Demonstrating Bona Fide marriage

[lovinglive 24]

Hello everyone, 

 

I have a question on this point as we do not have what people usually talk about using to demonstrate a bona fide marriage.  For example, although my fiancee (soon to be wife) and I have lived together for many years, we never had any joint bank accounts.  And although we lived in a number of different places together, it was always only my name on the rental contract.

 

On the other hand we do have a child together, so that would seem to hold a lot of weight but not sure if it will be sufficient.  We could also ask our previous landlords to write letters stating that my future wife lived with me at their place.  I could also probably dig up previous B2 visa applications that indicate that she wanted to visit my family or that I would support her while in the US.  And we also traveled to many places together so there should be plane reservations that have both of our names on them.

 

Does anyone have a sense of whether this will be sufficient?  Is there anything else we can submit?  It seems that we may need to rely on signed statements from many people as a form of evidence.

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

[SteveInBostonI130 3,448]

Child together plus description of you living together is good evidence.  Add photos of you doing normal couple things (traveling, get-togethers, etc.)

 

After you marry, combine your finances and get your wife onto your health insurance plan or vice-versa.  These items should be sufficient.

[SalishSea 17,829]

46 minutes ago, lovinglive said:

Hello everyone, 

 

I have a question on this point as we do not have what people usually talk about using to demonstrate a bona fide marriage.  For example, although my fiancee (soon to be wife) and I have lived together for many years, we never had any joint bank accounts.  And although we lived in a number of different places together, it was always only my name on the rental contract.

 

On the other hand we do have a child together, so that would seem to hold a lot of weight but not sure if it will be sufficient.  We could also ask our previous landlords to write letters stating that my future wife lived with me at their place.  I could also probably dig up previous B2 visa applications that indicate that she wanted to visit my family or that I would support her while in the US.  And we also traveled to many places together so there should be plane reservations that have both of our names on them.

 

Does anyone have a sense of whether this will be sufficient?  Is there anything else we can submit?  It seems that we may need to rely on signed statements from many people as a form of evidence.

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Affidavits from others are very weak forms of evidence.

 

I wouldn't use "living together" as a bonafide if it occurred when she was visiting on a B2.

[lovinglive 24]

Just now, Jorgedig said:

Affidavits from others are very weak forms of evidence.

 

I wouldn't use "living together" as a bonafide if it occurred when she was visiting on a B2.

No I lived overseas.  We lived together for many years in foreign countries.

[Rocio0010 5,579]

17 minutes ago, lovinglive said:

We lived together for many years in foreign countries.

Right, but you don't have any tangible evidence of that...

How old is your child? Are they in school or childcare? Maybe you have the paperwork for their school listing you both as parents. Of course, this in addition to the BC. 

Joint bills, joint memberships will help, too.

Hotel/ flight reservations.

Health/car insurance.

Are you planning on submitting soon? You could always go to the bank and open a joint account.

 

[lovinglive 24]

23 minutes ago, Rocio0010 said:

Right, but you don't have any tangible evidence of that...

How old is your child? Are they in school or childcare? Maybe you have the paperwork for their school listing you both as parents. Of course, this in addition to the BC. 

Joint bills, joint memberships will help, too.

Hotel/ flight reservations.

Health/car insurance.

Are you planning on submitting soon? You could always go to the bank and open a joint account.

 

I think we might have some evidence as our landlord submitted a residence permit application for both us.  And as I said I will ask the landlords to make statements.

 

Our child is still young and we are caring for him at home! : )

 

I just remembered that we had joint health insurance so that should help.

 

Thanks for the ideas!

[Rocio0010 5,579]

1 minute ago, lovinglive said:

Our child is still young

Then another idea is to get birth records from the hospital.

 

2 minutes ago, lovinglive said:

And as I said I will ask the landlords to make statements.

 

Ask them to notarize those.

[beloved_dingo 1,976]

1 hour ago, lovinglive said:

Hello everyone, 

 

I have a question on this point as we do not have what people usually talk about using to demonstrate a bona fide marriage.  For example, although my fiancee (soon to be wife) and I have lived together for many years, we never had any joint bank accounts.  And although we lived in a number of different places together, it was always only my name on the rental contract.

 

On the other hand we do have a child together, so that would seem to hold a lot of weight but not sure if it will be sufficient.  We could also ask our previous landlords to write letters stating that my future wife lived with me at their place.  I could also probably dig up previous B2 visa applications that indicate that she wanted to visit my family or that I would support her while in the US.  And we also traveled to many places together so there should be plane reservations that have both of our names on them.

 

Does anyone have a sense of whether this will be sufficient?  Is there anything else we can submit?  It seems that we may need to rely on signed statements from many people as a form of evidence.

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Evidence of travel is good. You can include plane reservations, hotel/airbnb reservations, and passport stamps in both passports that match dates/locations. 

 

I think it's a good idea to reach out to prior landlords to obtain any documentation they can give you, even if it is just a letter. I would definitely ask them to put it on letterhead if they can. 

 

Get together photos as well, from different places/times and with different people.

 

If you have any mail addressed to both of you from any of your prior addresses, that would be good too. Or mail sent individually but to the same address.

 

In that vein, if you've received Christmas cards, wedding initiations, or anything of that ilk that includes both of your names, get those together too. 

 

Also I was able to add my husband as an authorized user on a couple of my credit cards before he had an ssn. I believe Capital One and Chase allow this. So if you add her, then you can print off proof that she is an AU on your card(s). 

[lovinglive 24]

5 minutes ago, beloved_dingo said:

 

 

Also I was able to add my husband as an authorized user on a couple of my credit cards before he had an ssn. I believe Capital One and Chase allow this. So if you add her, then you can print off proof that she is an AU on your card(s). 

 

I was wondering about that.  At what point in the AOS process can the spouse be added onto your credit card, open a joint bank account, etc.?

[Rocio0010 5,579]

1 minute ago, lovinglive said:

 

I was wondering about that.  At what point in the AOS process can the spouse be added onto your credit card, open a joint bank account, etc.?

It depends, some banks and credit cards will allow a member not to have a SSN, so right after you marry for those.

Or are you asking about the timing of the evidence?

[beloved_dingo 1,976]

Just now, lovinglive said:

 

I was wondering about that.  At what point in the AOS process can the spouse be added onto your credit card, open a joint bank account, etc.?

It depends on your circumstances and what financial institutions allow, but I had my husband added as an AU on CapitalOne and added to my bank account within a week of getting married. That way I had the documentation on hand when I sent the AOS packet. We sent our packet approximately 3 weeks after marriage. 

 

We had issues obtaining his SSN so some things I could not add him to until he got that, but I had a lot more documentation on hand by the time we had our AOS interview. In our case, the interview was 7 months after we applied. 

[Rocio0010 5,579]

2 minutes ago, beloved_dingo said:

We had issues obtaining his SSN so some things I could not add him to until he got that,

And I'm sure USCIS doesn't expect much joint finances for AOS because it is obvious that K1s and CR1s do not have a SSN for some time, so adding them to accounts/ credit cards can be tricky.

[lovinglive 24]

5 minutes ago, Rocio0010 said:

It depends, some banks and credit cards will allow a member not to have a SSN, so right after you marry for those.

Or are you asking about the timing of the evidence?

Yeah, I was asking whether they can get an account without an SSN which you said some banks will allow you to do right after getting married.

[lovinglive 24]

4 minutes ago, beloved_dingo said:

It depends on your circumstances and what financial institutions allow, but I had my husband added as an AU on CapitalOne and added to my bank account within a week of getting married. That way I had the documentation on hand when I sent the AOS packet. We sent our packet approximately 3 weeks after marriage. 

 

We had issues obtaining his SSN so some things I could not add him to until he got that, but I had a lot more documentation on hand by the time we had our AOS interview. In our case, the interview was 7 months after we applied. 

OK, good.  Makes sense and I'll try it.

[Rocio0010 5,579]

Just now, lovinglive said:

Yeah, I was asking whether they can get an account without an SSN which you said some banks will allow you to do right after getting married.

Yes. I believe that som banks like Chase only require passport and I can't remember what else. But it's doable. On the other hand, we got married in May 2019, opened our joint account in June, and submitted our paperwork in October 2019. We only had one or two bank statements and had no issues there, we were approved without interview.

Now for ROC, two years later... That was different. I had 24 bank statements, and I sent them all.

Also do you have POAs or wills that maybe you can add?