no photo evidence - removing conditions on residency

[Yannary 70]

Hi, my husbands green card expires on February 27th this year and we are getting everything ready to be mailed out this week hopefully. We just realized we dont have hardly any photos together. There are actually hardly any photos of me from the past 2 years. It's always my husband and the kids, because I take the photos (also hate having photos of myself taken).

The other evidence we have is:

utility bill showing both of our names

car finance in both of our names

checking account in both of our names

internet for our home address in my husbands name

twins born to us in 2020

taxes filed together for 2020, havent done last years yet

The house we live in is mine, but the mortgage has my and my exhusbands name on it as he had to cosign with me otherwise I  wouldnt get the loan, so not sure if I should include this or not. 

 

Do we include photos of my husband with our kids even though I am not in them? We do have few selfies of us from a date night we had for our anniversary. But thats about it. We honestly havent been anywhere, havent done anything, covid and newborn, now toddler twins and 3 older kids (mine) really make it impossible to do things on our own. Or just honestly do anything in general. Would it help if I wrote a letter explaining the lack of photos.

 

Frankly, I am freaking out, we've been putting things off because of holiday and just general life stress and now I feel like we're running out of time. My husband is our sole provider and the prospect of his green card expiring and him not being to able to work is terrifying.

Any help/pointers would be hugely appreciated.

[Rocio0010 5,579]

Hi there! I’m getting ready to file soon too. I’m going to post the link to the January filers and hopefully you’ll have more people in the same situation .

First of all, take a deep breath, and try to calm down. I bet this last year with twins being so little was hard enough. Don’t add stress to yourself! 
I honestly would not worry much about pictures. They are considered secondary evidence. Some people don’t include pictures at all and are approved. I always like to call it “totality of circumstances “ or “the big picture”

. While you don’t have tons of picture evidence, you do have a lot of more substantial evidence! USCIS wants to see intertwined finances, which you DO HAVE. So focus on that! 

7 minutes ago, Yannary said:

utility bill showing both of our names

Awesome!

7 minutes ago, Yannary said:

car finance in both of our names

Fantastic

7 minutes ago, Yannary said:

checking account in both of our names

Yessss!!!

7 minutes ago, Yannary said:

taxes filed together for 2020,

You want to include all taxes since you were married. Don’t worry about 2021, I haven’t filed mine either yet. We’re saving those in case they RFE us.

 

8 minutes ago, Yannary said:

The house we live in is mine, but the mortgage has my and my exhusbands name on it as he had to cosign with me otherwise I  wouldnt get the loan, so not sure if I should include this or not. 

 

For peace of mind, I would not include the mortgage but I would definitely include a short note explaining this. Plenty of people have their houses paid off before their SO moves in. And that’s fine. 

 

9 minutes ago, Yannary said:

twins born to us in 2020

Fantastic!

 

so you have all that. Now, let’s focus on what else you can add:

- Joint vehicle insurance.

- Joint health insurance

- Joint retirement accounts.

- DL showing same address (this is a very good one and easy to get!)

- I don’t know how to say this (I’m sorry, English is my second language) but you know the emergency contact information you fill in when you go to the doctor/ dentist and you include your spouse as emergency contact? Definitely include those. Same as if you have him as emergency contact info in your work place.

Something very important to remember is that the evidence needs to cover the whole period you’ve been married. So you might want to dig into your previous application and see what you can find (yes, you can send again some documents they already have).

Im going to send you some links you might find useful. Good luck!

[Rocio0010 5,579]

If you scroll down to the second post in this thread, this person posted a very complete template for their package. Notice how in the letter they state what each piece of evidence is for, e.g “joint bank account showing numerous every day transactions for groceries, rent, etc”. This is nice because it leaves no room for misinterpretation. You have to connect the dots for the officer. I am using this template for my own package, and find it extremely useful:

https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/699699-i-751-march-2019-filers/?do=findComment&comment=9598888

[Rocio0010 5,579]

This is the January thread for I-751 filers. People here post questions, and share progress. I’m sorry I couldn’t post the links in one message, but I’m on my phone and don’t know how to do it!

 

[Yannary 70]

6 minutes ago, Rocio0010 said:

If you scroll down to the second post in this thread, this person posted a very complete template for their package. Notice how in the letter they state what each piece of evidence is for, e.g “joint bank account showing numerous every day transactions for groceries, rent, etc”. This is nice because it leaves no room for misinterpretation. You have to connect the dots for the officer. I am using this template for my own package, and find it extremely useful:

https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/699699-i-751-march-2019-filers/?do=findComment&comment=9598888

Thank you so much for such a thorough reply! That is incredibly helpful.

 

Few things

- Auto insurance I can add, we have that

- Health insurance we don't have, me and the kids have state insurance and my husband just doesnt have any as his employer doesnt provide it and we just cant afford it

- no retirement accounts at all

- DL we already have included, just forgot to type it out

- Emergency contact information - we don't go to doctors so there is probably only the one from the hospital when twins were born but no idea how to get that. I don't work, we can include the one from his place of work as he listed me on it. 

 

As far as covering the whole marriage, we lived apart from the day we got married until he moved here in February 2020 (waiting for CR1 visa), as such there was no evidence of us living together. Taxes I filed as married filing separate because he didnt have a #ssn yet and it wouldnt let me file jointly without him. So we really only have 1 year of taxes filed together. 

 

I will go read through the links you shared. Again huge thanks!

[Rocio0010 5,579]

5 minutes ago, Yannary said:

Auto insurance I can add, we have that

Yes. It should be easy.

 

6 minutes ago, Yannary said:

just cant afford it

Gotcha. 
 

 

6 minutes ago, Yannary said:

no idea how to get that. I

Call the hospital and ask! 
 

 

7 minutes ago, Yannary said:

we can include the one from his place of work as he listed me on it

Yes, go ahead!

 

7 minutes ago, Yannary said:

e, we lived apart from the day we got married until he moved here in February 2020 (waiting for CR1 visa), as such there was no evidence of us living together

Right, I missed that. Sorry! I would include a note explaining that! Also, while you were waiting on the visa, did you guys visit each other? Might be worth including the passport stamps/ boarding passes to show an ongoing relationship. 
I honestly think you’ll be fine. You might need to include a letter here and there to explain your situation. I’m sure you’re not the only one in this situation. You got this!

[Dashinka 24,499]

I agree with @Rocio0010, you have some pretty solid evidence.  You may also consider wills and living wills, but I would not wait on those to file the package.

 

Good Luck!

[Rocio0010 5,579]

5 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

I agree with @Rocio0010, you have some pretty solid evidence.  You may also consider wills and living wills, but I would not wait on those to file the package.

 

Good Luck!

Yep. That and also third party affidavits. 

[SalishSea 17,829]

10 hours ago, Yannary said:

Health insurance we don't have, me and the kids have state insurance and my husband just doesnt have any as his employer doesnt provide it and we just cant afford it

Off-topic, but if he is the sole breadwinner as you say, this is hugely risky.  What if he gets COVID, or appendicitis, or into an accident?  I personally have seen young, healthy people lose everything to medical bills.  If you can't afford health insurance, you certainly cannot afford hospital bills.

 

With the US job market on fire just now, it may be a good time to look for something that offers health insurance as a benefit.

[Rocio0010 5,579]

42 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

you can't afford health insurance, you certainly cannot afford hospital bills.

Cannot stress this enough. Just last week I had to get an MRI, and it would have costed me $2k had I not had health insurance. Thank God we do. We also have a FSA through my job that covers out-of-pocket expenses and helps meet the stupid deductible 

[Yannary 70]

On 1/16/2022 at 7:55 PM, Jorgedig said:

Off-topic, but if he is the sole breadwinner as you say, this is hugely risky.  What if he gets COVID, or appendicitis, or into an accident?  I personally have seen young, healthy people lose everything to medical bills.  If you can't afford health insurance, you certainly cannot afford hospital bills.

 

With the US job market on fire just now, it may be a good time to look for something that offers health insurance as a benefit.

He's been applying for other jobs but haven't had much luck yet, unfortunately. This is definitely a huge concern of ours and are trying to solve this. 

[SoCal2021 201]

1 hour ago, Yannary said:

He's been applying for other jobs but haven't had much luck yet, unfortunately. This is definitely a huge concern of ours and are trying to solve this. 

I know this is a bit off-topic but thru Affordable Care Act (a.k.a Obamacare) you can get health care coverage and depending on income level, in some instances it may cost you next to nothing.  Please Google Obamacare for the state where you live and you can get more information about this.

 

All the best.

Edited January 18, 2022 by SoCal2021

[Yannary 70]

super quick question, we are putting everything together this weekend and I am writing the explanation note about why we dont have a joint mortgage and why my ex husband is on the mortgage  bill with me, does this sound ok? 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

This note is an explanation of the perhaps unusual mortgage situation. 

 

We needed a bigger place to live due to my unexpected pregnancy with twins. Because XXX XXXX still hadn't received his visa by the time I was purchasing our home and my income wasn’t enough for a loan. I needed a co-signer to be able to receive a mortgage. We are currently waiting for XXX XXX to have 2 years of work history in order to refinance and add him to the mortgage and remove the co-signer. The deed to the house is in my name only which shows on the County property search print out included. 

 

Respectfully,

[Rocio0010 5,579]

2 minutes ago, Yannary said:

super quick question, we are putting everything together this weekend and I am writing the explanation note about why we dont have a joint mortgage and why my ex husband is on the mortgage  bill with me, does this sound ok? 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

This note is an explanation of the perhaps unusual mortgage situation. 

 

We needed a bigger place to live due to my unexpected pregnancy with twins. Because XXX XXXX still hadn't received his visa by the time I was purchasing our home and my income wasn’t enough for a loan. I needed a co-signer to be able to receive a mortgage. We are currently waiting for XXX XXX to have 2 years of work history in order to refinance and add him to the mortgage and remove the co-signer. The deed to the house is in my name only which shows on the County property search print out included. 

 

Respectfully,

Remove the “perhaps unusual”

[Yannary 70]

1 minute ago, Rocio0010 said:

Remove the “perhaps unusual”

will do, thank you!