How to reduce pages in ROC packet?

[Adventine 3,196]

I searched VJ archives but didn't really come up with good answers.

 

What is an efficient way to reduce the quantity of pages printed for the ROC packet, without sacrificing quality? I want to present lots of high-quality evidence, but I also don't want to overwhelm the adjudicating officer.

 

I'm about a year away from filing ROC but I'm being proactive about saving evidence. Everything's in digital form right now, but already I can see that it will be a LOT of pages when the time comes to print.

 

The main problem is that the following items are our strongest evidence of a bonafide marriage, but they take up a LOT of space. We have monthly statements for:

• 3 credit cards
• 1 joint bank account
• 1 joint investment account 

 

I don't see a way to eliminate the CC statements because 99% of our joint expenses are on these cards. We rotate between the cards to maximize CC rewards. Our joint bank account doesn't have too many transactions, but we use it to pay off all the CCs. Most of our assets are in the joint investment account.

 

We have plenty of other evidence that won't take up too many pages:

• tax return transcripts
• proof of common residence
• flight/hotel bookings
• joint insurance
• joint phone plan
• select photos with family

 

But the way I see it, the CCs, bank account and inv account are our strongest ROC evidence. Do I just suck it up and accept that it'll be a fat stack of papers to print next year?

Edited July 26, 2022 by Adventine

[powerpuff 6,697]

16 minutes ago, Adventine said:

But the way I see it, the CCs, bank account and inv account are our strongest ROC evidence. Do I just suck it up and accept that it'll be a fat stack of papers to print next year?

Honestly, unfortunately, I think so. I also looked at what we will present (although I’m far away from preparing to file) and a bulk of it are credit card and joint account statements. It’s going to be A LOT of pages so I think we’ll just have to accept it and send that in. If USCIS didn’t want to overwhelm its adjudicating officers perhaps they shouldn’t have sent a bunch of RFEs asking for each month’s statements 🤷🏻‍♀️ And I wouldn't risk an RFE.

 

Edit: maybe reduce the number of CC accounts? Do 2 instead of 3? We will only include 1, although we have several, because it has both of our names and shows transactions under each person (Amex does that which I found to be neat).

Edited July 26, 2022 by powerpuff

[Verrou 1,962]

there's no way to avoid that big piled of paper to print.

i will choose quality over quantity. so if u think that document is important to be submitted, than dont worry about the big stack ( i mean nothing u can do)

 

for my i-130 interview ( there's an 18 months gap between the submission to the interview) i brought 500 pages extra evidences. told the IO please pick and choose whichever u need, indexed it so it's easy for IO to take what she need. IO took everything. im surprised aswell. all that 500 pages are all important that's why i brought it in the first place since my case its not straight forward case

Edited July 26, 2022 by Misscloud

[Dashinka 24,493]

Honestly, when we sent in the wife's ROC, we only included things that showed both of our names on it.  So for things like bank accounts, investments, utility bills we did not include monthly statements, just the ownership page showing both of our names.  Also, for credit cards, we just took photocopies of the cards with the numbers blacked out, so we got three cards on one page.  For pictures, I created a powerpoint file with four pictures on a slide with captions.  That being said, my wife's package was still pretty big as we did include complete copies of both of our wills and living wills.

 

Good Luck!

[Carpe Vinum 2,327]

1 hour ago, Adventine said:

I searched VJ archives but didn't really come up with good answers.

 

What is an efficient way to reduce the quantity of pages printed for the ROC packet, without sacrificing quality? I want to present lots of high-quality evidence, but I also don't want to overwhelm the adjudicating officer.

 

I'm about a year away from filing ROC but I'm being proactive about saving evidence. Everything's in digital form right now, but already I can see that it will be a LOT of pages when the time comes to print.

 

The main problem is that the following items are our strongest evidence of a bonafide marriage, but they take up a LOT of space. We have monthly statements for:

• 3 credit cards
• 1 joint bank account
• 1 joint investment account 

 

I don't see a way to eliminate the CC statements because 99% of our joint expenses are on these cards. We rotate between the cards to maximize CC rewards. Our joint bank account doesn't have too many transactions, but we use it to pay off all the CCs. Most of our assets are in the joint investment account.

 

We have plenty of other evidence that won't take up too many pages:

• tax return transcripts
• proof of common residence
• flight/hotel bookings
• joint insurance
• joint phone plan
• select photos with family

 

But the way I see it, the CCs, bank account and inv account are our strongest ROC evidence. Do I just suck it up and accept that it'll be a fat stack of papers to print next year?

Our situation and evidence is almost exactly like yours. We did not submit every page of the credit card and bank statements. Only a sampling for the time my wife was here. We were approved without an issue. Some people here will strongly recommend sending every page of every statement but it just seemed like overkill to me. I know you are always well prepared. I doubt you will have any issues.

[Sukie 1,460]

Please folks:  send EVERY page of a bank statement or credit card statement.  If you only send some of the pages, the assumption is that you are hiding something.  This step is too critical to raise any red flags.

 

However, if you have lots and lots of co-mingling evidence (as the OP has), then send quarterly bank statements and/or credit card statements.  If you mix up your payments among several cards, then photocopy the cards like Dashinka did, add a couple of statements from each year you've been together, and EXPLAIN how you do your expenses in your cover letter.

 

We had about 3 inches of paper in our submission.  Quarterly statements, about 5 pages of pictures, we didn't have a lease or a mortgage (I owned our house prior to our marriage), no affidavits, and we sailed through.

 

Best of luck to all of you!

 

Sukie in NY

[Mike E 11,739]

1 hour ago, Adventine said:

We have monthly statements for:

• 3 credit cards
• 1 joint bank account
• 1 joint investment account

 

Don’t send 24 statements of each. Send one statement for every 3-4 months of each. You’ve 5 accounts.  So you could send for each year:

 

Acct 1: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oc5

Acct 2: Feb, May, Aug, Nov

and so on. 

[Family 3,988]

The bank/investment/ credit cards statements are very valuable so don’t skip accounts, however you should send only 4 statements for each year to cover beginning, middle and end of each year.
 

Use the 4 statements per year rule for all utilities/ phone bills/ insurance/ etc. 

 

Save a ton of pages by replacing Tax returns with the IRS transcripts for each year ( log in to IRS and print )

 

Create a Social Security online account for each and print statement of earnings . 
 

4 pay check copies ( each spouse) for each year.
 

In your Exhibit List / cover page include details that will help Officer easily cross check important transactions that are part of your financial life , example ( keep the description at one line ) and Number the items instead of bullet points, for an immediate  positive visual of how much you are providing. 

 

1. Joint Lease for 123 happy Lane from xyz to present. Monthly rent of $$ paid from Joint  acct xxx 

 

Do the same for all such expenses as car insurance, utilities…******

 

Don’t forget to add Car  DMV Registrations ,  AAA invoice, the occasional mechanical repair invoice and point out it is at “ Joint Residence “ if something shows only one name. 
 

An occasional receipt for medical visit / dental/ prescription or optometrist , add Vet if you have pet.

 

Gym membership or church ( if any) or anything pertaining to your life not covered here.
 

Draft your Advanced Healthcare Directive POA  & you avoid sending Wills or Trust Documents.Example CA https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/consumers/ProbateCodeAdvancedHealthCareDirectiveForm-fillable.pdf

Instead of a Lengthy Cover Letter , have the USC Spouse write a Sworn Affidavit In Support of Joint Petition and Notarize it w a JURAT ( not Acknowledgement) . Nothing fancy just from the heart: “ I met my Love in x,  knew he / she was the one on yy and we married zz. Our life together is amazing/ a blessing and we share in making all our financial decisions….fill in blanks with any details on vacation/ time w family “ Make it no longer than one page.

 

DO this and you will NOT get any RFE and you will have interview waived. 

 

 

[beloved_dingo 1,976]

For the investment account, I don't think there's any added value by sending all statements versus just sending proof that it is a joint account. So that's one way to cut down.

 

We sent all statements for our joint checking and savings account from the date of marriage. It was a lot of paper. We could have cut it down significantly by sending quarterly statements only, but it's a judgement call. 

 

For the bank statements, I did highlight our direct deposits from our jobs and the utilities/household bills so it'd be easier for them to pick out the important transactions. 

 

Also, for any statements you do send - listen to Sukie. Provide ALL pages of those statements. 

[Adventine 3,196]

Thanks for the ideas, all. 

 

For now I will continue collecting all the evidence, and when time comes to file ROC, I'll select the best evidence we have and streamline it from there. The quarterly statements and CC scans on a single page are particularly good ideas. 

[SalishSea 17,829]

3 hours ago, Mike E said:

Don’t send 24 statements of each. Send one statement for every 3-4 months of each. You’ve 5 accounts.  So you could send for each year:

 

Acct 1: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oc5

Acct 2: Feb, May, Aug, Nov

and so on. 

Yup, this is what we did for bills and statements.   Obviously, they are looking for patterns of payments and marital life together, not detailed accounts.

[Rocio0010 5,579]

Welcome welcome to the 751 club!! Hahaha. Although you’re a year away, your proactive thinking will help tremendously when putting the package together. 
We were on a somehow similar boat. We have three joint bank accounts. No joint CCs or investment account. We also have joint utilities, and the house title. 
We chose one bank account (the one we use to pay our utilities off) and sent all 24 statements. I know people told me to send quarterly, but it all comes down to what gives you peace of mind. Then for the second account, we just got a letter from the bank certifying we are both joint owners. We did not include anything about the third one. We decided to save that in case we get an RFE. 
We ended up sending a six pounder baby package! You can look at the February 2022 Filers thread to take ideas from my initial post as to what to send. Bear in mind mine is still pending.

[Rafagus 64]

That is great you're planning from this early on, our package was 572 pages long, divided into several sections.  Make sure everything is organized and well labeled (labels on the bottom). You can also help them out by opening two holes at the top of each page, and don't forget the cover letter which should include the index of everything you're sending.

[Timona 4,207]

Hahhah @Adventine I only had around 40 pages max.

 

1. Quarterly statements from 1 year before ROC.

2. 4 pages of pictures (5 per page). I was lazy and my wife had a digital album. Work cut out for me 🤷🏽‍♂️. So, I just printed them 🤗.

3. IRS statements from years after AOS. This is what took most space as I couldn't take out anything. 

4. Lease (took out unnecessary pet, bed bugs etc that they have in there and reduced it from 40+ to like 4 pages).

5. Car/ health insurance, 401K - I page each.

6. I-751 package.

 

I kid you not. I normally have everything saved apart from my ROC package. I'm sure I saved it somewhere but can't find it. I've looked for it, to no avail.

 

Now, I know someone who only sent the I-751 and got approved. Yes, just that and IRS statements, if I'm not wrong. I don't remember if IRS statements were part of it or not. Been a long time. She got approved 🙌 🤣

 

P.S. I was just sitted at home one Tuesday in July of 2019 and bored. So, I just opened computer and did ROC prep within like 2 hours. I was waiting to do it on weekend. Anyway, once I was done, I asked myself why I shouldn't send it that day. So, I printed everything,  organized, walked over to the UPS and the rest is history. 

 

My ROC interview was waived. The card came right when my N400 window opened in June of 2020. Waited 2 weeks then applied N400 online. And just like that, I was done with USCIS. 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Timona

[bakphx1 789]

We printed to 2-sided paper for bank statements.  Approved and no mention of it.  I also went through and take pages of only ads out.  I wasn’t sure if they would care-didn’t get any static and approved.