AOS from F1 Overstay - need opinion

[PdoubleYou 0]

Hi guys,

 

I've been following this forum for quite a bit as me and my husband are preparing to send all documents for adjustment of status and I thought I'd ask of your opinions as I know there is a lot of people on here with lots of knowledge.

Here is our story;

I came to US in 2012 as an Au-Pair and after a year I change the status to F1 and went to local community college. In 2014 I met my, now husband at that school (he was a student there too) and we began dating. We were very young at that time, I was 21 and he was 20. After a year and a half he received a scholarship and moved to different state to finish his college degree. During that time (3 years) we stayed together as long distance and were visiting each other pretty frequently. Meanwhile, I stopped attending school and fell out of F1 status. In 2018, he finally finished his degree and he moved back to CA and we began living together in 1 bedroom apartment. After a year of living together, last month we decided to get married but we did NOT have a big ceremony or not even an engagement. We were dressed up nicely and have pics from the ceremony in a nice city hall but it was very private and only few friends attended. Now that we've been filling out the documents for my AOS, we contacted a lawyer and he said that it might be hard to persuade USCIS that our marriage is real because we are very young (I'm 26, he is 25), he is African American, I'm white, he is just out of college so doesn't have super paid job (we do have a co-sponosor that makes way more than any poverty line to make sure there enough evidence that I won't be consider likely to be "public charge") since we are so young we don't have crazy amount of documents together, for example none of us have a 401k yet, we don't have life insurance that we can be add on together etc. However our relationship is real and we do have - lease for apartment together starting in mid 2018 (so we can prove we've been living together for well over a year already). We have DMV letters for the same address, I can add him to utility bill, we have costco membership together, we have bunch of pictures dating back in 2014 where you can visible see we are much younger. I have pics from his graduations etc. I also have at least 20 boarding passes for me and him between those two cities when we were long distance to prove we did see each other regularly. I'm also very confident that we can answer all of those silly questions like how does our bathroom looks like and who gets up first, who cleans, cooks and what's his favorite socks are I mean we really been dealing with each other the last 5 years :D. I know that it's going to be another 7-8 or even more months before we will have our interview so I'm planning on opening bank account together and file joint taxes hopefully at the beginning of next year. Therefore there is my question to you guys, what do you guys think about our case? Is it really going to be harder than usual for us to get approved just because we are bi-racial young couple without crazy amount of money, life insurance and nice wedding ceremony?

Edited September 17, 2019 by PdoubleYou

[USS_Voyager 1,972]

25 minutes ago, PdoubleYou said:

After a year of living together, last month we decided to get married but we did NOT have a big ceremony or not even an engagement

That’s ok, not a problem. As I said repeatedly, they do NOT care if you have a big wedding, small wedding, no wedding or if you spent your honeymoon at the Ritz Carlton in Dubai or at the local Motel 6. The only requirement is you have a valid, legal marriage and both of you were free to enter that marriage. What they’re after is evidence that you have a bona fide relationship.

 

25 minutes ago, PdoubleYou said:

for example none of us have a 401k yet, we don't have life insurance that we can be add on together etc

That’s ok too. But you have joint checking, savings, credit cards, ... though, right? By the way, you don’t have to have 401k, you can open an individual IRA just like open a checking account. Don’t have to, just wanna say it’s available. He works so he has health insurance though, and he adds you in his. Term life insurance can be bought for extremely cheap. My wife has a 20 year term life for half a million that I bought for her that costs $200/ year. That’s like $17/month or something. Again, that’s just something to think about, you need life insurance anyway, it’s a good thing to have for almost no money.

 

25 minutes ago, PdoubleYou said:

I'm also very confident that we can answer all of those silly questions like how does our bathroom looks like and who gets up first, who cleans, cooks and what's his favorite socks

I don’t think it’ll come to that. Most likely it’ll be very benign.

 

25 minutes ago, PdoubleYou said:

Is it really going to be harder than usual for us to get approved just because we are bi-racial young couple without crazy amount of money, life insurance and nice wedding ceremony?

Not hard at all. Your case is actually very typical, run of the mill, and that is a good thing. Biracial is not a red flag. My God, the majority of immigration marriage is biracial. Let’s me tell you this, my sister-in-law just sponsored (successfully I might add, via consular processing) her lesbian lover/wife who was straight then turned lesbian then bisexual who had two children with two different men, one out of wedlock. Now THAT was a hard case. I was stunned, dumbfounded that they gave her and the two kids visas. 

[aznhouston 132]

Skip the lawyer and file the whole thing yourself. I don't see any problems here.

We got married in court, and there was only ONE witness, the sister of my spouse.

We were asked about that during the interview, and we said it's because we didn't have a lot of money.

What do they REALLY care about? Financial co-mingling and joint responsibility like bills, memberships, insurance, bank accounts, house lease or mortgage with both names on them... This also means the two person are living together (co-habitation).

The officer interviewing us didn't take any of the photos (we have only about 10 photos) but he did take the whole stack of those papers. My case was approved one day after the interview, and I received the card in the mailbox exactly one week later.

[PdoubleYou 0]

20 hours ago, USS_Voyager said:

That’s ok too. But you have joint checking, savings, credit cards, ... though, right? By the way, you don’t have to have 401k, you can open an individual IRA just like open a checking account. Don’t have to, just wanna say it’s available. He works so he has health insurance though, and he adds you in his. Term life insurance can be bought for extremely cheap. My wife has a 20 year term life for half a million that I bought for her that costs $200/ year. That’s like $17/month or something. Again, that’s just something to think about, you need life insurance anyway, it’s a good thing to have for almost no money.

 

We don't have checking or saving account together yet, we got married literally on the 28th of August, but by the time of the interview we will definitely have checking and at least one credit card together. 

And thank you for your advice with the life insurance I'll for sure look into that!

 

20 hours ago, USS_Voyager said:

Not hard at all. Your case is actually very typical, run of the mill, and that is a good thing. Biracial is not a red flag. My God, the majority of immigration marriage is biracial. Let’s me tell you this, my sister-in-law just sponsored (successfully I might add, via consular processing) her lesbian lover/wife who was straight then turned lesbian then bisexual who had two children with two different men, one out of wedlock. Now THAT was a hard case. I was stunned, dumbfounded that they gave her and the two kids visas. 

Yea you're right that majority of immigration marriages are biracial but the lawyer said that because my husband is black we can get racial profiling...

Thanks for your input, it definitely makes me a little less nervous about the interview process!!

 

 

 

3 hours ago, hoangthaihuy said:

Skip the lawyer and file the whole thing yourself. I don't see any problems here.

We got married in court, and there was only ONE witness, the sister of my spouse.

We were asked about that during the interview, and we said it's because we didn't have a lot of money.

What do they REALLY care about? Financial co-mingling and joint responsibility like bills, memberships, insurance, bank accounts, house lease or mortgage with both names on them... This also means the two person are living together (co-habitation).

The officer interviewing us didn't take any of the photos (we have only about 10 photos) but he did take the whole stack of those papers. My case was approved one day after the interview, and I received the card in the mailbox exactly one week later.

That's what we were planning on telling them too! That makes me definitely less nervous knowing that somebody had a small ceremony like us and still got approved. Thank you for your answer