Sponsorship from another country

N

Newba

Registered Users (C)
Hi...one other question about being a U.S. citizen sponsoring my wife to life in the U.S....

Can I sponsor my wife to live in the U.S. via the I-130/I-485 process if I'm a U.S. citizen but no longer living in the U.S.?

If I look at the information on the USCIS website, it seems that I can, but I would need to have someone domiciled in the U.S. fill out an affidavit of support.

However, on the State Department site, there's a page about "Immigrant Visa for a Spouse of a U.S. Citizen (IR1 or CR1)" which has different information. It says "As a U.S. sponsor/petitioner, you must maintain your principal residence (also called domicile) in the U.S." I don't now if the IR1/CR1 process is the same as the I-130/I-485 process mentioned in the USCIS website (?)

It seems that from USCIS, there should be no problem as long as someone else fills out the affadavit of support. But the State Department website suggests that I would need to move back to the U.S. first and be living there the whole time that we're waiting for her to be able to move to the U.S. (?) So it's sort of contradictory.

I wonder if anyone knows anything about this and which one is correct, and if they're just two completely different processes.
 
The underlying intent for the family based petitions is family unification. The U-485 process is for an alien ALREADY in the USA thus the presumption is that the petitioner is also in the USA else how can there be a unification otherwise? Thus they may have seen no need to mention US Citizen should maintain US residence. Its superfluous

For the IR1/CR1 process, the alien is known to be outside the USA so there is no implicit assumption that the petitioner is also in the USA thus the need to mention it.

So bottom-line, for BOTH processes the principal residence (also called domicile) for the US Citizen [except soldiers on foreign deployment etc] must be in the U.S
 
So if we wanted to move to the U.S., what would be the way to go about it? Presumably I would need to move back first, but starting when and for how long? For example, could we send in the I-130 while I'm still in Canada, then I buy a house there before sending the I-485? Do I have to have been back in the U.S. for a certain period of time?
 
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