How to prove a bonafide marriage if not living 2gether

[Angela1989 1]

Hello guys! Just wanted to get some tips on how to prove a bonafide marriage through a long distance relationship (married). I've read that we need joint bank accounts,lease,utility bills ect. However we do not live together. I live in canada and he lives in the usa. Are pictures,phone bills showing how much we communicate, receipts for flight tckts, social media posts ect enough? Let me know what are good proofs i can use as we are long distance. Thank you

[Pats5415 97]

5 minutes ago, Angela1989 said:

Hello guys! Just wanted to get some tips on how to prove a bonafide marriage through a long distance relationship (married). I've read that we need joint bank accounts,lease,utility bills ect. However we do not live together. I live in canada and he lives in the usa. Are pictures,phone bills showing how much we communicate, receipts for flight tckts, social media posts ect enough? Let me know what are good proofs i can use as we are long distance. Thank you

USCIS is looking for a solid foundation that you guys are living in union, with a legitimate marriage, and that there is no fraud. Primary evidence carries the most weight. What you have in my opinion are secondary pieces of evidences. You are new here...do you mind shedding more light on your situation? 

[Angela1989 1]

2 minutes ago, Pats5415 said:

USCIS is looking for a solid foundation that you guys are living in union, with a legitimate marriage, and that there is no fraud. Primary evidence carries the most weight. What you have in my opinion are secondary pieces of evidences. You are new here...do you mind shedding more light on your situation? 

Yes, i am a canadian citizen just recently got matried to an american in the usa. We've been together for a year and we have a lot of proof of our relationship. But we don't own anything together. As i am a canadian citizen, i can't live in the usa until i am legally able to. So we don't own anything together as of yet. Can i get a joint bank account with him as a canadian citizen and ect, or have my name on the lease of a home in the usa? Our marriage is long distance until i can legally live there with him. So my question is what can i use as proof since we are long distance, primary proof as you have mentioned would be having joint ownership ect right. 

[Pats5415 97]

19 minutes ago, Angela1989 said:

Yes, i am a canadian citizen just recently got matried to an american in the usa. We've been together for a year and we have a lot of proof of our relationship. But we don't own anything together. As i am a canadian citizen, i can't live in the usa until i am legally able to. So we don't own anything together as of yet. Can i get a joint bank account with him as a canadian citizen and ect, or have my name on the lease of a home in the usa? Our marriage is long distance until i can legally live there with him. So my question is what can i use as proof since we are long distance, primary proof as you have mentioned would be having joint ownership ect right. 

As long as everything is legitimate, then you can only send in what you have. I would gather up as many pictures, travel plans, communication between you two. Primary evidence ideally is best but if you don't have anything jointly then you can't send those.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know how you can set up stuff jointly from different countries, maybe someone here can help/guide you in the right direction?

[JeanneAdil 6,657]

I went to your timeline to see date of marriage and date of submital of CR1 but there is not one

Please do create a timeline as it helps us

 

Married in 2020 (now)  the USC will add you to 2020 tax returns in the spring of 2021 

If you are not already here the USC will file  W7 and get ITIN for you/ that is a start of showing commingling of joint assets

being from Canada a person doesn't have to go thru the mulitple hoops to prove things

just have legal marriage document and proofs of each meeting and the supporting documents as asked for

[Prairiegirl3 67]

My husband and I are living together but we gathered as much evidence as possible, as we'd only been married a month when we applied. Things we included: 

- official saskatchewan marriage certificate

- pictures of us at different locations doing different things and with different people

-joint bank account statement - I believe you can easily add someone as a joint person on your bank account if you are both present at the meeting

- rental lease with both our names

- utility bill with both our names for proof of address

- signed affidavits from two relatives who wrote a letter vouching that our relationship is bonafide. 

 

Hopefully you get it all figured out! 

[Angela1989 1]

2 hours ago, Prairiegirl3 said:

My husband and I are living together but we gathered as much evidence as possible, as we'd only been married a month when we applied. Things we included: 

- official saskatchewan marriage certificate

- pictures of us at different locations doing different things and with different people

-joint bank account statement - I believe you can easily add someone as a joint person on your bank account if you are both present at the meeting

- rental lease with both our names

- utility bill with both our names for proof of address

- signed affidavits from two relatives who wrote a letter vouching that our relationship is bonafide. 

 

Hopefully you get it all figured out! 

Thank you that was helpful. You lived together in the usa prior to applying? Or did he live with you in canada? 

[Hawk Riders 814]

@Lois K...

[bobjennyhitched 99]

My husband and I were in a long distance marriage, here's what we did (I'm not providing legal advice):

 

- I added him as Beneficiary to my pension in the UK, he did the reverse in the US.

- We were (and still are) Beneficiaries on our work life insurance policies.

- He was card holder on my UK credit card account.

- I was joint on his bank account in the US (I was surprised the bank added me but oh well lol).

 

Also, we provided affidavits of support from friends and family, this is expensive in the UK as they are £90 per document and rare as Rocking Horse Poo to find a person (Notary Public) who is qualified to do this (I'm not sure how Canada is but I know the US is easy to find a Notary).

We were delayed in our case though due to my husbands taxes (he spent a lot of time outside the US for work - Japan etc.....), by the time w got to the visa interview, we didn't need most of the above (I know ironic!) And I ended up with an IR1 as we'd been married so long.

 

Good Luck, I hope this helps, just wanted to provide our experience.

[eggybreadb78 57]

My fiance and I are on each other's bank accounts as authorized users and have our own cards for one another's bank accounts (will be doing a joint bank account too at the earliest opportunity), we have a family plan phone contract, plus all of the evidence you also mentioned like photos, call logs etc etc. When we can, we plan on adding one another to health insurance, life insurance, and when relevant all of his military documents. It is definitely hard when you're still long distance to compile evidence but everything you can do is good. 

[Hmongtain907 5]

I used plane ticket and money transfer 

[JFH 12,191]

For Canada you don’t have to go wild with piles of evidence. Focus on evidence of time spent together - copies of your passport stamps (assuming you used your passport to cross and not a NEXUS card or EDL), hotel receipts if you stayed at a hotel together somewhere, boarding passes for flights to visit each other, bank statements showing ATM or card transactions in each other’s home town. You are never too young to have a will so draw up some simple wills that show each other as the beneficiary. I also sent some random text messages between us - focus on quality not quantity. USCIS does not want to see 200 pages of “I loge you” and heart emojis. I sent snaps of conversations between us where we discussed things that married couples discuss - money, work, where to spend Thanksgiving, what color curtains to buy, what to buy my mother for her birthday, etc. I also included a disagreement that we had and how we resolved it. 

Edited October 7, 2020 by JFH

[Lois K 121]

On 10/6/2020 at 9:43 PM, Hawk Riders said:

@Lois K...

Just summoning me over here, eh? 

 

My table of contents for the I-130 submission was 4 pages long, yes, just the TOC, 4 pages. No, a TOC isn't required, I just like things to be super organized.

• The first 23 pages are the bonafides (birth certs, passports, marriage cert, divorce docs, etc.). 
• The next 40 pages were titled 'Moments from our Shared History' and include emails, pictures, plane tickets, all sorts of things. This includes Kevin suggesting we see a play for our first date, an email from my parents after meeting Kevin for the first time, pictures of making pizza for my family in Mexico, us at a cousin's wedding, multiple family reunions, and tons of stuff from our own wedding - pictures, planning documents, guest book photo, etc.,
• Next up, 8 pages of family pictures. We both have kids from previous marriages and our pictures clearly show our kids in various stages of growing up all while we were a couple. All our kids are graduated now but we have family pictures dating back to when some of them were still in elementary school.
• Three pages of pictures of gifts and notes we wrote each other over the years. 
• 15 pages of pictures and memorabilia from various couple moments - hiking, a weekend visit to Seattle, profile pictures from Facebook, going to a company Christmas party and the like
• 1 page that is a printout of his I-94, something you can print online, showing all his visits to the states to see me. 
• 1 page of my Google Maps timeline showing many of my visits to Canada.
• The final pages are 15 affidavits from family and friends who have known us for years.

We have no shared finances to show since we live in separate countries - no shared bills, no shared property, no tax anythings. But still, lots of evidence of a relationship.

[Angela1989 1]

12 minutes ago, Lois K said:

Just summoning me over here, eh? 

 

My table of contents for the I-130 submission was 4 pages long, yes, just the TOC, 4 pages. No, a TOC isn't required, I just like things to be super organized.

• The first 23 pages are the bonafides (birth certs, passports, marriage cert, divorce docs, etc.). 
• The next 40 pages were titled 'Moments from our Shared History' and include emails, pictures, plane tickets, all sorts of things. This includes Kevin suggesting we see a play for our first date, an email from my parents after meeting Kevin for the first time, pictures of making pizza for my family in Mexico, us at a cousin's wedding, multiple family reunions, and tons of stuff from our own wedding - pictures, planning documents, guest book photo, etc.,
• Next up, 8 pages of family pictures. We both have kids from previous marriages and our pictures clearly show our kids in various stages of growing up all while we were a couple. All our kids are graduated now but we have family pictures dating back to when some of them were still in elementary school.
• Three pages of pictures of gifts and notes we wrote each other over the years. 
• 15 pages of pictures and memorabilia from various couple moments - hiking, a weekend visit to Seattle, profile pictures from Facebook, going to a company Christmas party and the like
• 1 page that is a printout of his I-94, something you can print online, showing all his visits to the states to see me. 
• 1 page of my Google Maps timeline showing many of my visits to Canada.
• The final pages are 15 affidavits from family and friends who have known us for years.

We have no shared finances to show since we live in separate countries - no shared bills, no shared property, no tax anythings. But still, lots of evidence of a relationship.

Thank you so much this was very helpful. 

[SalishSea 18,148]

On 10/6/2020 at 8:06 AM, Pats5415 said:

USCIS is looking for a solid foundation that you guys are living in union, with a legitimate marriage, and that there is no fraud. Primary evidence carries the most weight. What you have in my opinion are secondary pieces of evidences. You are new here...do you mind shedding more light on your situation? 

Actually, USCIS is well aware that people who marry and petition their spouses for immigrant visas usually do not live together.