Total time spent together in person - how much does it matter??

[r060106 109]

Hi all,

As my wife and I get ready to submit our I-130, one question popped into my head that I hope someone can answer for me.

My job only allots me 3.5 weeks of vacation per year and I have only been able to go and visit my wife for 10 day to 2 week blocks at a time, two times per year. And she's been unemployed throughout most of our relationship and hasn't been able to get a visa to come see me. So all of the face to face contact we've spent has been me going to see her, rather than the other way around. In total, we've been with each other in person for about 6 weeks and our relationship has primarily unfolded over thousands and thousands of pages of emails and chats, hundreds of hours of skype video sessions and multiple hand written letters and packages to each other.

So, my questions are: how important is the total amount of time spent together face to face when submitting the petition? And will the fact we've been with each other a total of 6 weeks hurt our chances? Because we've haven't been able to spend a lot of face to face time should we send dozens more pages of skype chats and emails? Or no? I guess I'm getting pretty worried the USCIS will have a problem with our 6 weeks of close contact and think it's bad or something. Any and all advice and input is much appreciated. Thank you very much!

Rysiu

Edited July 23, 2013 by Rysiu227

[Ning 619]

Hi all,

As my wife and I get ready to submit our I-130, one question popped into my head that I hope someone can answer for me.

My job only allots me 3.5 weeks of vacation per year and I have only been able to go and visit my wife for 10 day to 2 week blocks at a time, two times per year. And she's been unemployed throughout most of our relationship and hasn't been able to get a visa to come see me. So all of the face to face contact we've spent has been me going to see her, rather than the other way around. In total, we've been with each other in person for about 6 weeks and our relationship has primarily unfolded over thousands and thousands of pages of emails and chats, hundreds of hours of skype video sessions and multiple hand written letters and packages to each other.

So, my questions are: how important is the total amount of time spent together face to face when submitting the petition? And will the fact we've been with each other a total of 6 weeks hurt our chances? Because we've haven't been able to spend a lot of face to face time should we send dozens more pages of skype chats and emails? Or no? I guess I'm getting pretty worried the USCIS will have a problem with our 6 weeks of close contact and think it's bad or something. Any and all advice and input is much appreciated. Thank you very much!

Rysiu

Your situation mirrors most of what they see. Its understood the reason for the visa is to unite the people inside the USA. Whats important is the relationship foundation whatever form that takes. You have done all you can and more than many so I don't think you have to worry.

[r060106 109]

Thank you very much for the reply!

[indiana_sweetie 120]

I was only able to visit my husband two times, 6 weeks and then 10 days. My husband was approved and is now home in the US with me. You should be fine. Keep all the stubs from the boarding passes. Make sure your wife knows the dates you visited and that they correspond with the stamps in your passport. That could be a question at interview.

[TBoneTX 44,674]

In general, "face time" is the biggest factor in whether the consular officer grants the visa. USCIS cares only that you've met in person within the last 2 years.

Front-load your USCIS petition sensibly with some of your evidence of a bona fide relationship. Whatever you include in your petition package will be passed to the consulate once the petition is approved. Be sure that you include what YOU want the CONSUL to see -- a thorough amount, but not overwhelming.

[Ozz777 23]

I think your situation is fairly typical, if there is such a thing. I think you're on the right path as you laid it out in your other post. It's going to take from 6 months to over a year from NOA1 to approved and visa in hand, will you be able to see her in that time, to add to your face to face time?

[Ryan H 3,810]

USCIS cares only that you've met in person within the last 2 years.

Strictly speaking, for the fiance(e) visa process, yes; for the spousal visa process, they are only looking for a legal marriage. The "met in person within the last 2 years" does not necessarily apply for spouse visa cases.

Everything else in your post was spot on.

[TBoneTX 44,674]

Correct, Brother Ryan -- thanks, si man.

[r060106 109]

In general, "face time" is the biggest factor in whether the consular officer grants the visa. USCIS cares only that you've met in person within the last 2 years.

Front-load your USCIS petition sensibly with some of your evidence of a bona fide relationship. Whatever you include in your petition package will be passed to the consulate once the petition is approved. Be sure that you include what YOU want the CONSUL to see -- a thorough amount, but not overwhelming.

So they might hold it against us because we haven't been able to spend months and months together face to face? That just makes no sense. It's a physical impossibility for us to have spent more time together. That's why the internet became so important in our relationship. That really gets me down, because I honestly hope they don't deny her because we will have only spent a grand total of 8 weeks together.....

I think your situation is fairly typical, if there is such a thing. I think you're on the right path as you laid it out in your other post. It's going to take from 6 months to over a year from NOA1 to approved and visa in hand, will you be able to see her in that time, to add to your face to face time?

Yes, I'll be going to visit her over Christmas and New Years for 2 weeks. Another thing I read was that the USCIS really considers phone calls the only true evidence in terms of contacting one another, and that skype logs and the like aren't looked on that highly because they can be spoofed. That's not fair, because a lot of people can't talk on the phone. For the majority of our relationship I didn't have access to a phone that could make international long distance calls without incurring huge charges that I wouldn't have been able to pay. And that would have naturally limited our talk time together due to the high cost. So we turned to skype and that has been the main method of communication, along with emails, throughout the almost two years we've known each other. If I put a 6 page skype log of all of our video calls and about 2 dozen or so print outs of our some of our chats emails will that overcome the USCIS' preference for phone calls?? I'm a little worried about that. I honestly have no answer to them if they want phone call history as evidence, because we have none and never even thought about having any. It was only recently we started to talk on the phone, and the calls aren't anywhere near the duration of the skype calls.

Thanks a lot for the replies so far everyone. They're much appreciated.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Rysiu227

[NikLR 13,227]

It's consulate specific honestly. I cannot imagine that Poland is a high fraud country so to be honest you should be okay. Before filing my husband and I spent 60 days together, only 9 of those as a married couple. But like you, we had emails, chats, and Skype to back up lack of face time. It wads a question I was asked at my interview, how do you communicate when you only spend 10 days at a time every 3 months? I replied, we essentially live on Skype. It's on all the time, even when we sleep.

Just submit evidence of regular communication and you should be okay.

Edited July 23, 2013 by NLR

[r060106 109]

It's consulate specific honestly. I cannot imagine that Poland is a high fraud country so to be honest you should be okay. Before filing my husband and I spent 60 days together, only 9 of those as a married couple. But like you, we had emails, chats, and Skype to back up lack of face time. It wads a question I was asked at my interview, how do you communicate when you only spend 10 days at a time every 3 months? I replied, we essentially live on Skype. It's on all the time, even when we sleep.

Just submit evidence of regular communication and you should be okay.

Oh ok. That's slightly more encouraging. Did you guys have call records? Because we don't have any, and I don't want them to think our skype records are fabricated or something. Skype is and always has been our main method of communication. We just prefer it. Do you think just skype calls and emails are ok? It sounds like you guys had the same situation. Thanks for the help!

[scienceworks 64]

In the last three years, myself and my wife, have met only 5 times and each time it was 2 weeks, except one in which it was just three days. I had deleted most of the skype logs, but luckily, the gmail chats were saved. So I took a snapshot of gmail chats and included them at 6 months frequency. I redacted all the messages and showed only our names and dates.

My cousin filed i-130 for her husband with just marriage certificate and bank account. She got approved in 3 months with no RFE. Now at NVC stage.

[NikLR 13,227]

Oh ok. That's slightly more encouraging. Did you guys have call records? Because we don't have any, and I don't want them to think our skype records are fabricated or something. Skype is and always has been our main method of communication. We just prefer it. Do you think just skype calls and emails are ok? It sounds like you guys had the same situation. Thanks for the help!

Some screen shots of the calls are good and emails (or the actual skype logs if you can get them, they're hard to get...) we also added me to my husband's bank account. We never called each other on the phone because it was too expensive, something had to be wrong for that to happen really.

[Blueberry Pancake 311]

I've used this for Skype logs --> http://scand.com/products/skyhistory/

[r060106 109]

In the last three years, myself and my wife, have met only 5 times and each time it was 2 weeks, except one in which it was just three days. I had deleted most of the skype logs, but luckily, the gmail chats were saved. So I took a snapshot of gmail chats and included them at 6 months frequency. I redacted all the messages and showed only our names and dates.

My cousin filed i-130 for her husband with just marriage certificate and bank account. She got approved in 3 months with no RFE. Now at NVC stage.

Great to hear. Then I guess we have nothing to worry about in terms of not enough face to face time. I have all of the skype video calls in an excel document that I exported from the program SkypeLogView. Has anyone else used it or heard of it? Will that spreadsheet not be credible? I really hope it is, because there is really no other way to show all of the Skype Video calls and their duration etc. I have all of our skype chats in a word document that is about 2000 pages long. I was thinking of printing two dozen pages or so from that, just to show we use it frequently, as well as printing all 6 pages of skype video call logs from that spreadsheet. I'm a little concerned they won't accept my spreadsheet. I don't know how else I could detail skype video calls because there really is no other way.

Some screen shots of the calls are good and emails (or the actual skype logs if you can get them, they're hard to get...) we also added me to my husband's bank account. We never called each other on the phone because it was too expensive, something had to be wrong for that to happen really.

I don't have many screenshots of the calls. When you say the actual skype logs you mean the video/voice call duration and date stamp that is in skype? I exported them into a spreadsheet using SkypeLogView. Do you think that would be good enough? Or do I need something more official? Skype really doesn't allow easy access to the call history from what I can tell unless you use a third party program and export it to a spreadsheet. It's good to hear there's another person out there who hasn't spoken over the phone.

I've used this for Skype logs --> http://scand.com/products/skyhistory/

I'll have to check that out. Thanks!