Evidence of Bona Fide Relationship

[Klam 24]

Hi, all.  In a few weeks, I'm planning on marrying my Canadian fiance (who lives abroad) and filing the I-130 petition.  I'll need to assemble the evidence of bona fide marriage.  I'm aware that USCIS is more lenient on evidence for long-distance couples and that there isn't any one right answer, just looking for thoughts and experiences. 

 

Because we're live in different countries, co-mingling finances isn't really practical.  We don't have many chat logs since the bulk of our daily communication is done through video chat.  The main thing I'm relying on is evidence of face time.  We've been together for 17 months and have racked up over 120 days of face time.  I have been to Toronto over 20 times to visit her and she has been to NY over 20 times to visit me.  We've also taken vacation trips to Europe, Australia, and Japan together.  We have plenty of pictures from those trips abroad. We also have a ton of electronic boarding passes from constantly flying back and forth. 

 

What's a good way to present all of this to give sufficient proof while not annoying the USCIS officer?  I was thinking of a couple pictures each from EU/AU/JP along with boarding passes and passport stamps.  I'm not sure how to present the repeated trips to Toronto.  Don't think I really want to send 20+ boarding passes, maybe just one every few months?  Also not sure if it's necessary for submit my fiance's boarding passes to NY given that USCIS can easily see how often she has entered the country.  Anybody have thoughts?  Thanks.

 

 

[pushbrk 13,173]

Provide some photos together and whatever evidence you have of travel to see each other.  Often, that's passport stamps but if driving to and from Canada, you won't have those.  Receipts in country etc.  Not a lot of need for relationship evidence from a low fraud country like Canada anyway.

[Ryan H 3,834]

7 hours ago, Klam said:

Also not sure if it's necessary for submit my fiance's boarding passes to NY given that USCIS can easily see how often she has entered the country.

 

Border control is CBP's purview, not USCIS's; additionally, the odds are very low (almost zero) that a USCIS adjudicator is going to bother to lookup those records when they have many other files to work on.

[Klam 24]

9 hours ago, Ryan H said:

 

Border control is CBP's purview, not USCIS's; additionally, the odds are very low (almost zero) that a USCIS adjudicator is going to bother to lookup those records when they have many other files to work on.

Ok, I take your point.  I know CBP handles border control but I sort of assumed it would be standard procedure for USCIS to do a lookup given how much emphasis is placed on visa fraud and overstays.

[pushbrk 13,173]

8 hours ago, Klam said:

Ok, I take your point.  I know CBP handles border control but I sort of assumed it would be standard procedure for USCIS to do a lookup given how much emphasis is placed on visa fraud and overstays.

Boarding passes means he flew, so he'll have entry stamps in his passport.  Submit copies of the passport pages with the US entry stamps.

[Bethany123 56]

When we got married, my husband and I didn't have any joint finances, since I was living 8000 miles away from him (me Ottawa, him Louisiana). We got my mother to write a letter of affidavit, stating she knew my husband and knew about our marriage, then she signed it. We also added a pre-marital class we took together. That's the only proof we sent in and I was approved after 7 months without any delays. In hindsight, I could have added our flight history and some chat and call logs. I think your idea of showing every few boarding passes is good. They can see that you've been visiting each other for an extended period of time. Same with the call logs - showing a dozen or so instead of hundreds. Try not to worry about it. Speaking from experience, as a Canadian, our processes tend to be shorter than other countries.  

[pushbrk 13,173]

9 hours ago, Bethany123 said:

When we got married, my husband and I didn't have any joint finances, since I was living 8000 miles away from him (me Ottawa, him Louisiana). We got my mother to write a letter of affidavit, stating she knew my husband and knew about our marriage, then she signed it. We also added a pre-marital class we took together. That's the only proof we sent in and I was approved after 7 months without any delays. In hindsight, I could have added our flight history and some chat and call logs. I think your idea of showing every few boarding passes is good. They can see that you've been visiting each other for an extended period of time. Same with the call logs - showing a dozen or so instead of hundreds. Try not to worry about it. Speaking from experience, as a Canadian, our processes tend to be shorter than other countries.  

You did fine, but the letter from mom was not needed.  It is NOT 8,000 miles from Ottawa to anywhere in Louisiana though. LOL  Maybe 8,000 kilometers?

[Bethany123 56]

33 minutes ago, pushbrk said:

You did fine, but the letter from mom was not needed.  It is NOT 8,000 miles from Ottawa to anywhere in Louisiana though. LOL  Maybe 8,000 kilometers?

Jeez. I meant kilometers. Relax. This isn't a contest 😒