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An I-130 is your request to the U.S. government for permission to sponsor her. Where she lives and what she does with visas or asylum from third countries doesn’t impact your ability as a US citizen to file that. Once it’s approved she will fill out a visa application and you can ask them to route it to the consulate that handles immigrant visas for the country she resides in.

It was 11 months when my husband and I started dating a few years ago, and had crept up to 14 when we seriously started thinking about getting married and him immigrating 12 months ago. By the time we got married and filed in January it was at 17 months. The one silver lining is that they are processing more I-130s than at any point in the last two years, and every month since January has seen an increase since the previous month. It could be on average 11 months again if they keep up this pace. But you don’t know. You’ll only really have a guess about 2 months before because you’ll start seeing approvals near your priority date, and since they go in order you can guesstimate. But again, these are averages, and nationals of African countries tend to take longer even before the travel ban.

It’s Sudan. On the ban list. IR-1/CR-1 is essentially the only option here. OP — your best bet is to get married as soon as possible either online (Utah Zoom) or in-person, meet in person if online, and immediately file an I-130. Current processing times are averaging 14-15 months, but it was at 17 in January, and I’m just going to assume that cases from a Sudanese national might take longer even outside the ban consideration. That’s why we usually advise people who have decided they’re getting married to do it sooner rather than later and file quickly. My suggestion would be Utah Zoom since you wouldn’t have to worry about translations or any of the other complications that can come up with foreign marriage certificates, but that’s up to you and your fiance.

Going off pushbrk, I would recommend calling your CPA and telling them taxes need to be done ASAP and you’re willing to pay for rush. If it’s due to lack of final financial results from your business, see if you can get the internal accounting team to finalize numbers ASAP. Easier said than done, I know, but accountants are used to fire drills. Just be nice to them after

If you got verbal tentative approval and they have his passport I’d make a congressional inquiry since they have his passport and they gave you nothing explaining what you were missing. Timeline isn’t necessarily outside the norm but the lack of documentation on what’s going on is. Add on it’s DCF for a job, having your senator ask what’s going on could be useful in case it fell through the cracks. Worst that can happen is your senator tells you it’s in AP.

And this is the norm for many immigrant groups within the U.S. where that’s the custom.

I think what they’re trying to say is that while multiple spousal petitions isn’t necessarily uncommon — I have a family member who IR-1’d his first wife from a country he was deployed to as a service member and then got a K-1 for his second wife from the same country 15 years later after being divorced five years — what would be unexpected is that you divorce someone you sponsored and then immediately file to sponsor another intending immigrant. Do the current wife and future wife know each other? If so, when did they meet? How did you meet both women? How long after your current wife naturalized did you start a relationship with your future wife? Did you and your current wife maintain a family life in the U.S. while you were visiting your other family overseas? How did you manage to maintain two families in two countries? You don’t need to answer all those here, but those are questions you should have in mind when filing the petition/writing a cover letter and your future wife should have in mind when getting interviewed. Those aren’t questions of judgement — the situation you’re describing is just very abnormal and the government might want to know the answers. Trying to commit immigration fraud for friends and relatives via one USC sponsor is a thing and depending on the country can be common. USCIS normally doesn’t flag things for fraud and just lets the consulate sort it out, but there might be red flags here even for them. This is a case where a lawyer who is both competent and familiar with the region of the world your future/current spouse is from might be useful.

How complex is your tax situation? An extension isn’t a requirement to file in October and if you’re paying a CPA to do it you should be able to tell them you need it done quickly if you’ve provided all the information they need. If that’s not feasible I’d recommend downloading your IRS account transcript (different than your return transcript) so the beneficiary can at least show there’s an extension in the system at the interview. There are reports here about COs not responding favorably to extensions, which is why I’d suggest if at all possible trying to file quickly.

Consular officer won’t be able to ask OP questions unless he goes to the consulate, and while that’s something that isn’t advised anymore, it would 100% be something not to do in this case. OP’s future wife will likely have to explain it, but I suspect they’d be less harsh to her than if he was also there.

Its also worth noting that OP can document these visits as unsolicited evidence while the I-130 is pending with USCIS so it is bundled with the I-130 and sent to the Department of State with the rest of the I-130 package. It will also (likely) be considered by USCIS for bona fides, but that’s less of a concern than the consulate which is where the more thorough vetting of bona fides occurs. Once it gets to NVC it can be uploaded as evidence as well, but I think it’s easier to do it on a rolling basis than have to search for boarding passes, photos, passport stamps, etc. all at once.

Your question seems to be related to the memo about potentially adding new countries (including Nigeria) to the entrance ban. If Nigeria gets hit with an full entrance ban, a pre-existing B1/B2 wouldn’t be any help. An IR-1/CR-1 would be exempt assuming it follows the format of the existing one. A visa is just permission to get on the plane and ask CBP to admit you under a specific class. If someone has a B1/B2 and they’re from a country with an entrance ban, CBP will not permit them to enter.

If the consulate has a phone number could be worth a call. Worst they can do is say they don’t do phone calls.

While I get wanting to ask for reassurance online, if you have a competent attorney who has experience with this topic do what they say exactly and don’t differ from it. Yes, we get a lot of people who have incompetent attorneys here, but if you have a good one who has experience with Adam Walsh and can thus tell you whether this falls under it based on the specifics of your situation, which when you share with them is legally privileged, unlike here, trust them. They are also licensed to provide you professional judgment you can rely upon in other legal proceedings and sue them if it is negligent. I can’t understate this: you should really, really, really trust your attorney. If you don’t, ask why, and if there’s a reason why not, find a new attorney you do trust and follow their advice 100%

If it was pre-1998ish you didn’t have to. After that technically the federal law requires all people to have an SSN, but it’s been interpreted by the executive branch of both state and federal governments not to apply to people who cannot acquire one. States have to keep it on file to make it easier to garnish wages for child support. Citation is 42 USC 666 (a)13(A): Link

SSN is required for marriage for anyone who has one under a federal law passed in the late 90s/early 00s aimed at cracking down on deadbeat dads. DOJ issued an opinion stating that those without one don’t need to provide it so long as there’s some procedure verifying they don’t (which is usually just the clerk asking you to check a box, but some jurisdictions have affidavits.)

The easiest way to deal with this is to file a tax return reporting $1 in interest income for the years you haven’t filed. This is accepted by the IRS as a way to e-File for anyone with zero income. You can e-File for tax years 2022, 2023, and 2024 still. In addition to generating a transcript, which is useful for immigration purposes, it prevents tax return identity theft fraud (someone fraudulently requesting a refund using your SSN), which is why it’s a recommended practice by many CPAs. Theres ways around it by providing proof you don’t have a filing requirement, but NVC has pushed back on that in some posts here. They’re wrong, but it’s largely irrelevant whether they’re right or wrong since the solution is free and incredibly easy to do. You can use FreeTaxUSA to do it for free: -2024: Link for current year -2022 and 2023: Link to start back year taxes You can use other software if you prefer, but I usually recommend FreeTaxUSA because they won’t try to upsell you on what’s an informational return used to report $1 in income to the IRS. From a practical standpoint it isn’t worth filling out 2021 and earlier since those can’t be e-Filed, which substantially decreases the risk of tax return fraud and identity theft.

I was under the impression that for immigrant admission classes and classes with work authorization it was CBP that sent over the request to SSA, not USCIS. For K-1 it’s their admission data that the SSA needs, not USCIS, and there used to be a box the CBP officer had to manually check on admissions related to the SSN question. If that’s the case that would explain someone with an EB visa receiving one even if USCIS isn’t transmitting data to SSA. USCIS not transmitting would definitely impact AOS from VWP/B2 overstay (which we don’t like to talk about here, but under Biden it was the go-to method for a lot of people so it’s worth mentioning for their sakes.) SSNs and admission is weird. 3-4 years ago it was hit or miss. Seemed to be dependent on if the CBP agent who admitted someone read through the packet from the consulate and remembered to check a box in the CBP competer saying the immigrant wanted an SSN. It’d gotten better recently after the consulates had moved to electronic transmission. Weird that it might be back tracking

What date did the officiant list as the date of marriage on the marriage document. Not the date it was filed.

CBP can deny admission even if someone has a valid K-1, correct. Visas do not give right of entry to the United States. That’s the case with or without the travel ban in place. It’ll be interesting to see how they and the airlines handle pre-existing K-1s from partial ban countries or if consulates move to revoke.

I’ll also mention what I said above — CBP retains the discretion to refuse to admit someone even if they have a valid visa. K-1 is permission to ask CBP to let you into the country to get married and adjust status. It’s not permission to actually do it. Usually the distinction doesn’t matter, but we’re dealing with a new situation. There’s a lot of unknowns here and the easiest way to reunite for K-1 applicants impacted is going to be CR-1/IR-1.

I would recommend you talk to a lawyer with experience in these matters. Based on your past posts on this topic you’re trying to find the exact minimum way to get the I-130 approved and visa issued. When taking that approach legal counsel is a lot more useful than a forum as they’re trained to exercise professional judgement, provide you with advice as to the probability of various approaches working, and tell you their professional opinion as to what your options are. Thats not judging you, by the way. That’s just pointing out you’re in an atypical situation and taking an approach that would benefit from a professional.

It looks like the archival PDF copy generated when he filed online shows the wife’s name in box 6a — which means she filled it out and signed as the petitioner or he signed her name as the petitioner after he filled it out. Either way it’s valid grounds for a denial. The beneficiary can’t petition themselves.

No: your I-130 was not signed properly. Your wife signed form I-130 for you with her name, which means you didn’t file a petition on her behalf. By signing it in her name it is equivalent to her filing a petition for herself, which isn’t allowed. You have to file and sign as petitioner, not her. That’s why USCIS denied it. Box 6a on the I-130 needs to have the petitioner (the USC or LPR) sign it, not the beneficiary. Your wife couldn’t sign over your pre-existing bank accounts to be joint accounts by signing her name — the bank would require you to sign it. Same principle here — the government requires the petitioner to sign the petition since they are asking the government for the right to sponsor their spouse for a visa.

It says your wife signed the I-130 on your behalf. Check box 6a on the form I-130 PDF. Does it say your name or your wife’s name?

Did you file on paper or via the website? And did the denial mention your I-130 or I-130A? Sorry, but I’m having a hard time following all the moving pieces here. It might be useful if you posted the (sanitized) notice you received from USCIS. Here is the USCIS signature guide: link Electronic signatures are only allowed on forms filed electronically, and word processing signatures are not allowed.