What evidence should I send with the I-129F form?

[Piebee 3]

Hi everyone, filling out the I-129F form is giving us more stress than we hoped. Both my fiancé and I think slightly differently out what "evidence" we might have to include. He's a lot more practical, and I'm a lot more in my head and want to send absolutely everything including train tickets, zoo tickets and all that.

 

So I guess we're just wondering what the right thing to do is.

 

We've visited each other at least 9 times, so we want to include all information (plane tickets and hotels) of all those trips. But what else would be good to share? Would PayPal payments we made to each other good? Or presents we bought for each other? Or is all of that considered irrelevant?

 

We were gonna attach our phone call logs but even of the last year that's already over 500 screenshots.

 

We want to make sure we give them a lot of information but we also don't wanna send 1000 pages of stuff they might find unnecessary and draining to go through.

 

Who could give some insight of what to include, and how much?

 

Thanks so much!!

[SalishSea 18,352]

Depends entirely on the consulate where you will interview.

 

However, please do not send 1000 text pages or whatever.  I promise that no one at USCIS wants to riffle through that.

[Piebee 3]

1 minute ago, SalishSea said:

Depends entirely on the consulate where you will interview.

 

However, please do not send 1000 text pages or whatever.  I promise that no one at USCIS wants to riffle through that.

Yeah maybe 1000 pages is a bit much 😅 

 

What would you suggest is a definite must to put in there for filing the form? Not even the interview 😬

[SalishSea 18,352]

3 minutes ago, Piebee said:

Yeah maybe 1000 pages is a bit much 😅 

 

What would you suggest is a definite must to put in there for filing the form? Not even the interview 😬

Have you read the requirements/instructions for the petition?  You need evidence of having met in the prior two years, for one.  This is best done via passport stamps/boarding passes etc.  Extra fluff, such as snapshots and chat logs are not required or even recommended in most cases.

 

The question about the consulate is not a frivolous one.  The type of "front-loading" you are suggesting is appropriate for some consulates, and not relevant to others.  And the reason to consider that prior to the interview, is that unlike spousal visas, you will not have the opportunity to add subsequent "relatiohship evidence" to a K-1.

Edited Monday at 10:31 PM by SalishSea

[OldUser 8,393]

7 minutes ago, SalishSea said:

However, please do not send 1000 text pages or whatever.  I promise that no one at USCIS wants to riffle through that.

I doubt anybody could produce 1000 pages of quality evidence for I-129F. At the same time, if it's all relevant and legit, why not... Make them work for $$$. But seriously, if case is put together well, and evidence is indexed, officer may not even need to read every line of every page. They'll pick what they want to see based on index.

Edited Monday at 10:32 PM by OldUser

[SalishSea 18,352]

1 minute ago, OldUser said:

I doubt anybody could produce 1000 pages of quality evidence for I-129F. At the same time, if it's all relevant and legit, why not... Make them work for $$$

I would discourage it just because it delays processing, and it opens up opportunities for RFEs.  All of our petitions and applications have included only what was asked for by USCIS, and we have had no delays or RFEs.   As always, YMMV.

[OldUser 8,393]

2 minutes ago, SalishSea said:

I would discourage it just because it delays processing, and it opens up opportunities for RFEs.  All of our petitions and applications have included only what was asked for by USCIS, and we have had no delays or RFEs.   As always, YMMV.

I don't see how it delays process. Yes, if OP submits questionable or ambiguous evidence of random chats this could create more issues. But again, this is not quality evidence to begin with.

[SalishSea 18,352]

Just now, OldUser said:

I don't see how it delays process. Yes, if OP submits questionable or ambiguous evidence of random chats this could create more issues. But again, this is not quality evidence to begin with.

The delay is that if you submit 1000 pages of unsolicited evidence, they are required to look at it all.

 

There are posts on VJ about RFEs that came about because of such evidence, i.e. content of chats that raised questions during adjudication.  

[Piebee 3]

I'd have the go to the consulate in Germany, I'm not sure how they operate there or how much they would want.

 

I did read the requirements but I might be overthinking here a bit to be honest. We've been together for many years so there technically is a lot that could be shown, which is why I considered sending it all up front so they might not ask for more info. But my fiancé is of the opinion that if it's too much the process might take longer and it could be unnecessary too to send that much.

 

I'm definitely thinking of tickets, hotel conformation, pictures, and letters by friends. I'm starting to consider to maybe not add receipts of gifts and PayPal payments and maybe narrowing down our phone logs a bit.

[TBoneTX 46,607]

Thread is moved from General Immigration Discussion to the K-1 Process forum.

[Nywoek 37]

I had the same thought, so we decided to make a page dedicated to each visit, bot me to the us and him to norway, and then we just put them in order. We added some photos, descriptions and possible scanned tickets.

 

I recommend adding your passport "stamps", these are available online. It shows you entered the country, looks nice and only takes up a page. 😃

We added one page with screenshots from video calls, but no texts because we have talked daily since 2022 so I would not know where to begin.

 

Also added a scanned train ticket to Boston with our names. And the receipt for my engagement ring. 

 

Try not to overdo it, so if you want to cover every trip, a page or so should be enough, and then if you want to add some compelling evidence in addition you can make an extra page or two. 😅

[Piebee 3]

1 hour ago, Nywoek said:

I had the same thought, so we decided to make a page dedicated to each visit, bot me to the us and him to norway, and then we just put them in order. We added some photos, descriptions and possible scanned tickets.

 

I recommend adding your passport "stamps", these are available online. It shows you entered the country, looks nice and only takes up a page. 😃

We added one page with screenshots from video calls, but no texts because we have talked daily since 2022 so I would not know where to begin.

 

Also added a scanned train ticket to Boston with our names. And the receipt for my engagement ring. 

 

Try not to overdo it, so if you want to cover every trip, a page or so should be enough, and then if you want to add some compelling evidence in addition you can make an extra page or two. 😅

It's so hard not to overdo though, haha. In total we've met up 10 times over 6 years. About 5 times in the last 2. So I was wondering if I should only do the last 5 trips then since they require information of the last 2 years 🤔😅

 

You mentioned a page of video calls, how did you do that? We're on the phone for hours a day, and have been since the beginning. That would be a lot of screenhots. I dunno how to trim it down to just one page then, so if you have some ideas there I'd love to hear them.

 

Have you had any RFE's with everything youve provided? Do you know when your interview is?

 

Thank you so much for all the information! It's so much appreciated at such a stressful time, we really wanna get things right 😁

Edited 12 hours ago by Piebee

[Nywoek 37]

6 minutes ago, Piebee said:

It's so hard not to overdo though, haha. In total we've met up 10 times over 6 years. About 5 times in the last 2. So I was wondering if I should only do the last 5 trips then since they require information of the last 2 years 🤔😅

 

You mentioned a page of video calls, how did you do that? We're on the phone for hours a day, and have been since the beginning. That would be a lot of screenhots. I dunno how to trim it down to just one page then, so if you have some ideas there I'd love to hear them.

 

Have you had any RFE's with everything youve provided? Do you know when your interview is?

We probably did not need all our trips. I had visited 7 times at the time we sent it in, and he had been to norway 3 times. But in my head it makes sense.

 

All you really need is prove you have met in person and for your relationship to seem real. So 20-30 pages of pictures is not really needed, but now it kinda looks like a fun scrapbook lol.

 

The video call photos I added were on just one page, and mostly of us opening presents together, me and him around christmas and him and my kids opening stuff on their birthdays.

 

No rfes, we got approved january 31st. Got sent to state 20 days later, now we have had our case number a few weeks and I am really hoping the case gets sent to embassy today or tomorrow, because they only do that every two weeks. Wont be able to do the interview stuff until then, but I am also waiting for a new passport so I might wait until may to fill in the next forms and stuff anyway. Im currently getting vaccines in order. 😃

Good luck with your application! It is honestly more important to make sure you fill in everything correctly and send in the other documentation; with that many meetings and photos it should be just fine. 

[maryaaaa 74]

We saved all the photos from airline bookings, boarding passes, Aribnb, hotel and restaurant reservations to first meeting photos and so on and so forth. We arranged them chronologically - dated with locations and name of other people on that photo if there's any. 

 

We also took screenshots of our first convo (2-3 screenshots), the most recent (2-3) and some that mentions love, building life together, marriage plans etc (3-6) . The "Search" function on each social media helped a lot lol  We also took 3-6 video call screenshots (3) and 2 screenshots of our Whatsapp call logs, even receipts of gifts and remittances (if there's any) ---- everything in a word document then printed them.

[Piebee 3]

3 hours ago, Nywoek said:

We probably did not need all our trips. I had visited 7 times at the time we sent it in, and he had been to norway 3 times. But in my head it makes sense.

 

All you really need is prove you have met in person and for your relationship to seem real. So 20-30 pages of pictures is not really needed, but now it kinda looks like a fun scrapbook lol.

 

The video call photos I added were on just one page, and mostly of us opening presents together, me and him around christmas and him and my kids opening stuff on their birthdays.

 

No rfes, we got approved january 31st. Got sent to state 20 days later, now we have had our case number a few weeks and I am really hoping the case gets sent to embassy today or tomorrow, because they only do that every two weeks. Wont be able to do the interview stuff until then, but I am also waiting for a new passport so I might wait until may to fill in the next forms and stuff anyway. Im currently getting vaccines in order. 😃

Good luck with your application! It is honestly more important to make sure you fill in everything correctly and send in the other documentation; with that many meetings and photos it should be just fine. 

Thank you!! I'll try to put more on one page and mainly add the most important information then. 

 

Thanks so much for your help and good luck to you as well 😁