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I think there’s pretty solid anecdotal evidence for the Texas Service Center processing an I-130 when it receives I-129F if it is already the service center assigned the I-130. Seen several cases in other sites that really have no other explanation than Texas trying to close two cases at once and letting someone “skip the line” by filing for K-3. I think what makes this case interesting is that 1) it’s a California assigned I-130 and 2) they called.

At the very least this is an interesting datapoint on K-3. My view has largely been aligned with yours that it’s a waste of time for virtually all cases. The fact they’re calling on K-3 for a December case suggests they are looking at them in some way. OP — keep us up to date on how it plays out.

It hasn’t changed but the turn a blind eye work around is to paper file with 999-99-9999 or write NRA. IRS is less stringent in enforcing its own rules on this than some states are. In OP’s case if the IRS is actually enforcing the policy that you can’t file MFS without an ITIN, which honestly wouldn’t shock me given that the current administration wants to use IRS records for immigration enforcement, there’s almost certainly no benefit to amending as MFS. They’d have to do the ITIN process with no monetary benefit and no additional evidence for the NOID. If they want to use tax returns for evidence they’d need to go to a CAA in Sweden before the deadline and have them refile as MFJ. I’m assuming that’s not really practical at this point, so they should focus on other types of evidence.

Reference from the IRS website on MFS: link If your spouse is neither a U.S. citizen nor a U.S. resident within the meaning of IRC section 7701(b)(1)(A) and you file a joint or separate return, your spouse must have either a Social Security Number (SSN) or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). Emphasis mine.

Technically need an ITIN for MFS since the 1040 requests it. This delayed us filing my state taxes this year as both of the states I file in don’t accept MFS with all 9s or NRA written in the spouse SSN/ITIN field. Though the IRS has been known to accept the 999-99-9999 trick for MFS spouses on paper. At this stage I wouldn’t bother with an amendment until she gets here unless they can amend with a CAA in Sweden for MFJ to get an ITIN. MFS wouldn’t help either the immigration case or the taxes. Easiest at this stage is to wait tor the NOID to be resolved and amend electronically in the U.S. after a SSN is issued.

Yep. The geographies I was referencing were northern South America, parts of Southeast Asia, and MENA. There’s a subculture in all of those areas of women looking for older American men. More related to OP, Central America doesn’t tend to have it for people in Central America looking for consular processing, but once they’re here trying to find a spouse and adjust is also a cultural thing for many — that even impacts gay Central Americans in the U.S., which isn’t usually a thing for consular processing. And then Nigeria is its own thing, but usually you don’t get many older men looking for wives there. The most common thing there is people paying for friends of people they know in the U.S. to marry them. All that to say, online dating is great, and there’s no issue doing it internationally. Worked for me. But people should be aware of what the culture surrounding it and immigration is if it’s something they’re going to do.

The issue is with the classification of foreign taxes paid and whether or not they’re eligible for the credit or other deductions. People also often screw up things like improperly deducting health care withholding/tax or retirement for foreign spouses. There’s just a lot of words that have technical meanings in the Internal Revenue Code that don’t really translate well to taxes where one of the couple lives overseas. TurboTax will guide you through it, but it won’t tell you what counts to put in the boxes for foreign items. Like all things with the government, people are free to DIY it, but just because you can doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do it.

Re: your last paragraph, It’s a thing. Go to r/passportbros if you want to see the cringier side of international relationships. Not judging any particular relationship or people who find international love online I fall in that camp, so I’d be hypocritical if I was. But there’s a subculture both within the U.S. and in some specific countries of marriages where the older financially established male U.S. citizen marries a younger woman from one of a handful of countries who is madly in love with him. If a 25 year old woman wouldn’t fall in love with a 55 year old man from her own country, I doubt they’d fall in love with a 55 year old man from a foreign country. That’s my view at least.

9 FAM 601.14-5.b(1) and 9 FAM 601.14-12.a(1) allow copies. A printed PDF is the same as a photocopy. You should be fine. Link to relevant FAM chapter

Weird. I’d upload it all again as well as anything else that’s happened since and any additional financial documents you have. Sometimes the easiest solution is just to give them what they want.

When did you submit the I-130? If it was right after the marriage the consulate probably just wants you to submit evidence of a relationship after the marriage (i.e. more than 3 weeks of proof) so they have written documentation of it.

It depends on the specifics of her most recent entry into the U.S. if there was a procedurally correct inspection and admission she might not have to leave. Procedurally correct means that she was physically in front of CBP (or their predecessor), did not lie to them, and was told she could enter. Whether or not they had a legal right to enter isn’t at issue unless they lied. The standard in AOS is procedural correctness. It’s the totality of the circumstances. This would be your third green card marriage. You just ended your last one 4-5 months ago. The person you want to marry and sponsor is out of status. She is also 27 years younger than you. On its own it might raise a concern, but it’s very much not the norm for someone to have two green cards marriages and start on a third one 4 months after a divorce with someone almost 3 decades younger who is here without status.

It isn’t an issue in itself, but it absolutely is an issue the government can take into account when assessing likelihood of immigration fraud. There are plenty of people with age differences that get green cards through AOS or consular processing. Most of them don’t have a petitioner with two former green card marriages that ended in divorce. The age difference is a yellow flag on most applications that can be overcome. I think it’s a pretty large red flag here given the totality of the circumstances and I can’t imagine an ISO or consular officer not giving it significant weight.

Ignoring the other concerns, re: AOS, it’s important to know how exactly she entered the U.S. if we’re talking about someone who overstayed a visa or was waved through at the southern border without questions when that was a thing, then a lawyer might be able to get AOS here. The key is whether she was procedurally inspected and admitted, and that’s why talking with a lawyer matters legally. If she didn’t enter at a point of entry and was never inspected, I’d agree with @Crazy Cat, leaving the US and applying is likely your best option, but still consult a lawyer. Also second everything @appleblossom said about the optics of this. I think you should ask yourself some really tough questions, but if you’re committed to this course of action, this case is not a DIY case and the best thing to do would be consult legal counsel.

This would be a good case to consult with a lawyer on. Aside from the things Crazy Cat brought up, it’s not the norm for 28 year-old Honduran women in the United States without status to marry 55 year-old American men for love. That’s not a judgment on your relationship, but a statement of fact about the overall societal norms here. Combined with the multiple green card marriages and divorces, this is going to raise multiple red flags for USCIS and State.

If you prefer I say it more formally: USCIS doesn’t agree with BIA’s reading of the law on this, but they’re bound by BIA precedent. How they’ve dealt with it in some cases with published internal rulings is they’ve denied AOS for misrepresentation at the POE, like @Crazy Cat mentioned. USCIS cited misrep by omission and stated the BIA precedent on pre-conceived intent isn’t applicable since misrepresentation makes someone inadmissible and as such there was no need for USCIS to perform the balance of equities analysis required by BIA for cases of spousal pre-conceived intent. But you’re correct: the law is that if an intending immigrant is admissible, pre-conceived intent is presumed not to create a bar to adjustment of status for spouses assuming there are no other factors weighing against adjustment when USCIS performs an analysis based on the balance of equities. It’s not fraud and I really wish people would stop saying it was. The better way to phrase it is that for obvious cases of pre-conceived intent that are flagrant, USCIS has claimed that omission is sufficient to create a ban for misrepresentation. I’m not familiar with any BIA precedent ruling on this, but it’s the historical stance of their internal review board.

It needs a bit more nuance in there. It is a matter of settled immigration law that intent to adjust at the POE is not sufficient grounds for USCIS or an IJ to deny AOS to the spouse of a USC if preconceived intent is the only bar to AOS. People like calling this fraud here and on other parts of the immigration internet for some reason. It’s not. BIA has a precedent ruling on this, so you’re correct to that extent. USCIS does not like this ruling so they rarely cite preconceived intent as a reason to deny adjustment. If they think you had preconceived intent and don’t want to grant AOS they now will claim misrepresentation at the POE as no one says “I’m going to adjust status since BIA says I can on balance of equities creating this grey area in the law!” when CBP asks why they’re visiting. This is where a lot of the fraud confusion online comes from. I’m not aware of a BIA precedent ruling dealing with USCIS finding thus loophole to the previous BIA ruling. In OP’s case it wouldn’t matter as there’s precious little evidence that anything was misrepresented. They usually only claim that in egregious cases of straight from the airport to the courthouse to the post office.

Theres no real risk of deportation, which is what you seem to be most worried about. There’s reports of notices to appear in adjustment from ESTA cases, but that would just end in the I-485 being adjudicated by an IJ and not by USCIS. It’d cost more money but the result would be the same — a green card would be granted. I don’t know why you’d go the K-1 route. It has almost all of the negatives of adjusting status from VWP and all of the negatives of spousal visas with none of the positives of either.

1) You would need to fill out 1040X and all the additional applicable schedules, which would include schedule 1 to declare your wife’s foreign income and the schedule/form for the foreign tax credit. As I mentioned on my post I would highly recommend paying a CPA to do this as claiming the foreign tax credit is probably the most technical tax accounting heavy thing that most people will encounter on their 1040. 2) You cannot claim the FEIE. It’s not applicable in your case and my response on that was for you and any others searching afterwards to say DO NOT try to claim it and also make the 6013(g) election to treat your spouse as a tax resident and file jointly. It’s specifically not allowed in your circumstances. 3) Take your taxable income (box 15) for those years and add your wife’s income in USD. Then subtract the standard for that year (the number in box 12) from the number you just calculated. Then go to This page for 2023 and this page for 2024. Using the number calculated find your bracket: subtract the lowest end of the bracket from your taxable income and multiply what is left over it by the % indicated. Then add it to the dollar amount in the dollar plus XX% box. This is your estimated tax before any credit. Go to box 33 on your 1040. Subtract the estimated tax you just calculated from that amount. This is your overpayment. Then subtract from that what is currently in box 34. This is your additional refund. Subtract from that amount $700 for a CPA to prepare it (being conservative and assuming you don’t have anything else complicated.) This is the net amount you would receive back by amending before the foreign tax credit which would probably be an additional $50-$200 based on your wife’s income. For someone with a spouse who has more income it’d be more. I’m not including it in the calculation as that’s highly technical and depends on the tax structure of your wife’s country of origin and any treaty. This is the basic math, and you see how many steps it is. This is why you should hire a CPA. 4) It would have no tax disadvantage. It could potentially impact social assistance or other government programs you qualified for. Given you sponsored her and she made so little, it’s unlikely to impact you; but putting it out there for anyone else searching this thread. Also disclaimer that this is not tax advice and you should consult your own tax advisor.

Also worth pointing out FEIE does not apply in this case since they’re getting the benefit of the doubled tax brackets and double standard deduction. The choice would be to treat the foreign spouse as a U.S. resident for tax purposes via a 6013(g) election, which excludes the ability to claim FEIE. They’d report then claim credit for any eligible tax paid in the foreign country. This is a common mistake for DIYers.

I’d say the main factor here would be the cost to have a CPA prepare the return. The foreign tax credit part is pretty technical and while you can DIY, I would not advise you to: knowing what foreign taxes can be deducted, how to treat any retirement plans, etc. are things that having a professional is useful for. It’s not hard to type the numbers into TurboTax, what’s difficult is knowing what box in TurboTax you should be typing the numbers into and what counts. Our return swung me from owing $98 if I had filed MFS to getting a $3800 refund. My husband and I also have very different incomes so it was very beneficial for me. If your spouse had a similar income to you overseas and was in a low income tax country, it might not benefit more than the cost of preparation. I’d say for the overwhelming majority of people MFJ with a foreign spouse is the best way to do it, but since you previously turbo taxed it and asked for the cost-benefit analysis, also thought it worth noting the circumstances where it might not make sense.

I know. I was just saying that one of the reasons IR-1/CR-1 is easier is that there’s a certain suspicion of K-1 within the government that doesn’t exist, at least not to the same level, for IR-1/CR-1.

There’s a view of some in the foreign service community that K-1 visas are a hotbed of fraud so they tend to enter the interview much more skeptical than for CR-1/IR-1. Have a friend who works at one of the European consulates and he’s told me a few times he’s never seen a K visa where he thought the relationship would work out. At the end of the day, that’s what you’re fighting against more than a “Muslim ban.”

If you want to save money without the translation you can contact your congressman or senator’s office for help with this. That should get it resolved quickly. You’ll need a translation eventually but if you’re trying to delay that cost this’ll do it.

Definitely true. It’s not a prevention against questions or secondary if you’re flagged on the pre-arrival screening list. It has less of a chance of either because of the pre-vetting and automation, so it’s still beneficial, imo, but if one of the pre-arrival people flags you the CBP officer in the GE line will ask the questions.