Interview date notice... Too quick

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

On the contrary, I understand the concerns of the OP.

Living 'under the radar', even for many years, yeilds a surprisingly small 'paper trail' of evidence of a relationship.

Luckily for us, my EAD has arrived and we're scrabbling to get my name on bills, bank accounts etc before our interview.

Without evidence like that, there isn't much you can acquire.

Sure, you can take photos and receive greetings cards, but lack of a job means it may have been impossible to take a vacation together, for instance.

Even if you can afford a vacation, many people would think it too risky to travel by air because of ID checks.

Without an SSN it's practically impossible to show evidence of co mingling of assets, even though they have probably been mingled for years.

I'm sure the interviewer will understand this though.

The bolded text is precisely correct. They understand that someone without lawful status isn't going to have much of the mundane evidence, like joint bank accounts and bills, etc. However, they still expect the things any typical married couple would accumulate together. When you look at a scrapbook of someone's marriage you don't see joint bank accounts and bills - you see photos of family events, ticket stubs to concerts or shows, holidays to places of interest (even if it's a half-day drive to a state park), and so on. Married couples generally collect and save their memories. These are the things the IO is going to expect to see.

[ceadsearc 516]

Agreed with what has been said. As my husband also overstayed, and only had a social for a couple weeks before our interview, we did not have much in the way of a paper trail. Our interviewer did question us about it and raise her eyebrows, but we were approved all the same. There are other things you can bring anyway that will help your case - emails, photos, facebook logs, tickets for trips taken together or hotels reserved, etc.

[velnoure 2]

I want to update you guys on the results:

I received a card production notice today, Aug 5th for a 10 year green card.

We were able to bring compelling evidence of our marriage, and we were only given a month of preparation. I did not have an SSN or allowed to work before the interview notice. I think it was very crucial that I had no criminal record, no trail of illegal employment (I have never worked until I received the EAD, a few days AFTER the interview).

If you were in the same situation as I am, with no job, out of status, and still need to find paperwork, but have an EAD card before the interview, what we did were:

-apply a joint credit card. Spouse should have a reasonable credit score for this.

-add a new cell phone line with our names in it.

-apply for a new bank account, then add spouse for a joint bank account

Other than that, we have bills showing both our names in the same address, loads of pictures printed on paper, joint tax returns for 3 years (and other original documents required for I-485)

they may or may not scrutinize the fact that all the presented/joint documents (except for the pictures - we have a significant amount) are new. Again, I had no SSN and never worked illegally, so I guess it was understandable to the officer that we may not have a lot of paper trails to show.

Also, we did hire a lawyer to advise us with the evidence.

Edited August 6, 2011 by velnoure

[velnoure 2]

Your lawyer had nothing to do with the amount of time it took from the petition filing to the interview. If you wish, you can credit your attorney with not getting an RFE which would have made it take longer, but your attorney can't make USCIS move any faster. It would have been just as quick if you'd filed the papers yourself.

You can't manufacture evidence of a five year marriage in the month or so prior to the interview. I think it may have been a bit naive of you to think you could have gotten persuasive evidence in the time between receiving an EAD and the time of the green card interview. I think you should look back over your five years together and see what you've collected over that time that shows you've been a married couple.

I'd like to elaborate a bit more about our lawyer. This guy is truly a life saver. He's been our lawyer 2 years before we filed anything. We could have filed in 2009, but we didn't. So our lawyer knows our situation well. Our lawyer definitely took the extra step during the process. He's not the average lawyer who files his client's paperwork, get paid, forget about it, maybe make a mistake or two and ask for more payments somewhere in the way.

As I've written in the other post, it is possible to gather enough evidence, given a month of timeframe. We both planned way ahead of time, and took action as soon as I got the EAD card.

I don't think there's much, if any, to doubt in our marriage - we have similar background in parent's nationality (biggest difference is my spouse being a U.S. citizen, and I'm not), lived in my country for over 10 years, speak the same non-English language, same age range, knew/met far before in advance with any plans to marry (not your average dating>k-1 visa>married>2 year green card process).

Edited August 6, 2011 by velnoure

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I'd like to elaborate a bit more about our lawyer. This guy is truly a life saver. He's been our lawyer 2 years before we filed anything. We could have filed in 2009, but we didn't. So our lawyer knows our situation well. Our lawyer definitely took the extra step during the process. He's not the average lawyer who files his client's paperwork, get paid, forget about it, maybe make a mistake or two and ask for more payments somewhere in the way.

As I've written in the other post, it is possible to gather enough evidence, given a month of timeframe. We both planned way ahead of time, and took action as soon as I got the EAD card.

I don't think there's much, if any, to doubt in our marriage - we have similar background in parent's nationality (biggest difference is my spouse being a U.S. citizen, and I'm not), lived in my country for over 10 years, speak the same non-English language, same age range, knew/met far before in advance with any plans to marry (not your average dating>k-1 visa>married>2 year green card process).

I'm glad you're happy with your attorney. I've had a couple of legal issues where I ultimately prevailed, and I also credit the brilliant and diligent work of my attorney. What I'm saying, and still stand by, is that your lawyer is not the reason your case was processed quickly. USCIS would not have moved any quicker even if F. Lee Bailey had submitted your application. There are no secret "tricks" that only lawyers know that will make an application with USCIS move faster. Ultimately, you're at the mercy of the bureaucratic machine. Conversely, however, there are a number of mistakes that anyone (including an attorney) can make that will slow things down considerably.

That said, it sounds like you got excellent personal service from your attorney, and you should certainly be grateful to your attorney for that.

I have to disagree with your other statement, though. Specifically, that it's possible to gather "enough evidence" in only a month. That would be true of a marriage that was only a few months old, but not in a marriage of five years. If the bulk of your evidence consisted of what you had gathered in the final month before filing, and you had very little to show for the five years of marriage prior to that, there's a good chance you'd be denied. On the other hand, if you walked into the interview with a pile of photo albums, souvenirs, keepsakes, maybe a few affidavits from friends and family, and other stuff you'd accumulated over the five years of marriage, and virtually none of the third party evidence like joint bank accounts or bills, you'd still have a pretty good chance of being approved. As I said, the IO understands that an immigrant who doesn't have a green card, EAD, or Social Security number, is pretty limited in how much of that financial evidence they are able to acquire.

What I'm saying is that your approval doesn't hinge solely on proving co-mingling of finances. The IO would obviously expect to see this evidence if they knew it was possible to have obtained it, but they're not going to automatically deny you if it wasn't possible to get it. They're looking at the whole package of evidence.

[velnoure 2]

I'm glad you're happy with your attorney. I've had a couple of legal issues where I ultimately prevailed, and I also credit the brilliant and diligent work of my attorney. What I'm saying, and still stand by, is that your lawyer is not the reason your case was processed quickly. USCIS would not have moved any quicker even if F. Lee Bailey had submitted your application. There are no secret "tricks" that only lawyers know that will make an application with USCIS move faster. Ultimately, you're at the mercy of the bureaucratic machine. Conversely, however, there are a number of mistakes that anyone (including an attorney) can make that will slow things down considerably.

That said, it sounds like you got excellent personal service from your attorney, and you should certainly be grateful to your attorney for that.

I have to disagree with your other statement, though. Specifically, that it's possible to gather "enough evidence" in only a month. That would be true of a marriage that was only a few months old, but not in a marriage of five years. If the bulk of your evidence consisted of what you had gathered in the final month before filing, and you had very little to show for the five years of marriage prior to that, there's a good chance you'd be denied. On the other hand, if you walked into the interview with a pile of photo albums, souvenirs, keepsakes, maybe a few affidavits from friends and family, and other stuff you'd accumulated over the five years of marriage, and virtually none of the third party evidence like joint bank accounts or bills, you'd still have a pretty good chance of being approved. As I said, the IO understands that an immigrant who doesn't have a green card, EAD, or Social Security number, is pretty limited in how much of that financial evidence they are able to acquire.

What I'm saying is that your approval doesn't hinge solely on proving co-mingling of finances. The IO would obviously expect to see this evidence if they knew it was possible to have obtained it, but they're not going to automatically deny you if it wasn't possible to get it. They're looking at the whole package of evidence.

Aside from two pages of a joint bank statement, new cell phone line, and less than a month old credit card statements, we handed no additional paperwork during the interview. We had no joint assets, or even insurance. Aside from those, we brought in 50 pictures printed on paper and a wedding album (I do some graphic design as a hobby, so I made the extra effort in designing the album, and the officer's smile was cheek to cheek after that). Our lawyer's advice definitely kicked in with the pictures, and it will be a disservice to him to reveal how the pictures were prepared. The officer was even familiar with my lawyer's name and took quick, machine-like routine as if we already know what's coming. The officer did note of my lawyer's absence during the interview, as if she expected him to come.

I guess I can go on with the questions that were asked, but I made a quick review in my timeline, and the rest of our interview experience seem normal.

Edited August 6, 2011 by velnoure

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Aside from two pages of a joint bank statement, new cell phone line, and less than a month old credit card statements, we handed no additional paperwork during the interview. We had no joint assets, or even insurance. Aside from those, we brought in 50 pictures printed on paper and a wedding album (I do some graphic design as a hobby, so I made the extra effort in designing the album, and the officer's smile was cheek to cheek after that). Our lawyer's advice definitely kicked in with the pictures, and it will be a disservice to him to reveal how the pictures were prepared. The officer was even familiar with my lawyer's name and took quick, machine-like routine as if we already know what's coming. The officer did note of my lawyer's absence during the interview, as if she expected him to come.

I guess I can go on with the questions that were asked, but I made a quick review in my timeline, and the rest of our interview experience seem normal.

If you had left out the relatively recent bank, cell phone, and credit card documentation, I think you would have been approved on the photos alone.

[velnoure 2]

Hmm.. Wouldn't you say that having a bank account/credit card/phone is a normal transition for anyone? We would have applied for those whether or not they were required on the interview.

But, anyway, I'm glad that our journey is right at the finish line.

Edited August 8, 2011 by velnoure