RFE Received: Asking for Advice

[tbmy 8]

Hi everyone,

 

I just received an RFE from USCIS (Texas Processing Center). Our PD is May 23, 2023 and we are filing an I-130 (consular processing). Essentially, my partner goes by a nickname and all of his friends and family call him by this name. All of his text messages are shown to also be under nickname which was used as evidence. His legal nickname is completely different from his nickname however. We didn't think much of this issue as his last name is the same. 

 

Unfortunately, the RFE we received (as attached) stated that they cannot confirm that the names used all belong to the same person and they want us to provide proof that these two names used are for the same person. They want this through legal documents. However, we are perplexed on how we can prove this as his nickname doesn't show up on any legal documents (rightly so). They wrote that if we don't have any primary or secondary evidence to show that we can ask people to write affidavits, but that these affidavits will only have minimal weight if we can't accompany it by any independent or objective evidence to corroborate the name differences. 

 

We are at a loss on how to proceed at this point. Has anyone had a similar experience in regards to this matter and if so, what did you do? Any advice or input would be much appreciated! I am suspecting that we may need to speak with a lawyer, but hoping that there is a straightforward answer.

 

Many thanks in advance.

[Melancholic Mage 115]

It appears USCIS think that his nickname is an actual legal name change rather than, well, a nickname. 

 

Personally I would provide all legal name evidence: birth certificate, passport, marriage certificate, employment records... just as much as you can that's shown in that list.

 

Try not to provide anything with his nickname going forward, except as relationship evidence at the interview perhaps. Chat logs between you, for example, just to avoid confusion.

 

If there's any 'additional comment' boxes online, you could try and explain the mix up and that no legal name change has been made. I think your best bet is submitting as much official legal documentation showing his full name as you can. 

[pushbrk 13,002]

Your mistake was that you did not mention this other name was only a nickname.  Now you get to explain that clearly and succinctly in a letter, as there is no other official evidence.  If there is something showing like Facebook profile page with a his photo and nickname together, you could provide a clear color copy of that as backup to your letter.

For example is William Jennings Bryan goes by Bill, it's not really an issue.  If that same person uses the nickname "Cheeky Boy" it's a bit more complicated.

[tbmy 8]

18 hours ago, Melancholic Mage said:

It appears USCIS think that his nickname is an actual legal name change rather than, well, a nickname. 

 

Personally I would provide all legal name evidence: birth certificate, passport, marriage certificate, employment records... just as much as you can that's shown in that list.

 

Try not to provide anything with his nickname going forward, except as relationship evidence at the interview perhaps. Chat logs between you, for example, just to avoid confusion.

 

If there's any 'additional comment' boxes online, you could try and explain the mix up and that no legal name change has been made. I think your best bet is submitting as much official legal documentation showing his full name as you can. 

Yes it appears to be so. We had an agency pull together the paperwork and to my knowledge I don't recall a place where we explicitly had to call out that it was a nickname. We did provide all of the legal name evidence which of course shows his legal name (and of course does not show his nickname) as well as chat logs showing his nickname. We will probably be writing a letter explaining the situation. 

[tbmy 8]

17 hours ago, pushbrk said:

Your mistake was that you did not mention this other name was only a nickname.  Now you get to explain that clearly and succinctly in a letter, as there is no other official evidence.  If there is something showing like Facebook profile page with a his photo and nickname together, you could provide a clear color copy of that as backup to your letter.

For example is William Jennings Bryan goes by Bill, it's not really an issue.  If that same person uses the nickname "Cheeky Boy" it's a bit more complicated.

Thanks for your response. I wasn't sure how it would go if we weren't able to submit the legal documents and panicked when we saw that affidavits would have "minimal weight" if they weren't accompanied by objective evidence 😅. It was definitely a faux pas that we did not clearly delineate that the other was a nickname (and didn't realize that this was an option). I do hope that the letter is ample enough explanation for them, but we shall see. Thank you!

[pushbrk 13,002]

7 hours ago, tbmy said:

Thanks for your response. I wasn't sure how it would go if we weren't able to submit the legal documents and panicked when we saw that affidavits would have "minimal weight" if they weren't accompanied by objective evidence 😅. It was definitely a faux pas that we did not clearly delineate that the other was a nickname (and didn't realize that this was an option). I do hope that the letter is ample enough explanation for them, but we shall see. Thank you!

Since there isn't any documentation for this nickname, there really is no other option.