Weight

[hearsay 1]

What was the weight of your application packet (I-751) you sent to USCIS?

Edited February 21, 2008 by waiting4visas

[Scalpel 14]

What was the weight of your application packet (I-751) you sent to USCIS?

Why is this important?

[hearsay 1]

It's not important.

[jodee 30]

dont know the weight, but it was 110 pages,...

But being military and no utility bills, or rental agreements and the like, I had to make up for proof in lots of other ways,..therfore the excess,..

JOdee

[Minfay 0]

We are getting ours together now (to send the beginning of April). Right now, if I have to guess, it has to weigh at least two pounds -- we are well over 150 pages as of today.

####### -- you betcha!!!!

Seriously....it is over 150 pages and we will be trimming it down consideralby before sending. Maybe down to at least 140 pages

[Marilyn. 340]

my package wasn't all that big.. it fit into one of those standard letter size envelopes...

I just included the pages that had our names and address on them...

like I didn't include the whole tax return , just the page that showed we filed jointly....

I also didn't include all the utility bills from the last year, just the most recent ones.. but you could always send in a bill for each year or one for every 3 or 4 months ....

Edited February 21, 2008 by MarilynP

[Cassie 8]

mine was pretty fat, at least 3/4 inch thick

[Scalpel 14]

We must have had at least 150 pages too...we included all the ####### we could find.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Mine is being submitted next week. I just have to type up the cover letter. Currently it is 3 1/2 pounds! We have been married nearly 4 years though and I have samples of evidence from all four of those years. I haven't counted the number of pages yet - I am just not looking forward to photocopying it for our copy!

(It was substantially larger than that when I started putting it together - I literally set aside a box right after submitting the AOS application and anything I thought that would be useful to remove conditions went into that box. It was full:-). )

Edited February 22, 2008 by Kathryn41

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Ok - just counted - 263 pages - although that also includes the section dividers. I two hole punched everything and put it in an acco holder with tabs separating sections at the bottom.

Edited February 22, 2008 by Kathryn41

[Jasman0717 9]

dont know the weight, but it was 110 pages,...

But being military and no utility bills, or rental agreements and the like, I had to make up for proof in lots of other ways,..therfore the excess,..

JOdee

Poor Mr. postman

[Staashi 371]

I realize that you all just want to be approved, but the excessiveness of your I-751s is rather uncalled for - and I say this with the kindest of hearts, but the keenest of minds. Take yourself back 3+ years, it was your initial visa that required photos and such - remember, they wanted to see you had a valid relationship with your significant other. Now that you've got to this point, what CIS really wants to see is proof and validity of your marriage. Remember marriage, although a sacred bond, is really a contractual relationship between two parties. So what they want to see now is how well you have done at comingling your lives. They want to see your financial documents that you have together: tax returns, insurance, rent, mortgages, deeds, wills, bills - your names and addresses should match. Highlight with a highlighter what you want them to notice on your documents - this will help the officer to pinpoint what is truly important. This is really when it gets down to the "brass tax" of your lives together. Think about it, this is what makes a marriage for love different than one of greencard convenience - if it was for convenience, people wouldn't intermingle their lives or change their names. Now, I know that there will be people who will say, "we don't have anything to show them because of this or that" - not true. We all should have something. For those in the military, you probably have the best documentation: your spouse has you named allover the place - all the insurance documents, etc, etc. - just make copies of the documents where you're named as his beneficiary - easy peasy - and they're all government documents at that!

For us, we sent in pertinent papers and kept copies of them to resubmit again for citizenship (yes, you will need them again) - our list included joint tax returns, insurance policies, mortgage bills, property tax bill, household bills, 2 affidavits from family and banking statements - needless to say we are thoroughly comingled. Also, we didn't send one picture as my husband said he didn't want to share our personal lives with USCIS anymore!

We were approved, although it took 11 months as we were TSC Losers, but approved and no RFEs!

So, enough of my diatribe, I wish you all much success. You can do this - but remember less is more when you have the truly pertinent things.

Edited February 22, 2008 by Staashi

[simple_male 1]

What was the weight of your application packet (I-751) you sent to USCIS?

Weight does not matter.

[Cassie 8]

I realize that you all just want to be approved, but the excessiveness of your I-751s is rather uncalled for - and I say this with the kindest of hearts, but the keenest of minds. Take yourself back 3+ years, it was your initial visa that required photos and such - remember, they wanted to see you had a valid relationship with your significant other. Now that you've got to this point, what CIS really wants to see is proof and validity of your marriage. Remember marriage, although a sacred bond, is really a contractual relationship between two parties. So what they want to see now is how well you have done at comingling your lives. They want to see your financial documents that you have together: tax returns, insurance, rent, mortgages, deeds, wills, bills - your names and addresses should match. Highlight with a highlighter what you want them to notice on your documents - this will help the officer to pinpoint what is truly important. This is really when it gets down to the "brass tax" of your lives together. Think about it, this is what makes a marriage for love different than one of greencard convenience - if it was for convenience, people wouldn't intermingle their lives or change their names. Now, I know that there will be people who will say, "we don't have anything to show them because of this or that" - not true. We all should have something. For those in the military, you probably have the best documentation: your spouse has you named allover the place - all the insurance documents, etc, etc. - just make copies of the documents where you're named as his beneficiary - easy peasy - and they're all government documents at that!

For us, we sent in pertinent papers and kept copies of them to resubmit again for citizenship (yes, you will need them again) - our list included joint tax returns, insurance policies, mortgage bills, property tax bill, household bills, 2 affidavits from family and banking statements - needless to say we are thoroughly comingled. Also, we didn't send one picture as my husband said he didn't want to share our personal lives with USCIS anymore!

We were approved, although it took 11 months as we were TSC Losers, but approved and no RFEs!

So, enough of my diatribe, I wish you all much success. You can do this - but remember less is more when you have the truly pertinent things.

I hear what you are saying, and agree with a vast majority of it. However, I preferred to send in very specific information covering a wide range of bases, concentrating heavily on the financials. It weighed quite a bit, but I don't regret what I submitted at all. I based my packet on the experience of one of my best friends, who had a bit of trouble at her interview and was sent home to collect more evidence. More often than not I see people sending in the "minimum" amount of evidence getting RFE's, and I wanted to minimize that possibility. When you have people reporting that their RFE asks for bank account statements over the life of their marriage, it's hard to reconcile that with the idea of sending in the bare minimum. JMHO of course.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

I too am sending in more than the bare minimum and definitely showing a co-mingling of our lives. The majority of our file is financial - bills paid, taxes, joint accounts, investments, credit cards, loans, joint property, insurance, wills, etc. We have been married for 4 years - you accumulate a lot of financial documents over 4 years and we are including information from each of those 4 years. We do not have a joint mortgage, nor is my name on the deed for practical reasons. Nor did I include affidavits from friends. I don't want an RFE or an interview. I have been going through this process since June 2003 and i am tired of dealing with USCIS. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to say - Yep, valid marriage, approved - and get it over and done with. Hopefully this application will take less than the time it took to process the K-1 and the AOS - heck, if they had just delayed processing the AOS another 3 weeks I would have received a 10 year card nearly 2 years ago instead of having to provide proof of 4 years of marriage.

Edited February 23, 2008 by Kathryn41