Removal of Conditions Question

[Mary and Enrique 8]

HI VJ-ers! I would love your opinion on our RoC evidence.

So my husband and I are preparing our packet to remove conditions on his green card, and our background should be summarized pretty concisely in my signature, but basically we married while he was here on a B-2 tourist visa and adjusted status from there. Naturally, we had to show in our AOS interview that my husband absolutely intended to return to his country after this trip -- we just realized somewhere along the way that we didn't want to spend another day apart if we didn't have to.

We're now about 2 weeks away from being able to file RoC, and about 5 weeks out from a vow renewal that we've been planning for quite some time. I don't think it's probably worth waiting until after the vow renewal to have more photos to send (although I'd love to hear if you think we should), but I could certainly send a copy of our invitations as part of the packet. The invitations call the event "a celebration of [our] marriage", which is admittedly not as clear as, "as they renew their marriage vows" or something like that.

Anyhow. I know that many couples do what we're doing and there's nothing wrong with it, but I'm divided as to whether including the invitation is more likely to help or hurt our application. I mean, there's a gigantic difference between "we couldn't afford a wedding when we decided to get married, but we're having one now!" and "I'm getting married! It's so weird because we actually got 'married' two years ago, but that was just so this cute guy i met on spring break coud score a green card. Who woudl've thought we'd fall in love and get married for real?". Obviously, our situation is the former, but since my husband forgot our camera on the day of our legal marriage, all we have is a grainy cell phone picture, and I can see how that might make it look like we were rather flippant about the legal part, and I woud hate to promote suspicion because the invitation itself does not clearly indicate that this is a renewal of vows for a marriage that our families know about and have known about for two years now. On the other hand, friends and relatives who have not been through this process keep bringing up the point that a vow renewal invitation is a great piece of evidence of a legitimate marriage, because who the heck throws a giant party to celebrate a sham marriage? I'm afraid that the whole immigration process has made me paranoid and unable to make decisions, ha ha.

Am I overthinking this? What would you do? Thanks in advance for your help!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

HI VJ-ers! I would love your opinion on our RoC evidence.

So my husband and I are preparing our packet to remove conditions on his green card, and our background should be summarized pretty concisely in my signature, but basically we married while he was here on a B-2 tourist visa and adjusted status from there. Naturally, we had to show in our AOS interview that my husband absolutely intended to return to his country after this trip -- we just realized somewhere along the way that we didn't want to spend another day apart if we didn't have to.

We're now about 2 weeks away from being able to file RoC, and about 5 weeks out from a vow renewal that we've been planning for quite some time. I don't think it's probably worth waiting until after the vow renewal to have more photos to send (although I'd love to hear if you think we should), but I could certainly send a copy of our invitations as part of the packet. The invitations call the event "a celebration of [our] marriage", which is admittedly not as clear as, "as they renew their marriage vows" or something like that.

Anyhow. I know that many couples do what we're doing and there's nothing wrong with it, but I'm divided as to whether including the invitation is more likely to help or hurt our application. I mean, there's a gigantic difference between "we couldn't afford a wedding when we decided to get married, but we're having one now!" and "I'm getting married! It's so weird because we actually got 'married' two years ago, but that was just so this cute guy i met on spring break coud score a green card. Who woudl've thought we'd fall in love and get married for real?". Obviously, our situation is the former, but since my husband forgot our camera on the day of our legal marriage, all we have is a grainy cell phone picture, and I can see how that might make it look like we were rather flippant about the legal part, and I woud hate to promote suspicion because the invitation itself does not clearly indicate that this is a renewal of vows for a marriage that our families know about and have known about for two years now. On the other hand, friends and relatives who have not been through this process keep bringing up the point that a vow renewal invitation is a great piece of evidence of a legitimate marriage, because who the heck throws a giant party to celebrate a sham marriage? I'm afraid that the whole immigration process has made me paranoid and unable to make decisions, ha ha.

Am I overthinking this? What would you do? Thanks in advance for your help!

The reason it is supported by people that have not been through the process is because they are ignorant of the process. I could print a "vow renewal invitation" on my computer in the next three minutes. I will email them to you. Proves nothing.

If you have legitimate evidence of your legitimate marriage, you do not need this. You are married, you received the conditional green card on that basis. You do not need to get "married again". There is nothing wrong with what you plan but it has no bearing on the RoC.

FWIW I did not include ANY photos, affidavits from friends, cards or letters mailed to us or ANY utility bills. We were approved without interview.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Topic moved from RUB Regional Forum to Removal of Conditions Forum

[Mary and Enrique 8]

The reason it is supported by people that have not been through the process is because they are ignorant of the process. I could print a "vow renewal invitation" on my computer in the next three minutes. I will email them to you. Proves nothing.

If you have legitimate evidence of your legitimate marriage, you do not need this. You are married, you received the conditional green card on that basis. You do not need to get "married again". There is nothing wrong with what you plan but it has no bearing on the RoC.

FWIW I did not include ANY photos, affidavits from friends, cards or letters mailed to us or ANY utility bills. We were approved without interview.

Thanks for your feedback. I would definitely agree that things like cards and utility bills (or beneficiaries for life insurance, which i could change online just long enough to print it) don't prove anything, the same way that a wedding invitation wouldn't. But people on these forums do include those things and encourage each other to, which is why I asked about the invitation since it's a similar kind of thing. I definitely think that the state should only concern itself with the civil aspects of your marriage (your tax status, whether you co-mingle finances/assets, etc) rather than whether you have vacation photos together or if your families know about each other, but we've all seen on these boards where I/Os did delve into the more personal/sentimental details of a relationship, as they did in our interview, which is the only reason I figured this might go in the "can't hurt, might help" category. Unless it does hurt, ha ha.

I appreciate hearing about your experience -- definitely makes me more inclined to leave it out. We have lots of other evidence (since AOS we've bought a house and a car and still have all the same accounts from AOS), so I'm thinking that should be enough. It's just so easy to obsess about the packet when an immigration misstep can make life so complicated.

Thanks again!

Topic moved from RUB Regional Forum to Removal of Conditions Forum

Thanks again! I realized as soon as I posted it that I hadn't changed the forum to the appropriate one. I appreciate it!

[Mary and Enrique 8]

hahah, I just realized i typed I/O instead of IO. That's what an engineering background will do to you.

@Gary and Alla - I just read your other post in this forum about good and bad evidence and found it very very helpful. Thanks for posting it!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Thanks for your feedback. I would definitely agree that things like cards and utility bills (or beneficiaries for life insurance, which i could change online just long enough to print it) don't prove anything, the same way that a wedding invitation wouldn't. But people on these forums do include those things and encourage each other to, which is why I asked about the invitation since it's a similar kind of thing. I definitely think that the state should only concern itself with the civil aspects of your marriage (your tax status, whether you co-mingle finances/assets, etc) rather than whether you have vacation photos together or if your families know about each other, but we've all seen on these boards where I/Os did delve into the more personal/sentimental details of a relationship, as they did in our interview, which is the only reason I figured this might go in the "can't hurt, might help" category. Unless it does hurt, ha ha.

I appreciate hearing about your experience -- definitely makes me more inclined to leave it out. We have lots of other evidence (since AOS we've bought a house and a car and still have all the same accounts from AOS), so I'm thinking that should be enough. It's just so easy to obsess about the packet when an immigration misstep can make life so complicated.

Thanks again!

Thanks again! I realized as soon as I posted it that I hadn't changed the forum to the appropriate one. I appreciate it!

I guess there is nothing such as "bad evidence" but there is evidence that is not really evidence of anything. As part of a "body of evidence" there is nothing wrong with it. "Look, these people went to Disney World together...and they jointly own a house" Great.

I do not wish to imply that USCIS treats every case as fraud, they do not. But they are looking for evidence that a case could be fraudulent. If YOU were in a fraudulent marriage, what "evidence" would you provide? Utility bills? Probably. Why? because you can change it online and if the person runs off...so what? You still pay your electric bill.

The solid stuff is just what is generated by normal life of a married couple. There really is nothing difficult about it. Are you going to give someone in a fraudulent marriage the key to your home, your bank account, your car?

With two children, a home, two cars, multiple bank accounts, insurance of every type, I just simply did not think we needed photos or copies of Christmas cards. We pay for the college tuition of two people from our joint account! What more do you want?