A few questions about filing I-130 regarding immigration, address & bonafides

[LucienDavid 0]

Hi everyone. I've been scouring this site for the past week and finding such great information, but I have a few questions about filling out our I-130 form.

Background: I am the USC and we are applying for my wife, who is French. We are both currently living legally in France but it seems DCF is long gone now, so I'll be filing with the Chicago lockbox.

1) I-130, question 16: Has your relative ever been under immigration proceedings? In 2008 she did a 6-month internship in Hong Kong and got a visa for that. Would that fall under this question?

2) I-130, question 18: Address in the United States where your relative intends to live. We do not know exactly where we will live when we return to the US, so I don't know what to write. I've found others with similar concerns on the forums here, but I never found a concrete answer.

3) Evidence of a bonafide marriage. My notary in the US is concerned that my parents may not be eligible to write us an affidavit. Are family members able to do this? Also, must all of these be notarized or would a simple letter suffice?

4) Evidence of a bonafide marriage. We will probably submit a bank statement from our shared account and a copy of our lease. Both of these are in French. Is it okay to just attach a paper explaining what these documents are, or should we get an official translation? The lease is rather lengthy and I imagine will be quite costly to translate professionally.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Thanks in advance - this site is marvelous!

-David

Edited January 23, 2013 by LucienDavid

[The Mean Lady 604]

Hi everyone. I've been scouring this site for the past week and finding such great information, but I have a few questions about filling out our I-130 form.

Background: I am the USC and we are applying for my wife, who is French. We are both currently living legally in France but it seems DCF is long gone now, so I'll be filing with the Chicago lockbox.

1) I-130, question 16: Has your relative ever been under immigration proceedings? In 2008 she did a 6-month internship in Hong Kong and got a visa for that. Would that fall under this question? No, immigration proceedings can be loosely defined as problems with immigration. Like removal proceedings, and things where you might see a judge

2) I-130, question 18: Address in the United States where your relative intends to live. We do not know exactly where we will live when we return to the US, so I don't know what to write. I've found others with similar concerns on the forums here, but I never found a concrete answer. I used my parents address. You're going to have to figure this out sooner or later anyways when you prove domicile

3) Evidence of a bonafide marriage. My notary in the US is concerned that my parents may not be eligible to write us an affidavit. Are family members able to do this? Also, must all of these be notarized or would a simple letter suffice? affadavits do not have to be notarized. Yes your family can ABSOLUTELY write them. And please note, they hold very little weight in the evidence dept

4) Evidence of a bonafide marriage. We will probably submit a bank statement from our shared account and a copy of our lease. Both of these are in French. Is it okay to just attach a paper explaining what these documents are, or should we get an official translation? The lease is rather lengthy and I imagine will be quite costly to translate professionally. definitely supply this information. Are you fluent in french and english? Then you're capable of translating these documents yourself

Well, that's all I've got for now. Thanks in advance - this site is marvelous!

-David

[LucienDavid 0]

Thanks KDH.

I knew we needed to have our marriage certificate officially translated, but i didn't know we could translate other supporting docs ourself. That should be pretty easy.

Thanks again!

[Roosha 51]

Yes, just make sure you include a statement that says you're competent in both languages and are able to translate. Even better would be to get a friend to do it for you, if possible. Attach the statement detailed here: http://www.visajourney.com/content/translations and you're good to go!