Organizing Evidence

[vuster 0]

Hello Everyone,

How did you guys organized and presented the following evidence to the CO?

- Letters. Did you present them to the CO with the letters removed from the envelop? If so, did you submit the envelops as well and how was it organized?

- Pictures. Did you group pictures from each trip separately? Did you place each group of pictures in plastic bags or just used rubber bands or other stuff?

- Receipts, airplane ticket stubs, and other smaller docs. Did you tape them to a 8.5x11 sheet of paper to better organize them?

Thanks

[Anh map 2,098]

You want to have a set of copies as well as originals of everything. You will submit the copies (unless an original/certified copy is required) and have the originals available for inspection by the CO.

Have the photos printed/copied onto standard sheets of paper. Copy like items (boarding passes, baggage tags, etc.) onto 8.5 x 11 sheets. Have it all organized so that your spouse can hand them to the CO. The interview is done at a stand up window. Don't bring big photo albums.

[vuster 0]

You want to have a set of copies as well as originals of everything. You will submit the copies (unless an original/certified copy is required) and have the originals available for inspection by the CO.

Have the photos printed/copied onto standard sheets of paper. Copy like items (boarding passes, baggage tags, etc.) onto 8.5 x 11 sheets. Have it all organized so that your spouse can hand them to the CO. The interview is done at a stand up window. Don't bring big photo albums.

Thanks. Copies of most of our evidence was sent to USCIS (rebuttal). I think those evidence were forwarded to the Consulate. Printing the photos to 8.5x11 was what I did when i submitted my rebuttal to USCIS. I just didn't know that the CO will accept it in that form. You don't think it's a good idea to tape original docs like boarding pass, receipts, etc, to 8.5x11 papers? It's just so much easier to organize them that way.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Thanks. Copies of most of our evidence was sent to USCIS (rebuttal). I think those evidence were forwarded to the Consulate. Printing the photos to 8.5x11 was what I did when i submitted my rebuttal to USCIS. I just didn't know that the CO will accept it in that form. You don't think it's a good idea to tape original docs like boarding pass, receipts, etc, to 8.5x11 papers? It's just so much easier to organize them that way.

I would staple them rather than tape them to the paper. This way they can be removed with only a few small holes in them, in the event they want to inspect the back side. If you tape them then they will probably be damaged (surface print removed) if they are removed from the 8.5x11 sheet. Mr. Nam, an associate of Marc Ellis in HCM, prepares original primary evidence this way. I don't know whether it makes any difference to the CO, but they do seem to appreciate when things are organized rather than handing them a plastic bag full of loose scraps of paper.

[vietazn 1]

I'd say to tape the smaller items to a regular 8.5x11 paper. Put tape on top and bottom of each item on the front, not on the backside. Leave space of each sheet to label the items. Then make copies of each. Put all the original, non-required evidence in one place for original documents just in case they might want to see the originals. Leave that in your backpack. If they do then you know where they are. For all the copies, which they definitely inspect, make sure the copies of all evidence are already in your hand at the interview. For letters, we copied letter on one side, and copied the envelope on the reverse side; didn't have to present the originals. For photos we put photos in large Ziploc bags pre-Dam Hoi, Dam Hoi, and post-Dam Hoi in chronological order. But they received the photos little by little and mixed them all up. Any like/similar documents that are somewhat thick, like chat or email, fasten them together. It is very important for you fiance to be able to quickly and easily provide any documents to the CO. And it is the responsibility of your fiance to politely "push" the evidence to the CO because if not, they might not ever see the evidence or know that the evidence exists. Even though everything is labeled, they might not read the labels and might even ask what it is.

For the essential, required documents, it doesn't hurt to tape the $131 receipt and ID to a sheet of paper too. But with the ID only tape on one side of the ID so that they can flip through to look at the back. Taping anything you can to a regular sheet of paper allows you not only label everything, it makes the file cleaner, and less likely to lose anything. I think the only things we didn't tape to a paper was the passport and Ho Khau because those are books.

[Dakine 26]

Arrange everything to make it easy for the CO to spock out.

I printed 4 pictures per page with captions on bond paper.

Stapled receipts and bills with captions also.

Make it as neat and organized as you can. Put it all together and have a second party check it out.

[vuster 0]

Thanks for the feedbacks guys. I have a couple more questions.

How did you guys organized your emails? Did you keep separate emails you sent to your wife/fiance from the ones you receive for her/him? Or, did you combined both sent and received in chronological order?

Thanks.

[vietazn 1]

I printed the emails as threads, or else there would have been too much paper. They don't really read them anyway.

[lindal24 1]

We printed out each email and sorted them by date combined.

[Kevin-n-Merlaine 14]

I filed our I-130 in October and then spent a couple of months gathering all of this to send to my wife for her interview. As time goes on, I'll continue to send her evidence to add to it as well as the evidence she has with her. This is the way I prepared our docs. The embassy in Manila has very small slots or openings in the glass (similar to the pass through slot at those grocery gas stations here) for documents to be passed to the officials there, so the folders can't be much over a half inch, or so, thick. They need to be flexible there as well. You could probably package things different but this might give you some idea of what you'll need. I did a lot of reading before I came up with my "plan"..lol Hope this helps.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...=231811&hl=