Hello all,
We received a rather long RFE for the I-130, which states that the bona fide nature our marriage has not been established.
I did not worry about chat logs or similar during initial filing, because my husband and I have spent over 3 months together in 2019 (3 visits, we got married on the third), which I considered much stronger evidence (backed up with photos of us and with friends, boarding passes, receipts of places we visited...). My husband is from Middle East (not a banned country) so maybe I was a bit naiv.
The response to the RFE now must be much stronger - a denial and re-filing is not really what we're looking for 
I copied the entire section from the RFE concerning this matter below (we have 3 more requests. 5 pages total :().
My first question is: Is the below the "standard" that gets mailed with every RFE for bonafide? Or did we receive an extensively long request?
In response we are planning to provide:
- Personal affidavit from me (Petitioner) with details how we met, how we maintain contact while apart from each other, describe when we started talking about getting married and plans for the future, explain why we only had civil marriage (the situation in his country started being pretty bad and his friends/family are affected by protests, so we found it inappropriate to throw a wedding party).
- Explanation for "rapid sequence of events" of my divorce in early 2017 and re-marriage in 2019 (I got separated in 2015, which makes it a lot less rapid).
- Again all documentation from visits (boarding passes, passport stamps, photos of us and with family and friends, receipts where available). I just came back from the fourth visit (again for a month) so we'll add that. We also went on vacation together this time for 2 weeks.
- Statement that we're both fluent in English, and started learning each others native language (which I need to admit is progressing slow, since it's so much easier to just stick to English. But we try).
- Explain that in his country cash payments are more common than card, so we don't have receipts for some places, plus we stay at his family's house so there's no hotel cost.
- Explain why we don't have photos from our civil wedding (no cameras and handys allowed in Iraqi courts).
- Minimal co-mingling finances (only two flights I booked for him, with authorization letter that he can fly on a ticket purchased by me). Card payments and online banking etc. are not very common in his home country. He pays for most things we do, but it's always cash.
- Affidavits from his parents and siblings that they (parents) approved of our marriage (my ring is a family jewelry piece), I am like daughter to them, I stay at their home and we live together like a normal family while I'm there.
- Text logs: We have hundreds of pages of whatsapp and facebook communication - I was planning to extract 1-2 snippets for each week that we spent apart. Will that be enough? It will still be approx. 120 pages in font size 10
- Calls: We usually sleep together at night on facetime (cheezy, I know) after speaking about our days at night when I come home from work. How can we proof this? Facetime logs are not available it seems. And we just spent a month together in person so the "last calls" in my phone don't reflect this.
- some screenshots of social media posts of us together, and posted by friends with us in the picture.
Does this seem to be appropriate considering we might have to overcome some scrunity?
Here's the relevant part from the RFE:
BONA FIDE MARITAL RELATIONSHIP
You have filed this petition on behalf of your spouse. The bona fide nature of the claimed spousal relationship
has not yet been established. Therefore, you should submit evidence to establish that your marriage to the
beneficiary is bona fide and not one entered into to circumvent immigration laws. You are requested to submit
evidence or otherwise address each of the items below. If you have no documents or statement to submit, you
must explain why. Evidence to establish the existence of a bona fide marriage could include the following:
Meeting
Provide a detailed explanation of how you and the beneficiary met.
Courtship
Provide copies of correspondence (letters, cards, email, telephone bills, etc.) to establish that you and the
beneficiary were in contact before your trip abroad when you married. Phone cards are not verifiable.
However, if you used an online long distance company, then you should submit verification of the account
ownership, as well as printouts of all the calls placed.
Relationship
Provide copies of correspondence (letters, cards, email, telephone bills, etc.) to establish that you and the
beneficiary have maintained a relationship since your meeting. As mentioned above, phone cards are not
verifiable. However, if you used an online long distance company, then you should submit verification of the
account ownership, as well as printouts of all the calls placed.
If you are not from the same country as the beneficiary, do you speak the beneficiary s native language? If so,
how did you learn it? Does the beneficiary speak English? If so, where did he/she learn it?
Travel
Provide your passport pages reflecting all trips to the beneficiary s country, including the travel for the
wedding celebration.
Submit receipts from the hotels where you stayed while overseas.
Provide the names, addresses and current phone numbers of the individual(s) who accompanied you on the
flights abroad. If you traveled alone, please indicate such.
Photos
Submit photos of you and the beneficiary taken during your visits to the beneficiary s country.
Submit photos of your wedding celebration.
Wedding
Submit a copy of the wedding announcement that was sent to the friends and relative if one was sent.
If the beneficiary s parents did not attend the celebration, please explain why they did not attend, and if
possible submit notarized statements from them indicating why they couldn t attend. If the beneficiary s
siblings did not attend the celebration, please explain why they did not attend and if possible submit notarized
statements from them indicating why they couldn t attend the wedding.
If there was no wedding celebration, explain why this event was not celebrated.
Marriage After Divorce
If your marriage to the beneficiary occurred shortly after your or the beneficiary s prior marriage was legally
terminated, please describe the circumstances that led up to this rapid sequence of events.
Children Born to Marriage
Submit copies of the civilly registered birth certificates for all children born to your marriage with the
beneficiary.
Other Children
Submit copies of the civilly registered birth certificates for all of your biological children and all of the
beneficiary s biological children (the ones who weren t born to your marriage with the beneficiary).
Other Evidence
Examples of other evidence that can be submitted may include, but is not limited to the following:
Property deeds showing both names as co-owners;
Remittances, such as money and wire transfers (the originator of the monies deposited or wired must be
clearly shown and verifiable by name with full address and phone/fax number);
Documents from government entitlement programs showing both names;
Insurance plans showing each other as co-beneficiaries;
Statements from financial accounts in both names;
Evidence of communication; and/or
An assortment of photographs of you with the beneficiary spanning your entire relationship (courtship
and post-marital).
Please submit any other evidence that will help USCIS determine whether you and the beneficiary have a bona
fide marital relationship. If possible, the evidence should include documents showing communication, the
co-mingling of assets, as well as documentary evidence of a shared life together since the time of your
marriage. Please note the evidence submitted should span the entire course of the relationship (courtship and
post-marital).
If you made it until here, I thank you very, very much for your time spent helping us
zahraa_almayaly
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3:32 am February 4, 2020
