Photograph evidence

[NYCScientist 0]

Good evening everyone,

apologies if this has been addressed before. I had a search around but couldn't spot the answers I'm looking for. If has been addressed before, please redirect me and apologies again!

OK, so in brief: I'm British, on an H1B, lived here 5 years, married 4 months ago to US citizen and now applying for Green Card via Adjustment of Status. Going to town as much as we can on all our evidence as we don't have a joint rental agreement (in a nutshell: live in Manhattan in a wonderful rent-stabilized apt; if we add my husband to lease the rent will go up to market rate as it becomes a new (not renewed) lease - $300/month more! So risking not adding him [=legal under NY state law] as have a joint account, joint utility bills, ID cards to this address, etc)...

The actual question: I want to submit a number of photos with our petition. How do you present these? 6x4 prints stuck on letter paper with captions? Filed in a photo album (eg: with plastic pockets in)?

My mother-in-law just sent me a number of vouchers for free 8x8 photo books at Shutterfly. So for very little money (just taxes, shipping) I could provide a lovely glossy, printed, captioned book of prints... is this overkill? Should this kind of thing just be reserved for taking to the interview? It's very little cost and effort to me so am inclined to do it but I don't want to annoy an officer who has to then somehow figure out how to file this away. Anyone know what they prefer/how they physically store/file evidence?

Any input would be ever so gratefully received!

THANKS!

Sally

[melanieuk 19]

Is your sponsoring spouse on benefits?

[A&S14 2]

Hi, you can actually get from your landlord that you live together in that house. That is what my groupmate (also from NY) did. I think if you get that, you should have enough evidence. You can also add pictures, print it and paste on the legal size paper, put caption (date, who is in the pic), my groupmate also submit the pics with AOS. They like the pics with family and friends. I gave pictures during the interview and the IO took it as evidence. I also gave my insurance stating that my husband is a beneficiary.

They dont like fancy stuffs, they want the evidence as simple as possible because they want to put them all together in a folder.

- from a Nashville Scientist.

Edited January 20, 2015 by A&S14

[G Walters 136]

I would submit them in photo pages with copies so that if they want to keep copies they can labeled with a P touch label maker. I did this for our K-1 and it looked like a professional product.

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

Sally-

Keep it simple. No photo books. No page protectors. No tabs and table of contents. You aren't graded on your presentation or artsy skills. Contractors open the mail and have to spend time creating a standard organized case folder of paper pages. They throw out plastic page covers, binders, ribbons, glitter and such. The people who adjudicate your case never see your efforts.

A zip lock bag stapled to a page of paper holding the passport photos keeps the small ones from falling out. You will need those for each application so read the instructions for each form. I am assuming you are sending together: petition, adjustment of status, work authorization, and advance parole. Each has requirements. It is not one big application.

For you photos together you can use 4x6 prints and even staple to a plain 8.5x11 page (so they don't fall off). Not too many either. Six photos is plenty for the petition. Having gone through the whole process to citizenship and many applications, I can say in hindsight it is not critical to have glossy photos. By time to remove conditions, I assembled some photos in Word, with captions, and printed off on plain paper. Also skipped the cover letter. Still got approval with no RFEs.

You have only been married four months. They can't expect a lot of evidence so I wouldn't worry about the lease. Send what you have and continue to gather to take to your interview and beyond for when you have to apply for removing conditions on your two-year greencard. We had no lease or home deed in both names for any step of immigration. That is only a suggested piece of evidence. Find something else that shows you share the same address. Get your driver licenses changed to the same address.

[NYCScientist 0]

Thanks everyone!

Nich-Nick - thanks for all that info; ever so useful! The last thing I want to do is annoy them at the outset, so that's all really good advice. Thanks!

Is your sponsoring spouse on benefits?

No, he works. Why do you ask?

[KayDeeCee 4,896]

~ Moved from AOS from Family Based Visas to AOS from Work, Student & Tourist Visas ~