Two year meeting requirement. Request for additional evidence

[payxibka 10,045]

1 minute ago, Plaxerous said:

That is such a BS reason to deny the photographs because the dates cannot be verified. If that's their reasoning, no photographs can ever be verified in the age of technology and Photoshop...

Bingo, it is a well known fact that photos are secondary evidence with little utilitarian value.

[Plaxerous 10]

9 minutes ago, payxibka said:

Bingo, it is a well known fact that photos are secondary evidence with little utilitarian value.

Now that you mention it, the I-129F never mentions attaching photos explicitly outside of the Passport Photo 

[Limey 551]

On 5/29/2019 at 2:55 PM, Adam.T said:

Thank you for your reply. I was thinking the same thing, about the evidence looking good.

 

All we have from our time in Japan, apart from the passport stamps and our residence cards, is photographs, which USCIS cannot date verify.  

 

Thanks again for your reply. You have eased my mind a little!

It seems you have more than enough evidence. Hopefully it is just the passport issue...

I think organization is also - important...
1) don't provide too much of the same evidence (one or two photos together from one trip is enough)
2) don't provide irrelevant information (eg a hotel booking in her name in the US doesn't prove you were there)
3) provide a cover sheet for each visit - title it with who was visiting where and when (eg X's visit to USA from Y date to Z date)

then list each item of evidence (we put each on a separate sheet, and numbered each one), we also explained what each was (eg "Boarding pass on flight from London Heathrow to Charlotte NC dated 11 May 2018")

For each trip we included photographs (some of which had partial implied dates in them, eg xmas tree etc, or a specific sports game with a date that could be looked up if they wished), tickets, boarding passes, passport stamps, i94.

If you did any facebook posts, these are an additional bit of evidence you could use. We used these during ROC, eg we had tickets on Eurostar to Paris (in both our names), passport stamp for my wife (as EU passport holder I didn't get one, which we explained), plus FB post of a picture of us in front of Arc de Triumphe, which obviously showed date too, which tied up with our Eurostar tickets. It would have been difficult to fake, as the page showed a side bar with other posts we'd made (at other attractions), comments from family and friends etc - so was more evidential than the picture alone.

[GOOOOOB 4]

3 hours ago, Limey said:

It seems you have more than enough evidence. Hopefully it is just the passport issue...

I think organization is also - important...
1) don't provide too much of the same evidence (one or two photos together from one trip is enough)
2) don't provide irrelevant information (eg a hotel booking in her name in the US doesn't prove you were there)
3) provide a cover sheet for each visit - title it with who was visiting where and when (eg X's visit to USA from Y date to Z date)

then list each item of evidence (we put each on a separate sheet, and numbered each one), we also explained what each was (eg "Boarding pass on flight from London Heathrow to Charlotte NC dated 11 May 2018")

For each trip we included photographs (some of which had partial implied dates in them, eg xmas tree etc, or a specific sports game with a date that could be looked up if they wished), tickets, boarding passes, passport stamps, i94.

If you did any facebook posts, these are an additional bit of evidence you could use. We used these during ROC, eg we had tickets on Eurostar to Paris (in both our names), passport stamp for my wife (as EU passport holder I didn't get one, which we explained), plus FB post of a picture of us in front of Arc de Triumphe, which obviously showed date too, which tied up with our Eurostar tickets. It would have been difficult to fake, as the page showed a side bar with other posts we'd made (at other attractions), comments from family and friends etc - so was more evidential than the picture alone.

Thank you very much for you response. My fiancee is very close to sending the RFE back to USCIS, this will probably happen tomorrow, and she has presented the evidence almost exactly as you have suggested here. 

 

So thanks again for your help and input on this. I didn't think the RFE could be so stressful but it has been and this forum has definitely helped in reducing our stress levels!

 

I'll keep the forum updated as to our progress.

 

Thank you!

[SalishSea 17,842]

7 hours ago, Plaxerous said:

Now that you mention it, the I-129F never mentions attaching photos explicitly outside of the Passport Photo 

Exactly.  We sent NONE.

[Zoeeeeeee 797]

I’m totally with @Wuozopo on this one - I think it’s just the missing passport page that got you pulled up for an RFE...

 

The only ‘evidence’ me and my fiancé submitted was 5 photos, with names of people in them, location and date written below - and flight itineraries for our visits back and forth...neither of which in hindsight actually proves we’d met in the five years, as it showed we’d booked flights, but not that we’d actually travelled...but we luckily didn’t get an RFE. So yeah, I would hope your missing passport pages would be enough. I wonder if you’d not included it at all, whether you’d not have got the RFE...like, incomplete document = we need to see the rest of the document...no document = nothing, cause they’ve not seen the document. Maybe, maybe not. I think a lot of it depends on who looked at your file and what mood they were in that day.

[SmallTownPA 72]

On 5/29/2019 at 2:33 PM, Adam.T said:

Furthermore, you provided what appear to be foreign passport pages with stamps, but you did not provide a copy of the passport bio page which precludes USCIS from identifying who the passport page belongs to..."

I find this odd for an RFE.

 

Since there is no way to show BOTH the bio page and the entry stamps together, why does taking a random photo of a bio page and a random photo of an entry page somehow 'link' them?

 

Other than the bio page, there is absolutely no way to tell in which passport the entry stamps are in.

[GOOOOOB 4]

2 hours ago, SmallTownPA said:

I find this odd for an RFE.

 

Since there is no way to show BOTH the bio page and the entry stamps together, why does taking a random photo of a bio page and a random photo of an entry page somehow 'link' them?

 

Other than the bio page, there is absolutely no way to tell in which passport the entry stamps are in.

My passport, which is a late 2015 UK one, has the passport number perforated through every page. So with the bio page they can link the stamps to the picture with the passport number. 

[Wuozopo 4,293]

9 hours ago, SmallTownPA said:

I find this odd for an RFE.

 

Since there is no way to show BOTH the bio page and the entry stamps together, why does taking a random photo of a bio page and a random photo of an entry page somehow 'link' them?

 

Other than the bio page, there is absolutely no way to tell in which passport the entry stamps are in.

I totally agree with you and thought the same thing 10 years ago when I started the K1 route, yet they continue to say all pages of the passport for various things.  

[GOOOOOB 4]

On 6/3/2019 at 3:11 PM, Plaxerous said:

That is such a BS reason to deny the photographs because the dates cannot be verified. If that's their reasoning, no photographs can ever be verified in the age of technology and Photoshop...

 

In addition to the missing passport bio page, it seems you're missing ticket stubs, whether by airplane or train, that both you and your fiancee took together.

 

Again, I think this RFE is BS since their reason for writing off missing or inconclusive evidence is weak. This is worrisome especially since the UK is a trusted country. The entry/exit Passport stamp is usually a strong indication of an in-person visit...

When we have travelled together it has been by car, either in her car or a rental car. We have never travelled together by plane as we currently live in different countries and when we do travel by plane, it is only one of us who is travelling. 

What we do have however is reservations from hotels and restaurants, with pictures of us at the restaurants and hotels with the name of the place clearly visible in the pictures. These are also crossed referenced with messages between me and my fiancee, messages between her and her friends, and transactions on both of our credit card statements. 

 

We also have testimonies from people who have seen us together, email confirmations from both United and American airlines confirming that I took the flights that were in the itineraries. 

We have gathered lots of evidence for three in person meetings and this has been sent back to USCIS, it was posted yesterday. Now we are back to the waiting game... 

[Jaquelly 1,647]

2 minutes ago, Adam.T said:

When we have travelled together it has been by car, either in her car or a rental car. We have never travelled together by plane as we currently live in different countries and when we do travel by plane, it is only one of us who is travelling. 

What we do have however is reservations from hotels and restaurants, with pictures of us at the restaurants and hotels with the name of the place clearly visible in the pictures. These are also crossed referenced with messages between me and my fiancee, messages between her and her friends, and transactions on both of our credit card statements. 

 

We also have testimonies from people who have seen us together, email confirmations from both United and American airlines confirming that I took the flights that were in the itineraries. 

We have gathered lots of evidence for three in person meetings and this has been sent back to USCIS, it was posted yesterday. Now we are back to the waiting game... 

Boarding passes are important because it shows one of you going to visit the other in their country. 

[GOOOOOB 4]

Just now, Jaquelly said:

Boarding passes are important because it shows one of you going to visit the other in their country. 

Most of my boarding passes have been lost, due to my phone restarting, but we have included the only surviving one along with the confirmation of travel letter from the airline.

[Jaquelly 1,647]

Just now, Adam.T said:

Most of my boarding passes have been lost, due to my phone restarting, but we have included the only surviving one along with the confirmation of travel letter from the airline.

I believe we sent whatever boarding passes we had and also confirmation emails, hotel confirmations, etc. Our proof wasn't a bunch of pictures and stuff - just the evidence that backed up our passport stamps.  You'll get through this. RFEs suck but at least you know they looked at your case.

[payxibka 10,045]

5 minutes ago, Adam.T said:

Most of my boarding passes have been lost, due to my phone restarting, but we have included the only surviving one along with the confirmation of travel letter from the airline.

One of the reasons I always have my boarding pass sent to my email 

[GOOOOOB 4]

2 minutes ago, Jaquelly said:

I believe we sent whatever boarding passes we had and also confirmation emails, hotel confirmations, etc. Our proof wasn't a bunch of pictures and stuff - just the evidence that backed up our passport stamps.  You'll get through this. RFEs suck but at least you know they looked at your case.

Well, our RFE has been sent back to them. It includes scans of both our passports, with stamps from Japan from both our passports from when we were living there, scans of my passport stamps for the US,  our bank statements which show that we were together spending money at the same places and times, statements from family and friends saying that they have witnessed us together as a couple with picture evidence to back these statements up. We also have her written statement talking about how we met and my visits to the US. We have screenshots of messages referring to travel taken together, between us and between friends and some of these messages include pictures of us together in front of places which are highlighted on our bank statements. We also have confirmation emails from United and American airlines confirming that I did indeed travel on the flights indicated on the itineraries including the only surviving boarding pass that I have. We have email confirmations from hotel bookings, crossed referenced with transactions on bank statements and backed up with a picture of us at the hotel, which is mentioned in the email confirmation, with the name of the hotel clearly visible. We have email confirmations of ticket purchase for the US F1 last year, with campsite reservations, transactions on our bank statements and a picture of us at the track. 

So, I hope we have enough to prove to them we have met in person. If not it's too late as the RFE has now been sent!

8 minutes ago, payxibka said:

One of the reasons I always have my boarding pass sent to my email 

The only one that I had left was emailed to me. And it has been included.