in order to develop evidence beyond what would come up in the normal course of moving.

And all congressional case inquiries are tracked in a separate database from the normal case inquiries, which is just as valuable as having the right contact number. This year it also apparently is advantageous on speed of response if the senator or congressman is Republican, so if you have an option between the two parties, I’d choose one of those.

General comment: living in a renter heavy town “getting added to the lease” is the slang for how people here talk about moving in with their significant other (or anyone really.) We also frequently tell people to draw up leases with their parents if they’re planning on staying there at first. My point is we shouldn’t be so quick to jump on OP for what’s a fairly normal thing to do when you’re moving 5000ish miles, and at least in my part of the U.S. is normal shorthand for living with someone. Similar on the consulate point: of course no one should present false evidence to a consulate, even if it’s not a high risk consulate. That also doesn’t mean we should be pretending every consulate needs Juarez or Montreal level evidence on domicile. La Paz isn’t going to go in with the assumption that the couple doesn't want to relocate. That means they don’t need to spend excessive amount of time worrying about this. The normal things you do when moving work: a lease, a job offer, emails about schools, etc. and all of those should come about naturally. The consulate officers are well trained and will be able to see OP is taking steps to relocate and that it’s not contrived.

You said “it would obviously be fake”, which is just not true. It’d be the normal and expected transaction if you actually intended to move in with your brother — most landlord would require it. Again, even looking at it solely from an immigration perspective, this is the exact same thing we tell people to do all the time when they plan on moving in with family who own a house; only difference is her family rents. And sure, more evidence is always better; but the government takes a risk based approach to this sort of thing. There’s significantly more risk of a person living in Montreal or London using their spousal green card as a way to get work authorization in the U.S. while living abroad than there is of someone in La Paz doing that. People don’t commute between Des Moines and Bolivia for work, and the consulate knows that. It influences the amount of evidence they’ll want to see to show intent. All that to say, yes, OP should have evidence, and getting added to a lease as well as inquiries on school enrollment, shipping receipts, etc. are all good proof. But this isn’t really something they should lose sleep over; doing the normal things you do when relocating countries should suffice. They’re not dealing with Montreal.

This video might be relevant