Evidence of Bonafide Marriage

[Cilian7 1]

My wife and I recently married - I'm a US citizen and she is Canadian. We are filing for the CR-1 marriage visa and are almost finished with the process, except for the point #15 on the "Step-by-Step Guide on How to File for a IR-1 / CR-1 Visa for a Foreign Spouse," which requests "Evidence of Bonafide Marriage". Looking through the six options on that guide, we seem to only be able to satisfy one of them - #5 (we do not have any joint ownership, a common residence, shared financial resources, or children together)...

"Affidavits sworn to or affirmed by third parties having personal knowledge of the bona fides of the marital relationship (Each affidavit must contain the full name and address, date and place of birth of the person making the affidavit, his or her relationship to the petitioner of beneficiary, if any, and complete information and details explaining how the person acquired his or her knowledge of your marriage);"

Can anyone provide further details on what will suffice for USCIS on this? I have gone around to friends and family who have known us both together and asked them to write letters with the information stated in that point ("...the full name and address, date and place of birth of the person making the affidavit, his or her relationship to the petitioner of beneficiary, if any, and complete information and details explaining how the person acquired his or her knowledge of your marriage;"). Is this all that is needed? Moreover, does it need to be authorized in any way (ie: notarized or witnessed by a lawyer)?

Any information you can provide on this point would be helpful. Additionally, if there is any other evidence that would suffice in place of this (or in addition to it) please let me know.

Thank you for your time and help!

Charles

[Ryan H 3,812]

Your best evidence is any evidence of time spent together in person. Such evidence can include but is not limited to:

• Pictures
• Boarding passes indicating travel
• Passport entry stamps and/or visas
• hotel receipts
• restaurant receipts
• ticket stubs to anything requiring ticketed entry

Phone records, emails, and chat logs are also acceptable evidence of an ongoing relationship.

You are not required to have joint bank accounts, joint ownership of property and the affidavits you write about are also not required. Furthermore, such affidavits carry little to zero weight to begin with. Focus on the evidence of time spent together in-person, then move on to communication records. If you ultimately feel that your file is light and more is necessary, then go ahead and include the affidavits.

[slvrfx576 15]

Since you are recently married, the USCIS does not expect a lot of evidence concerning joint financials...bank accounts, leases, and such. At this point you are living in two different countries and not together ! They know that. This kind of evidence will be needed 2 years later when you apply for "removal of conditions" of the spouse's conditional green card.

For now, just follow Ryan's advice. That is what I sent. I know that some will say that I overdid it, but I sent a lot of photos (but copies, 5 or 6 to page on standard paper), all labeled with who and where...and date stamps on the photos. For communications I printed out copies of my gmail inbox, just 1 page per month, not everything and not entire emails. I also took monthly screen shots of my Skype account and printed those, and we also included phone bills that showed our calls to each other.

We also sent copies of our passport pages, showing our multiple entry/exit stamps on visits to each other, as well as copies of airline itineraries, hotel bills, etc.

I know that a lot of posters here say that affidavits carry little or no weight. But I read elsewhere that affidavits of US citizens are more valuable than those of non-USCs. So maybe that means USC affidavits carry just a little weight and those from non-USCs carry no weight at all ? IDK...but I included 6 affidavits ....3 from USC family members (mother, sister, son) and 3 from USC friends....all of whom were referenced in our photos. All affidavits were notarized.

My petition made it through USCIS in less time than a lot of others. I am sure that there could be many reasons for this, including just plain dumb luck. But the point is that the evidence I provided, even if it was more than necessary, did not slow it down.

Good Luck !

[NikLR 13,227]

At the bottom of this guide: EZGuideSpouse you'll find a bunch of different kinds of evidence you can submit.

What we did:

• PIctures of wedding with guests -2
• Pictures of us - 4
• copy of boarding passes - mine
• copy of itineraries - his
• copy of receipt showing two movie passes in USA
• affidavit from my mother, who was the minister at our wedding
• affidavit from his best friend
• copy of joint account statement (USAA)
• copy of vehicle insurance showing both names (allstate)

What we had but didn't send:

• Skype records
• Gtalk records
• emails
• facebook screenshots

Canada is a low fraud country. We chose not to send things unless we got an RFE because they're private and my husband (the USC) is a private person. I generally recommend people send that stuff on the board. Plus we had the trump card of a joint bank account. Edited September 7, 2013 by NLR

[Ketsuban 1,034]

Here's what I have so far for my this-marriage-is-so-real list:

- Amazon gift receipts, both mine and his

- Passport stamps, both mine and his

- Airline itineraries, both mine and his (we lost our boarding passes, but this shouldn't matter since we have the passport stamps)

- SkypeOut call logs. Only three calls, but we mainly go on webcam when we both have the day off work, or text when we're working.

- Screencaps of Skype video calls

- Photos of us together, about 2 or 3 per visit (7 visits total)

- Wedding photos, thinking maybe 3 or 4?

- Edit: Forgot Paypal payments I've made to him to help him out a couple of times in the past couple of years.

We've got no joint accounts.

I think the above should be enough. I hope! Because this is really draining... I can't sleep well and work is stressful, so I just want to chill for a bit and not have to think about all this for longer than I have to!

Edited September 10, 2013 by Ketsuban