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newacct

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Posts posted by newacct

  1. Within a larger prefecture-level city, usually the urban area of the main city is divided in several small county-level units (called "districts"), and then there are rural areas, called counties, and then also minor outlying cities, called county-level cities. They are all at the same level and under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city. Sometimes counties can be changed into county-level cities by adding "city" to the name. Sometimes county-level cities can be renamed to districts to expand the urban area of the main city. For example, for Guangzhou, the Yuexiu, Tianhe, Haizhu, and Liwan districts are small and are parts of the Guangzhou main urban area, Huangpu, Baiyun, and Panyu are mid-sized and like suburbs of Guangzhou, and the other ones are much bigger and more rural. Conghua and Huadu used to be county-level cities, but now all 11 county-level units are called "districts". In your case, maybe the main urban area is small so that's why it has only one or two urban "districts".

  2. There was a new announcement a week ago about visa application procedures for M, F, Z, S, Q, R, C visas (here is the one from the embassy; the same notice is on the consulate websites too). I am not sure if this means that unexpired visas of these types from before COVID can be used, or whether one would still need to apply for a new visa regardless.

  3. I have heard recent rumors of Chinese citizens with valid Chinese passports and valid reasons to go abroad (e.g. work or study) having their passports cut at the airport and denied exit when they try to leave China. I have heard rumors of this sometimes even happening with people with US green cards. Has anyone here had this happen to someone they know?

  4. Hopefully, given her explanation and the pandemic situation, the immigration officer will just let her in (perhaps with a warning), and she wouldn't need to deal with I-407 or immigration court.

    If the officer doesn't just let her in, the thing to watch out for is that they might try to pressure her into signing I-407 to voluntarily give up her permanent residency. The alternative is to be put into removal proceedings in immigration court, and that sounds scary to most people, so they might give in and sign I-407 instead. But she should really think of removal proceedings as a kind of "appeal" for the immigration officer's decision -- if the officer doesn't let her in, then she wants to be placed in removal proceedings because that provides her the opportunity to present her case a second time to an immigration judge, who may (and often do) rule in her favor. Plus she will be allowed to stay in the US in the meantime and can get a lawyer to represent her.

    • Like 1
  5. So your son was automatically a Chinese citizen and a US citizen from birth? Have you tried to get a US passport plus a PRC entry/exit permit instead? However, to get a US passport, you would need both parent's consent, unless you have sole custody. Even if you got a passport and any visas/permits for your son, you would still need to have both parent's consent to bring the child to another country (again, unless you have sole custody).

  6. You can get a CRBA without the other parent's consent. But in general you cannot get a US passport for a child under 16 without the other parent's consent, unless you have sole custody or a court order allowing you to bring the child out of the country. Even if you got a passport for a child, you should not bring the child out of the country without the other parent's consent (again, unless you have full custody).

  7. 1 hour ago, Randy W said:

    Chinese citizens are normally not issued travel documents. To get one for a child born in China but who has an American passport, the procedure often includes renouncing his Chinese citizenship. If they did so, they may find it among the paperwork filed when they obtained the travel document.

    If the renunciation was NOT filed, they may wish to do so on their next visit to the PSB on China.

    Children who have dual nationality (i.e. Chinese nationality under PRC law and foreign nationality under foreign law) are issued PRC travel documents by PRC consulates worldwide, and the documents say that the bearer is a citizen of the PRC. For example, all children who are born in the US, who are Chinese citizens at birth according to PRC law (because at least one parent was a Chinese citizen and neither parent was a Chinese citizen with a green card) are issued PRC travel documents. But it also applies to children who are born in China and who have dual nationality due to having one Chinese citizen parent and foreign nationality from the other parent. However, PRC travel documents are only issued by PRC consulates outside China; if the child was born in China, they first must have gotten an Entry/Exit Permit, and only after going to a PRC consulate outside China would they have gotten a PRC travel document for the next time they wanted to visit China. I am not sure which document the OP was referring to. But regardless, the document they would apply for now is a PRC travel document, as long as they have never renounced Chinese nationality for the child.

  8. If they issued him a PRC Travel Document, that implies that he must have been a Chinese citizen from birth (according to Article 4 of the PRC nationality law, a child born in China to at least one Chinese citizen parent is automatically a Chinese citizen). So he would not be able to get a PRC visa (unless you first renounce Chinese nationality for him), and should get a PRC Travel Document instead. The procedure for applying for PRC passports and travel documents is to use the Chinese Consular app, which you can find on US iOS/Android app stores under the name "中国领事". Here are some FAQ from the Chicago consulate on using the app, and a QR code to go to the app store page. Unfortunately, all this is in Chinese only.

  9. The proclamation applies to people entering as nonimmigrants. The CDC has details. You are right that the accepted vaccines for the proclamation doesn't include Kangtai vaccine (the only Chinese vaccines accepted are the Sinopharm and SinoVac ones).

    The proclamation doesn't apply to people with immigrant visas (though they have to comply with the separate vaccination requirement for immigration, which started on October 1). Is your fiance traveling to the US on a nonimmigrant or immigrant visa? If it's a K1 fiance visa, that is technically a nonimmigrant visa (even though it is often processed by the immigrant visa department), and neither the proclamation nor any State Department page specifically mentions exempting it, so I don't know how it would be handled. The State Department had previously granted national interest exceptions to all immigrant and fiance visa holders for the geographic COVID bans, but it is unclear if this would carry over into national interest exceptions for the new vaccination restrictions.

  10. On 9/23/2021 at 7:36 AM, Dan777 said:

    Thank you. My original post was on a different email. Wife is Chinese citizen. Our communication is still bad. So today she says she knows about the we chat green code. I call it green code. She says her Chinese WeChat is an American Chinese program and does not have it. Since the 48 hour timeframe and we live in Tennessee I have no idea where to get tested. The health department has not heard of it. I found that strange as a lot of people travel. I thought if I asked here someone may know where to go in New York. She will most likely go through NY. I thought it would be easy to ask wife for friends NY phone or WeChat. Nope will not let me talk to anyone. She lost all her id and bank info and made friends in NY and Washington DC while I struggle to figure out where to go. Thanks for the replies. Now I know she needs different WeChat. Where to go and the process to get on a plane is still a mystery. I am guessing it is a COVID test and they jam something up your nose.

    It works in the WeChat that you get from the US (iOS or Android) app stores. The mini program inside WeChat is called "防疫健康码国际版" (Chinese for "Epidemic Prevention Health Code International Version"). Perhaps she could be confusing it with a different health code program?

  11.  

    3 hours ago, benhad901 said:

    Thanks. Another person I know sent me a screenshot but my we chat does not have it. In 9 years I have never known my wife to be able to do anything. May have  take a trip to NY to find out where to go. Embassy does not answer phone calls or email. Need someone in NY to help me. Wife refuses to let me talk to anyone. I would like to see her get on an airplane.

    I'm assuming she's a Chinese citizen? In WeChat she should do "Scan", and scan this:

    W020210910169658633639.jpg.a1a26e7994461dcf36ff6b5ceab775bc.jpg

    Alternately, in WeChat she can search for "防疫健康码国际版" and it should show up as one of the results.

    I am not really sure what is the difference between the WeChat mini-app for Chinese citizens and the website for foreigners.

  12. Note that they need to have SSNs "valid for employment" issued before the due date of the tax return (including extensions) in order to qualify for the Recovery Rebate Credit. For the first two stimulus payments, that would be the due date of the 2020 tax returns (April 15, 2021, or October 15, 2021 if you get an extension).

  13. 13 hours ago, Randy W said:

    What the laws say and what was actually implemented for the stimulus payments are not exactly consistent. For example, there were glitches in the first roll-out such that it was not sent to those with a spouse having an ITIN.

    That was actually consistent with the law at the time though. The CARES Act in March 2020 only allowed stimulus money to people filing jointly if both people had SSNs. So those filing jointly with a spouse who didn't have an SSN didn't qualify for any stimulus money. This was retroactively amended by the stimulus bill in December 2020 so that people filing jointly where only one person had an SSN qualified for the stimulus money of one person, so they can now claim that in the credit.

  14. On 2/4/2021 at 9:33 AM, Barfus said:

     

    Just curious - what are the benefits of claiming a child dependent if all the economic benefits (child tax credit, stimulus payments, etc.) require an SSN at the time of filing? We recently had to scramble to get an SSN for my stepdaughter to get her on our 2020 return  and eligible for the child tax credit. 

    Note that dependents who do not qualify for the Child Tax Credit (including dependents who are 17 or over, as well as children who don't have SSNs) still qualify you for a $500 tax credit each. That's assuming your AGI is under $200k (or $400k if filing jointly); both the Child Tax Credit and dependent tax credit start phasing out after that.

  15. Your daughter is a US citizen, and so is eligible for an SSN, no matter where she lives. Since she is eligible for an SSN, she is not eligible for an ITIN. You should get an SSN for her through the consulate. I am assuming she was born in 2020. In order for you to be able to claim the Child Tax Credit for her, she needs to have an SSN issued before the tax filing deadline (including extensions). So if she hasn't gotten an SSN and it's close to April 15, you should file for an extension so you can still get Child Tax Credit for her if she gets her SSN by October 15.

    If you are married as of December 31, you need to file as Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately. You guys can do Married Filing Jointly even if your wife has never been in the US, but you will need to use Nonresident Spouse Treated as Resident, which will treat her as a resident alien tax purposes for all of 2020. That means all of her worldwide income will be subject to US taxation, but she can use the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and/or the Foreign Tax Credit to exclude her foreign income from US tax (she would still have to report the income to use the exclusion and/or credit). To do Married Filing Jointly, she would need to use an ITIN, which she would apply for with you guys's tax return. She would either need to mail in her actual original passport or go to some IRS center that can certify passports for ITIN; I am not sure if they have those abroad.

    If you do Married Filing Separately, you do not need her to have an ITIN; you would write "NRA" in the space for her SSN/ITIN. In this case, she would be a nonresident alien for tax purposes, and she would not need to file a tax return if she didn't have US income.

    If applying for an ITIN is too inconvenient, another option is to file as Married Filing Separately first, and then amend it to Married Filing Jointly later when she gets an SSN later (you can amend within 3 years of the tax filing deadline).

    • Like 1
  16. So if she had been a permanent resident for 2 years by April 2019, then she had been a permanent resident for 3 years by April 2020 (and she can file 90 days before reaching the 3 year mark, so she could have applied for naturalization as early as January 2020). I am not sure what your comment about 5 years and December was about.

     

    Yes, she can and should apply for naturalization (N-400) while her I-751 is pending. Also, if she wants to apply for naturalization, she should hurry and file before October 2, as the filing fee goes up from $725 to $1160 (online)/$1170 (paper) at that time.

  17. I am waiting on the 10 yr too. After the initial application they wanted more evidence of a real relationship even though I sent them plenty. I sent more and the last contact was a notice that an interview would be scheduled. That was in March. Her 5 year residency requirement for citizenship will be in December so what I'd like to do is go right to citizenship and ideally apply the 10 years card money to that. Yeah, right.

     

    Did you mean 3 years instead of 5 years? By "waiting on the 10 yr" did you mean she is applying for Removal of Conditions? She would normally apply for that less than 2 years after getting her green card, so if she will soon have had her green card for 5 years, are you saying that her Removal of Conditions has been pending for 3 years?

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