Proving a bonafide relationship with limited time together

[Gapols 3]

Conversation on Facebook,Maybe a screnshot when you guys are video calling. Boarding passes, Take a lot of photos. Iphone pictures are fine too.

[DP2018 12]

15 hours ago, ilikepotatoes said:

Hi everyone. Having a bit of an issue, and just feeling anxious and uncertain about what to do.

 

I met my fiancé three years ago through a mutual Facebook friend. We’ve spoken just about everyday since. After a year of speaking, we really felt like we wanted to be together. At this point, I had two very unwell parents (my mother had cancer and father had a number of physical ailments) and I was unable to travel. Early 2020, we planned for him to come visit me and meet my family, but then COVID hit and ruined our chances. He’s not from a VWP country.  I then planned to visit him that fall for a few weeks, but tragically, my mother passed away in November. 
 

Last week, I was able to book a flight to go see him for 1-2 months. I leave on the 30th. 
 

What my fiancé and I are hoping to do, is at some point during my stay, we’d get married via a Zoom ceremony. This is the only plausible way for us to marry. He’s currently studying at a medical school in Ukraine, which is not his home country. I’ve been told by many people that marrying there is very very difficult for couples, so we talked about it and decided that we wouldn’t go that route. We’ve also investigated marriage in his home country, which also comes with many rules and regulations regarding the marriage process; I was told by an immigration lawyer there that I would have to be present in the country for at least 30 days, before being able to file for a marriage license. After a two month stay in Ukraine, an additional 30 days in another country, just doesn’t seem feasible financially....with the added concern of my father’s health and well-being while I’m away. Now throw COVID in the mix, and you have a big, insurmountable mess. That’s why we chose Zoom.
 

So right now, we are hoping to marry when I visit him, a few weeks after meeting. But I’m concerned about whether we will have enough evidence to prove that we are truly genuine with how we feel about one another. My father and his family are on board with this; initially, we thought we’d be able to have my father present, in person, for the Zoom ceremony, but after thinking about it, that would require him to take a flight by himself, which he might not be safe to do, due to his medical conditions. He’s also on medication that I think is prohibited in Ukraine. 
 

I’m not sure what to do now. Because of the unpredictability of government and COVID, we really want to marry...we don’t know when we will be able to see each other again. But I’m also scared that we won’t have enough evidence....especially since we might not be able to have my father with us as originally planned. 
 

Do we still have a chance at being approved for the spouse visa, even after one meeting? If we explained our reasoning, might that provide a good enough explanation? Any advice is greatly appreciated, but please try to not be too judgmental...I understand our situation is a bit unconventional, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wrong. Thank you all in advance. 🙏

I understand that you are tensed and its obvious because of your situation. I understand Zoom marriage but people who could not meet each other they do it, but in your case you guys will meet each other however you mentioned Ukraine rules of marriage is tough. I have question for you, why you guys are not going for K1 because after spending two months time together, chances are good to get approved. On the other hand some counties have better approval rate in CR1 than K1 like India, Pakistan and mid east countries etc. Also explain me the procedure of Zoom marriage because me and my fiancee in a same situation, we met once in person and now we want to get married but unable to due to covid travel restrictions. I am from India.

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

I’m not sure Zimbabwe is a huge red flag tbh. The red flag countries normally also have very high B2 visa refusal rates. Zim is 26%, which is far from the types normally associated with red flag countries, at least in Africa (examples Ghana 56%, Algeria 44%, Nigeria 67%) and similar to countries like Peru, Philippines, Mexico, Thailand.

[neca 166]

Zoom marriages can work:

 

As for proof of bonafides, I echo what others have said about interweaving your life as much as possible after you get married. I just wanted to add what I did regarding online communication: My understanding is that they want to get an idea of the breadth of your relationship. In my case, I met my spouse online and had extensive documented interactions, so I provided screenshots from every month of the relationship prior to my moving in with him. Just one screenshot from every month, and I tried to vary what the topic at hand was about, and represent all of the platforms we communicated through (in our case, Skype, Discord, WhatsApp). You want to show that you have constant communication, but not overwhelm them with too much stuff.

For instance, having it all be lovey dovey talk can come across as disingenuous, but having all casual mundane talk can come across like you two aren't romantically involved. Specifically speaking, I put in key moments like when we met and when we first exchanged words of love, mixed with excerpts of what we usually spoke about (art, philosophy, video games, etc) and evidence of video/voice chatting as well. WhatsApp has a call log tab, so I took like four or five screenshots of all the calls we were doing from when we started using the application to when we applied (this is in addition to the screenshots of the chat logs). Just to be extra thorough and in the interest of brevity, I provided a one-sentence summary of each screenshot under it. I don't know if this affected anything.

Something I didn't do enough of that I think was already touched on, is making sure that when you are together having pictures that include the both of you as well as a notable landmark behind you, so they can tell where you are together. I have pictures of us in the Boston Commons that you can't tell apart from our pictures in Central Park NYC. Pictures together are better than nothing, pictures where you two are out and verifiably/actively doing things together are better still. With the pictures, like the screenshots, I put a description ("[Us] in NYC") and a timestamp ("Aug 2018") when I remembered the date. The pictures also were arranged chronologically, and had big connecting titles when there were multiple pictures from a trip (ie "Our Wedding Day," "First time meeting in real life," etc).

 

Hope this helps!

[Chica79 15]

21 hours ago, ilikepotatoes said:

Hi everyone. Having a bit of an issue, and just feeling anxious and uncertain about what to do.

 

I met my fiancé three years ago through a mutual Facebook friend. We’ve spoken just about everyday since. After a year of speaking, we really felt like we wanted to be together. At this point, I had two very unwell parents (my mother had cancer and father had a number of physical ailments) and I was unable to travel. Early 2020, we planned for him to come visit me and meet my family, but then COVID hit and ruined our chances. He’s not from a VWP country.  I then planned to visit him that fall for a few weeks, but tragically, my mother passed away in November. 
 

Last week, I was able to book a flight to go see him for 1-2 months. I leave on the 30th. 
 

What my fiancé and I are hoping to do, is at some point during my stay, we’d get married via a Zoom ceremony. This is the only plausible way for us to marry. He’s currently studying at a medical school in Ukraine, which is not his home country. I’ve been told by many people that marrying there is very very difficult for couples, so we talked about it and decided that we wouldn’t go that route. We’ve also investigated marriage in his home country, which also comes with many rules and regulations regarding the marriage process; I was told by an immigration lawyer there that I would have to be present in the country for at least 30 days, before being able to file for a marriage license. After a two month stay in Ukraine, an additional 30 days in another country, just doesn’t seem feasible financially....with the added concern of my father’s health and well-being while I’m away. Now throw COVID in the mix, and you have a big, insurmountable mess. That’s why we chose Zoom.
 

So right now, we are hoping to marry when I visit him, a few weeks after meeting. But I’m concerned about whether we will have enough evidence to prove that we are truly genuine with how we feel about one another. My father and his family are on board with this; initially, we thought we’d be able to have my father present, in person, for the Zoom ceremony, but after thinking about it, that would require him to take a flight by himself, which he might not be safe to do, due to his medical conditions. He’s also on medication that I think is prohibited in Ukraine. 
 

I’m not sure what to do now. Because of the unpredictability of government and COVID, we really want to marry...we don’t know when we will be able to see each other again. But I’m also scared that we won’t have enough evidence....especially since we might not be able to have my father with us as originally planned. 
 

Do we still have a chance at being approved for the spouse visa, even after one meeting? If we explained our reasoning, might that provide a good enough explanation? Any advice is greatly appreciated, but please try to not be too judgmental...I understand our situation is a bit unconventional, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wrong. Thank you all in advance. 🙏

Ultimately, the rule for a K-1 visa is you need to meet at least once within a 2 year period.  They do not care about Covid, sick parent or any other reason you could not go.  I really would not worry about providing its a valid relationship unless it is a valid relationship.  Also, Why would you marry someone you never met?  in a Zoom ceremony?  Does this sound like a bonifide relationship to you?

 

[ilikepotatoes 57]

7 minutes ago, Chica79 said:

Ultimately, the rule for a K-1 visa is you need to meet at least once within a 2 year period.  They do not care about Covid, sick parent or any other reason you could not go.  I really would not worry about providing its a valid relationship unless it is a valid relationship.  Also, Why would you marry someone you never met?  in a Zoom ceremony?  Does this sound like a bonifide relationship to you?

 

First of all, I’m not filing a K-1 visa. Secondly, I wrote in this post that I’m going to be visiting him for at least one month. This is when we would be getting married. I would never marry someone before I even met him. The reason we’ve chosen this due to Zoom is because of the very difficult legal regulations in his home country when it comes to the marriage process. But again, I will have been living with him, in person, before we even marry. Please read the post fully, before making assumptions about my relationship. 

[Cathi 5,746]

My husband and I married on the first visit and we didn't have any issues. I think 1-2 months is decent amount of time, the more the better. It isn't like you plan to get married and turn around and leave the next day. When I married my husband I had no idea what visa journey was, I didn't discover this site until long after I sent the 1-130 so I had no idea it was a red flag to marry on the first visit, Hell, I had no idea what a red flag even was and trust men, we had lots of them(including being 21 years older than he is). 

I can remember when I first joined VJ, so many people said we would never last because of our red flags and age difference and guess what? This year is our 10th wedding anniversary and I'm glad to report that we are even happier now than we were when we were married. 

[lb119397 79]

Is there a reason you are not filing an I-129F instead? If you are worried about the marriage bonafides then the K1 might be easier given the requirement to have met in person at least once in the two years before filing. You would then have 90 days to marry upon him immigrating to the US. The disadvantage to the K1 is the additional expense of him having to adjust status after you marry. However, the K1 is generally faster, and you would avoid the hassle of having to quickly add him to your accounts, etc to overcome the fact that you are marrying the first time that you meet. With the K1, you would be able to do all of that after you are already married and he is in the US - for bona fides for adjustment. 

[ilikepotatoes 57]

17 minutes ago, lb119397 said:

Is there a reason you are not filing an I-129F instead? If you are worried about the marriage bonafides then the K1 might be easier given the requirement to have met in person at least once in the two years before filing. You would then have 90 days to marry upon him immigrating to the US. The disadvantage to the K1 is the additional expense of him having to adjust status after you marry. However, the K1 is generally faster, and you would avoid the hassle of having to quickly add him to your accounts, etc to overcome the fact that you are marrying the first time that you meet. With the K1, you would be able to do all of that after you are already married and he is in the US - for bona fides for adjustment. 

But embassies aren’t even processing the K-1 visas now, are they? I’ve seen many people on here warning that the backlog for K-1 will be at least a years worth and that it’s smarter to get married. 

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

11 minutes ago, ilikepotatoes said:

But embassies aren’t even processing the K-1 visas now, are they? I’ve seen many people on here warning that the backlog for K-1 will be at least a years worth and that it’s smarter to get married. 

Some are, some aren’t.

[lb119397 79]

13 minutes ago, ilikepotatoes said:

But embassies aren’t even processing the K-1 visas now, are they? I’ve seen many people on here warning that the backlog for K-1 will be at least a years worth and that it’s smarter to get married. 

I previously read that embassies were instructed to prioritize K1 visas (if staffing permitted) after processing was put on hold after covid. You may want to check with your specific embassy to ensure that they are currently processing them if you want to look into going this route. 

[ilikepotatoes 57]

5 minutes ago, lb119397 said:

I previously read that embassies were instructed to prioritize K1 visas (if staffing permitted) after processing was put on hold after covid. You may want to check with your specific embassy to ensure that they are currently processing them if you want to look into going this route. 

Thank you, I will look into it! 

[aznhouston 130]

I believe this has been posted before, and the person received a lot of good advice. 

to OP, I think nobody is judging you, they just want to give you the best answer to their knowledge. The decision is yours, there's no one size fits all. Each case is different. I personally know many couples had very strong evidence but still had to struggle with the USCIS.

I think you have a good plan, and proceed with what you think best for yourself. 

[Unlockable 7,314]

*** One post edited to remove inappropriate language. Two posts removed for bickering. Cut it out now or further action will be taken.

 

VJ Moderation

[ilikepotatoes 57]

5 hours ago, lb119397 said:

Is there a reason you are not filing an I-129F instead? If you are worried about the marriage bonafides then the K1 might be easier given the requirement to have met in person at least once in the two years before filing. You would then have 90 days to marry upon him immigrating to the US. The disadvantage to the K1 is the additional expense of him having to adjust status after you marry. However, the K1 is generally faster, and you would avoid the hassle of having to quickly add him to your accounts, etc to overcome the fact that you are marrying the first time that you meet. With the K1, you would be able to do all of that after you are already married and he is in the US - for bona fides for adjustment. 

So with the K-1 we wouldn’t have to submit proof of a bonafide relationship until after he comes here and we marry? What does the 129F entail?