My wife was born in China but gave up her Chinese citizenship 20 years ago. She has been an American citizen for the majority of her life. I got my ARC without a problem because I’m an American citizen by birth. Getting a spousal visa for my wife and kids has been a nightmare.
When doing paperwork for my kids, my wife never comes along. I do everything by myself. Because she has a Mainland accent, as soon as she shows up, they’ll check the “place of birth” section of her US passport and give her a lot of trouble.
When my wife must be present (when processing her paperwork), I act as her interpreter. I speak Chinese with an American accent. If she says one word in Chinese, they detect her mainland accent and check her place of birth and reject her application.
Showing proof of my wife’s American citizenship is not enough. We’ve needed to prove to them that my wife renounced her Chinese citizenship (doesn’t everyone know you can’t be a US-China dual citizen?). We’ve even needed to show them every expired passport my wife has ever held. Fortunately, my wife’s mom is a packrat and managed to find my wife’s old passport that expired when she was ten years old.
I’m not familiar immigration law. But I have a hard time believing that these officials have the legal right to do what they have demanded. But I do want to tell you to be prepared to face a lot of discrimination. It’s going to be a long uphill battle.