Wife is 10 years older than me. Need help b/w doing CR1 or AOS with recently married wife.
I am an American citizen, and I recently married my wife from Croatia. I am 30 and she is 40. She currently resides with me in America, but her B2 visa is expiring so we are trying to figure out if AOS or CR1 will be safer to do. She has some business in her home country of Croatia, but she can stay in the US as well.
We are concerned that if we do CR1 that due to our age difference they could push our application into a 'red flag' category and then we're separated for like 30-39 months with the Vermont processing center (which I've read is where red flag apps get sent to). After speaking to an attorney, it was mentioned that age could be a possible issue at an interview but either way we can go CR1 or AOS in his opinion. He said to add lots of photos of us together, we have a joint bank account, photos of us traveling throughout the USA, and letter congratulating from my mother (due to COVID we couldn't do an official wedding ceremony so we did a civil).
He said we should add lots of evidence that our relationship is genuine to our I-130 because USCIS might or will review our case with more suspicion. We met online over a year ago through Discord (online chatting platform) over shared interest (tech) and had a friendly relationship for months. She entered the US in January 2021 on her B1/B2 and she told Customs&Border Protections that was here for holidays. She didn't know I was going to propose to her 2 months after she entered the country. We started dating in January, moved in together, and lived together for about 3 months so far.
So at this point, do you folks have any suggestions how we should proceed from this point further? If she leaves and does CR1 she has some business to attend to in Croatia, but if she does that, and there's a 'red flag' due to our age difference, or something else (which I do not think there is), could we end up being separated much longer like 3-4 years? Or should she stay in the US with me and go through AOS, and even if the process is longer she's still with me. Right now we're leaning towards CR1 because it lets her finish some business in Croatia, but the risk I feel is that the application goes into extended processing versus her staying in the US but then it could cause some issues for her in her home country.
I'm also not sure how I should present proof with I-130 that we met online a year ago- we have dozens of text messages, and a lot of Voip calls but I'm not sure how I can include that in our I-130 submission.
Thanks in advance!
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/nz0b8s/wife_is_10_years_older_than_me_need_help_bw_doing/
