Not sure if we have enough evidence for a bona fide marriage...

[Throwaway3882828 0]

So we got RFE'd twice. Didn't even know that could happen... The first RFE was for evidence of my husband's income, sent that last May, didn't hear anything for a year, and then we got another for evidence of a shared life together. Thing is, we don't have lease together, or bills, or joint bank accounts. I don't even have a driver's license yet. What we do have are

- Health insurance where I'm the dependent.

- car insurance

- tax returns that says we're married

- couple of pictures

and that's it!! We could have people write sworn affidavits but we're not sure if we should make a template and just edit a little stuff and have them sign it? We have really few evidence and I'm worried it's not enough. Is there anything else we could add to this?

[Roel 7,192]

Get a lease with both your names.

Get a joint bank account. 

Get joint credit cards. 

Get some bills with both your names together. 

Life insurance. 

Power of attorney. 

 

 

Those are solid evidences that you should easily get if you live together. It's really not hard to get those. 

 

Letters from family aren't really good enough... 

 

USCIS want to see you sharing financial stuff. 

[Roel 7,192]

Just wanted to add. Your case is already taking long and you got 2 rfe.  Which means USCIS is already pretty suspicious. 

 

You need to send solid evidences or you'll end up getting denied. 

[geowrian 22,337]

You can get an RFE so long as they believe there is additional information available and necessary to adjudicate the case. That said, presumably the I-864 was an RFIE, not an RFE. At least that's how it usually goes.

 

The bona fide marriage information you already provided is on the light side. Do you have more photos together? Have you gone on trips together? Since this is for AOS, you can include information about before you were married as well...when you filed for AOS, there likely was not much time between marriage and filing  since you came on a K-1 (unless you filed later, which is allowed).

 

While you aren't on the lease, did you provide evidence of living together? Mail at the same address? Letter from whoever the owner/landlord is stating that you live there?

Why don't you have a joint bank account?

How do you share expenses and income? Why don't you have a joint credit card or something similar?

Do you have a living will, regular will, etc? Any life insurance?

For reference, I'm not actually asking for answers to these...just providing insight into why somebody would question it. These are fairly common practices for a married couple. Although a couple items above missing isn't uncommon, not having a strong rebuttal for a lack of any of them is problematic.

 

Note that any new evidence now likely won't impact your current case, but when you get to ROC it can help show a bonda fide marriage.

 

Affidavits carry very little to no weight. If you don't have other evidence, then go ahead and send it as it may be better than nothing. No template is needed..it's just a signed letter stating what they know about the relationship. Specifics are good to include.

Here's a snippet from the VJ guide for evidence of a bona fide marriage: " 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 or beneficiary, if any, and complete information and details explaining how the person acquired his or her knowledge of your marriage); or "

[Sarah&Facundo 595]

If you are filing from over a year ago, that means you have been married over a year now. That is a LOT of time to get things together. While it may be forgiving for a couple married for a short period of time before an interview, you guys have had a lot of time to get those things together. My husband and I have been married for a month and already have some of those things like a joint bank account and credit card. Those are very easy to get and take maybe an hour of your time, surely less time than it would take for someone to write an affidavit for you. I highly suggest doing at least those things. 

[GioRod 69]

2 hours ago, Sarah&Facundo said:

If you are filing from over a year ago, that means you have been married over a year now. That is a LOT of time to get things together. While it may be forgiving for a couple married for a short period of time before an interview, you guys have had a lot of time to get those things together. My husband and I have been married for a month and already have some of those things like a joint bank account and credit card. Those are very easy to get and take maybe an hour of your time, surely less time than it would take for someone to write an affidavit for you. I highly suggest doing at least those things. 

Hello

                   I have a question because I went to chase bank to add my wife but they would not let me because she did not have a state id(but she does have SSN. I know its not hard to get a state id but I need proof of address and where I live we get mail but it not utility bills etc only medical bills and stuff from USCIS. So my questions is what did they ask for at the bank?

 

 

Thanks in advance for any response

[Sarah&Facundo 595]

17 minutes ago, GioRod said:

Hello

                   I have a question because I went to chase bank to add my wife but they would not let me because she did not have a state id(but she does have SSN. I know its not hard to get a state id but I need proof of address and where I live we get mail but it not utility bills etc only medical bills and stuff from USCIS. So my questions is what did they ask for at the bank?

 

 

Thanks in advance for any response

Hi!

Chase didn't let us add my husband on either, even though I have one of my credit cards through there. Wells Fargo let us add him on, even before he had his SSN. HOWEVER, Chase let me add him on as an authorized user to the Sapphire card. After one full billing cycle, I can now add his SSN and they will report him to the credit bureaus to begin building credit. State ID is next on our list! Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions  

[GioRod 69]

1 hour ago, Sarah&Facundo said:

Hi!

Chase didn't let us add my husband on either, even though I have one of my credit cards through there. Wells Fargo let us add him on, even before he had his SSN. HOWEVER, Chase let me add him on as an authorized user to the Sapphire card. After one full billing cycle, I can now add his SSN and they will report him to the credit bureaus to begin building credit. State ID is next on our list! Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions  

Got ya yea even if I open another bank account I would feel like it pointless to me because I been a long time chase costumer and love them lol .I Just feel like USCIS would like to see activity in the bank account and I feel like I will barley use it lol. But I really to appreciate your response.

 

For now I just have , Beneficiary Status and on medical Insurance . I'm goin to see if I can be put on her phone bill since I pay it  

Excuse any typos I'm at work lol

 

Hope everyone is having a good day

Edited June 5, 2018 by GioRod

[chrismar 2]

14 hours ago, Throwaway3882828 said:

So we got RFE'd twice. Didn't even know that could happen... The first RFE was for evidence of my husband's income, sent that last May, didn't hear anything for a year, and then we got another for evidence of a shared life together. Thing is, we don't have lease together, or bills, or joint bank accounts. I don't even have a driver's license yet. What we do have are

- Health insurance where I'm the dependent.

- car insurance

- tax returns that says we're married

- couple of pictures

and that's it!! We could have people write sworn affidavits but we're not sure if we should make a template and just edit a little stuff and have them sign it? We have really few evidence and I'm worried it's not enough. Is there anything else we could add to this?

I pretty much brought in all of those exactly.

• I had a car insurance policy verification that I downloaded from my insurance company's online portal.
• I had a handful of pictures of us that I'd printed out (one of them was my fiance pictured with my mother on her birthday)
• A copy of my health insurance verification of coverage (had both our names on it)
• Marriage certificate
• Last year's tax return with both our names on it

 

An additional thing I also ended up doing was printing out the travel receipts for a series of trips we'd taken together including a trip to Boston earlier in the year (dad's b-day), a work trip I invited her to in Atlanta, and travel I'd booked for us both to Disney World.

Ultimately, we've only gone out of our way to share things that are necessary. That didn't include adding my SO to my bank accounts or make them the joint owner of my cars/home.

 

Our application was approved with all of the same supporting evidence you've listed above that we brought to our 485 interview.

[themollusk79 18]

On 6/5/2018 at 12:23 PM, Sarah&Facundo said:

Hi!

Chase didn't let us add my husband on either, even though I have one of my credit cards through there. Wells Fargo let us add him on, even before he had his SSN. HOWEVER, Chase let me add him on as an authorized user to the Sapphire card. After one full billing cycle, I can now add his SSN and they will report him to the credit bureaus to begin building credit. State ID is next on our list! Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions  

How did you add his SSN to the Chase card?  I had had my wife as an authorized user for over a year and would like to do the same.  Thanks!

[Sarah&Facundo 595]

15 minutes ago, themollusk79 said:

How did you add his SSN to the Chase card?  I had had my wife as an authorized user for over a year and would like to do the same.  Thanks!

On the phone, they told me I had to wait one billing cycle with him as an authorized user before calling and adding it so I should call back in a few weeks. I'm not sure if this is the same with all of the Chase cards, or just a benefit of some higher end ones like the Sapphire Preferred/Reserve cards. 

[themollusk79 18]

Just now, Sarah&Facundo said:

On the phone, they told me I had to wait one billing cycle with him as an authorized user before calling and adding it so I should call back in a few weeks. I'm not sure if this is the same with all of the Chase cards, or just a benefit of some higher end ones like the Sapphire Preferred/Reserve cards. 

We have the Sapphire Preferred - so should be good to go.  Thank you! 

[Sarah&Facundo 595]

2 minutes ago, themollusk79 said:

We have the Sapphire Preferred - so should be good to go.  Thank you! 

Great! Let me know if it works. I have to call back in 2 weeks

[Marta Proniagina 119]

hello! I have the same kinda problem. i came here 6 months ago and we've been married for 3 months only and we only have this sort of proof:
-pictures (not a lot though)

-water and electricity bills with our names on it (my husband owns the house but there's no way now to put my name on anything else related to it)

-shared cell phone plan (but it only shows our numbers and that my husband is the account owner. don't know if this would work or if there's anything we could ask for from the cell phone provider)

-paper from the post office saying we have a po box assigned to our names

-paper stating that we gave away some property to my husband's relative with both of our names on it

-4 affidavits from friends

 

but that's it and we don't have anything else so far. what do you think about this list? My husband (USC) sais it's enough but I'm rather worried

[Orangesapples 1,954]

50 minutes ago, Marta Proniagina said:

hello! I have the same kinda problem. i came here 6 months ago and we've been married for 3 months only and we only have this sort of proof:
-pictures (not a lot though)

-water and electricity bills with our names on it (my husband owns the house but there's no way now to put my name on anything else related to it)

-shared cell phone plan (but it only shows our numbers and that my husband is the account owner. don't know if this would work or if there's anything we could ask for from the cell phone provider)

-paper from the post office saying we have a po box assigned to our names

-paper stating that we gave away some property to my husband's relative with both of our names on it

-4 affidavits from friends

 

but that's it and we don't have anything else so far. what do you think about this list? My husband (USC) sais it's enough but I'm rather worried

It might not be enough, although the utility bills are good. Do you have a joint bank account? Insurance? Are you his beneficiary on his life insurance and 401k? Do you drive? Are you on the car insurance as well? How do you share finances?