newacct

Should be No for both. There are other immigrant visa categories besides spouse of a citizen.

She will need to apply for a visa. Once he has his green card, he can file an I-129F petition to allow her to do so. Permanent residents cannot petition for fiance. Only citizens can.

Celebrities conduct "sham marriages" all the time...

It doesn't matter how you filed it, jointly with someone or otherwise. You need to fill the exact number it says on the "total income" line on your tax return.

He can stay each time for however long the immigration officer gives him during entry. There is no "rule" beyond that. There are a number of people come to the U.S. for the full 6 months, go back for a month, and come back and get 6 months again. It's completely up to the immigration officer. However, there is some truth that it is more likely for you to get a shorter duration of stay, or even get a warning, if they notice you've been here a lot. but it varies a lot between immigration officers. In this case, he has to get a new visa, and if he applies for a visa too soon after leaving the U.S. after staying for a long time, there's a high chance of denial (and denial can hurt future applications). There is no certainty; it's all up to the consular officer. People sometimes say to wait until you've been out of the U.S. for the same amount of time you've been in the U.S. as a rule of thumb, for when to apply for a good chance of getting a visa.

As long as you are married as of the last day of the year, you CANNOT file as Single. Under any circumstances. You can only file as Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately (or in rare cases for separated couples who have dependents, Head of Household). Never Single. It is fraud. It does matter. The tax rates are different between filing statuses. Married Filing Separately has worse tax rates than Single for all people beyond $74k income. If you file as Single, where you would otherwise choose to file as Married Filing Separately, that means you are paying less taxes than you are supposed to. That is tax evasion.

Box 6 is for "If you have sponsored any other persons on an I-864 or I-864 EZ who are now lawful permanent residents, enter the number here." The other person is not yet a permanent resident.

There can only be one joint sponsor in your case. The joint sponsor fills I-864. That person will select "I am the only joint sponsor". The other person will be a "household member" of the joint sponsor, filling I-864A. Your brother-in-law's I-864s will both have a household size of 3 (immigrant + himself + his spouse). The person immigrating on the other petition is not counted.

But even if she does that, it will soon get converted to F2B, when he turns 21 (even adjustment by CSPA won't help because the petition approval time will still be shorter than the visa number wait time), because there is ~2 year wait for F2A.

What matters is your current (i.e. right now) income, not any past tax returns.That's what the I-864 instructions say, HOWEVER all too often I see NVC or the consulate demand all three years. Why risk a delay over this? IRS transcripts are free and easily got on the IRS website. The I-864 requires past tax return(s). But what I meant was the determination of whether a sponsor meets the requirements is based on current income. So he may meet the requirements even if past years' tax returns don't "look good".

What matters is your current (i.e. right now) income, not any past tax returns.

The children are U.S. citizens from birth and are not required to do anything at any age. The CRBA is just a convenient proof that they are already citizens, and is not mandatory. As U.S. citizens, they can get a U.S. passport at any age, and a CRBA is not required for it. It is convenient to have a CRBA or Certificate of Citizenship though as it may be a pain to dig up proof of citizenship based on parents' citizenship if they lose their passport at a later age. The CRBA can only be issued before age 18, but if they want an alternative proof of citizenship after that, they can just get a Certificate of Citizenship. It is kind of misleading to say a country "does not allow dual citizenship". Who has each country's nationality and citizenship is determined by that country's law. These children have Chinese citizenship according to Chinese law, and U.S. citizenship according to U.S. law, therefore, they have dual citizenship, which is brought about by proper application of Chinese law. Chinese law says China "does not recognize" that Chinese citizens have dual nationality, meaning they should only recognize the Chinese citizenship of a dual citizen, and not recognize the other nationalities. However, most officials don't understand this. It is much simpler for U.S.-China dual citizens born in the U.S. Under Chinese law, when a child is born in the U.S. with at least one Chinese citizen parent, where the Chinese citizen parent(s) don't have permanent residency in another country at the time of the child's birth, the child automatically has Chinese citizenship at birth. (The child obviously also has U.S. citizenship at birth.) The Chinese consulate will issue these people PRC "Travel Documents", which are passport-like booklets that prove they are Chinese citizens. The Travel Document allows them to enter and leave China without hassle along with their U.S. passport, in a way that a regular Chinese passport and U.S. passport can't (why the border guards treat them differently is beyond me). If the Travel Document expires while in China and they need to leave, then they can go to the PSB to get an Exit Permit, showing the expired Travel Document and U.S. passport. I thought that it should work similarly with dual citizens born in China, but maybe it's different. Under Chinese law, the only ways to lose Chinese citizenship is either by voluntarily acquiring a foreign nationality, or by voluntarily applying to renounce Chinese citizenship. Since neither is the case here (these children have dual citizenship automatically at birth), they should not be able to lose Chinese citizenship. But law is not always applied as written in China.

Also, it's really hard for spouses of U.S. citizens to get B2 visas because it's really hard to prove you won't use it to immigrate.

Part 3 item 1 will almost always be "Yes". "No" can only come up in cases with 2 joint sponsors, which is extremely rare. 2 joint sponsors can only come up when there are more than one person immigrating on the petition (i.e. when there are derivative beneficiaries). That's because each immigrant can only have one joint sponsor sponsoring them (since each joint sponsor must be able to support all the immigrants they are sponsoring by their own household income, without combining it with any other sponsor's income, it would always be redundant for one immigrant to have two joint sponsors). So only when there are multiple immigrants, can there be 2 joints sponsors that "split up" the immigrants among them. Then one of the joint sponsors will be responsible for the principal immigrant, and the other one won't, and that second one would say "No" to Part 3 item 1. The petitioner must always be a sponsor of all the immigrants. You are petitioning for an Immediate Relative, which cannot have derivative beneficiaries, so 2 joint sponsors will never come up.

Well the OP said the husband is not Chinese, so probably neither parent is a Chinese citizen, in which case the child would not be a Chinese citizen either. In that case it should be easier to leave China.

No, she can write the address as China so she picks it up in China, or you can mail it to her and she would have it for this one.

Yes but she doesn't need to be in the U.S. while waiting for the re-entry permit. She would just apply, and then do fingerprints (or come back to do fingerprints), and then go to China. In the unlikely case it is denied, she can come back and wouldn't have been gone that long.

Note that whether you get a CR-1 or IR-1 visa is determined by whether you've been married for two years at the time you interview and get the immigrant visa. However, whether you become a conditional permanent resident (i.e. whether you get a CR-1 or IR-1 green card) is determined by whether you've been married for two years at the time you become a permanent resident by entering the U.S. It's possible to get a CR-1 visa but get an IR-1 green card.

See http://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartD-Chapter3.html An absence of more than 1 year will always break continuous presence. An absence of more than 6 months and less than 1 year will be presumed to break continuous presence, but you can overcome this presumption with certain things, like showing you kept employment in the U.S., your immediate family stayed in the U.S., etc.

If the baby is born after the mother receives the immigrant visa, then the baby doesn't need a visa to go to the U.S., and gets a green card automatically when arriving in the U.S. just like the mother. If the baby is born before the mother receives the immigrant visa, then you should ask them to add the baby as a derivative beneficiary as dnoblett says.

Is Jen the U.S. citizen petitioning for spouse Bob, the immigrant? If so, then in C-17 you would fill in Bob's current spouse (Jen) and Bob's current children. If it's the other way around (Bob the U.S. citizen petitioning for spouse Jen, the immigrant), then you would fill in Jen's current spouse (Bob) and Jen's current children. It would be the stepson's current spouse and current children (likely he has none of these). yes

I am confused. Is this a work visa? or a green card?

currently it's a ~12.5 year backlog for visa numbers

You don't know if there is a "lie". Just because someone decides to stay now does not mean they intended to stay when they got the visa.

I-751 is all she needs to file. She will remain a conditional permanent resident while the application is pending. Her expired green card + the extension letter she will get = valid green card for 1 year. She will get a new card after it is approved.