Interview May 20. Some red flags!

[pmbaker 0]

Hello everyone,

Visa Journey has been a tremendous help for me on this green card journey. I've gone so far with this lengthy process, so proud of myself! My interview is about a month from now, and I want to consult everyone who has gone through interviews or who is going through the same thing. My husband (USC) and I live together, and have proofs of common bank accounts. I'm an insured for this car insurance and a secondary account to his American Express account. Other than that, we don't have a lot of evidence of our marriages. Below are my questions and problems that I have:

1. We didn't take a lot of pictures together. Usually we just went on trips just two of us, so there are a lot of pictures of each individual but not many pictures of both. Is that gonna a biggie?

2. We have a huge age gap, and I don't know where this is leading top, but it seems to be a red flag.

3. This marriage is kinda a secrecy. We got married at the court house, just his sister, brother and sister-in-law came to be witnesses. His parents didn't even know we are married because we actually did it at the same time his sister passed away. However, since his dad had a stroke two months ago, I've been visiting often as a friend of him. Do the interviewers ask a lot of questions about relationships with in-laws? If they do, what should I say? I'm screwed. We are also living with some other folks (not exactly friends), and we also keep the marriage from them. Our plan is to wait til at least next year to have an official wedding.

4. What kinda questions they usually ask. Most common ones.

5. How do they evaluate the legitimacy of the marriage. On what bases? It seems like the reasons they approve or deny an application are ambiguous and subjective or so.

Thank you very much for reading and helping me out!

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Are you the immigrant? What country are you from? How big an age gap? Is your husband employed? When and how did you come to the US? A secret marriage is not good. It shows you are not serious about the marriage. A marriage is a joining of two families, and should be a big deal.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Harpa Timsah

[ImmemorialN 7]

I'm unsure you should be too worried regarding the 'secret' marriage if its just the parents who don't know: so long as all your friends and people whom you work with know and you are representing yourselves as a married couple, I've seen lots of cases where this is completely fine.

The pictures may or may not be an issue. Personally, my wife and I have so many photos of us together over the course of our relationship - we tend to self timer or just do those cheesy hold the camera at arms length shots!

[ddkorestin 10]

it actually depend if u are separated for the interview or not. if u are then u should expect more scrutiny and plenty questions but if u are not then i think it should be pretty straight forward. u can try this link and try and do plenty practice http://www.visajourney.com/content/exampleq

best of luck

[Maxximus1074 14]

let's see...how many hundred pictures did we bring to the interview? ...seriously, we had our wedding guestbook/photoalbum and 2 different albums with another approx. 30 pictures each showing our live and trips together.

In the end the IO only looked at the wedding one, photocopied 2 group pictures. Then after asking my wife to point out my parents and me to point out who is who on my wife family side she did notations about those names

on the photos.

I hope I don't make you smack your forehead now, but I didn't read anything about taxes...did you file a joint tax return this year?

No experience with the age gap (I'm just 6 months older then my wife). But I know that they are curious about the wedding itsself and may rise their eyebrow if you mention that the parents were kept out of the loop, even if you explain the unfortunate death the same time (not sure how that can justify in their eyes)

It's great though that you have insurance and 2 other financially related ties - its worth much more to have something related to money then a subscribtion to a magazine or a gym membership.

Bring the handfull of pictures showing you both and even the separate ones as they then will still show that you were in the same spot, though single person on photo, no?

Lastly, they want to hear it from you how and where you met, how your relationship started and evolved in time, like when you decided to move in together and how long ago that was.

They also want to see that you know about your spouse the basic important stuff like tell them birthdates, phone numbers, maybe even ask you where your husband works.

If you didn't have parents present on wedding day, they still will ask you if you ever met them - now that of course can be tricky, as the IO can ask you if they at least know you guys are married...

"What should I say" ....the truth of course followed by a short explanation....if they wanna know more details on your reasons they will ask but its better to already mention something in the same

sentence then just a "no they were not there"

Good luck with the interview!

Keep us posted

- Maxximus

[Maxximus1074 14]

....Hey Harpa, I haven't been much active since I got my initial GC (in part thanks to your help with all my questions ) and I just noticed in your signature field that your ROC got approved and all back in February this year .... Congratulations!!!!