WITNESS AFFIDAVITS

[✿Ice Rain✿ 0]

I do understand, Yes we did include the Marriage certificate. Our affidavits , we considered only as secondary documents since we didnt have those listed in number 1 to 4 .

here's the complete documents attached in our IR-130:

Documents attached to our IR-130 application (CR1)

1.filled up form 130 (2 pages)

2.filled up form G-325A of my husband (4 copies)

3.filled up form G-325A of me (4 copies)

4.xerox copy of my husband's passport

5.xerox copy of my husband's birth certificate

6.Original NSO marriage certificate

7.Witness affidavits signed and notarized (7 copies)

8. 1 pc. passport size picture of my husband

9. 1 pc. passport size picture of me

10. check amounting $355.00 (Payable to the Department of Homeland Security)

11. xerox copy of our Marriage license (1 copy)

I'm sure your documentation on the whole is just fine. I'm just saying the content of your affidavits is useless because they say nothing about your relationship. Others would be wise to use only the format and not the content as an example of what to do.

Thank you..

Fortunately, we didn't get RFE to both 130 and 129-F. We just included only the affidavits and the marriage license as "secondary" because we didn't have those listed in 1 to 4, and our "primary" was the original Marriage Certificate.

As to the content of this affidavits, at least i think it helped though our petition in some ways.

[pushbrk 12,134]

I do understand, Yes we did include the Marriage certificate. Our affidavits , we considered only as secondary documents since we didnt have those listed in number 1 to 4 .

here's the complete documents attached in our IR-130:

Documents attached to our IR-130 application (CR1)

1.filled up form 130 (2 pages)

2.filled up form G-325A of my husband (4 copies)

3.filled up form G-325A of me (4 copies)

4.xerox copy of my husband's passport

5.xerox copy of my husband's birth certificate

6.Original NSO marriage certificate

7.Witness affidavits signed and notarized (7 copies)

8. 1 pc. passport size picture of my husband

9. 1 pc. passport size picture of me

10. check amounting $355.00 (Payable to the Department of Homeland Security)

11. xerox copy of our Marriage license (1 copy)

I'm sure your documentation on the whole is just fine. I'm just saying the content of your affidavits is useless because they say nothing about your relationship. Others would be wise to use only the format and not the content as an example of what to do.

Thank you..

Fortunately, we didn't get RFE to both 130 and 129-F. We just included only the affidavits and the marriage license as "secondary" because we didn't have those listed in 1 to 4, and our "primary" was the original Marriage Certificate.

As to the content of this affidavits, at least i think it helped though our petition in some ways.

Frankly, all you can be sure of is that the affidavits haven't hurt anything so far.

Again, the purpose of my comments is to assist others in how they use your example, not to comment on your case itself.

[✿Ice Rain✿ 0]

This is just to clarify, we submitted as;

PRIMARY DOCUMENT- Marriage Certificate

SECONDARY DOCUMENTS - Affidavits, and Marriage license.

NONE-1) Documentation showing joint ownership or property; or

NONE-2) A lease showing joint tenancy of a common residence; or

NONE-3) Documentation showing co-mingling of financial resources; or

NONE-4) Birth certificate(s) of child(ren) born to you, the petitioner, and your spouse together; or

We provided this -5) Affidavits sworn to or affirmed by third parties having personal knowledge of the bona fides of the marital relationship (Each affidavit must contain the full name and address, date and place of birth of the person making the affidavit, his or her relationship to the petitioner of beneficiary, if any, and complete information and details explaining how the person acquired his or her knowledge of your marriage); or

We provided MARRIAGE License as -6) Any other relevant documentation to establish that there is an ongoing marital union.

I guess I'm not being clear enough afterall. You did not submit item 5 as described because your affidavits say nothing about the bona fides of your marital relationship. They only speak of your wedding.

I think, maybe i lack of the content of that then. Maybe, you might want to post a sample here of a Correct Content of Affidavits for bona fide of marital relationship. I would really appreciate that. I don't consider mine correct or right, this is just the "affidavits" that we already sent to the USCIS. Thanks.

[✿Ice Rain✿ 0]

I do understand, Yes we did include the Marriage certificate. Our affidavits , we considered only as secondary documents since we didnt have those listed in number 1 to 4 .

here's the complete documents attached in our IR-130:

Documents attached to our IR-130 application (CR1)

1.filled up form 130 (2 pages)

2.filled up form G-325A of my husband (4 copies)

3.filled up form G-325A of me (4 copies)

4.xerox copy of my husband's passport

5.xerox copy of my husband's birth certificate

6.Original NSO marriage certificate

7.Witness affidavits signed and notarized (7 copies)

8. 1 pc. passport size picture of my husband

9. 1 pc. passport size picture of me

10. check amounting $355.00 (Payable to the Department of Homeland Security)

11. xerox copy of our Marriage license (1 copy)

I'm sure your documentation on the whole is just fine. I'm just saying the content of your affidavits is useless because they say nothing about your relationship. Others would be wise to use only the format and not the content as an example of what to do.

Thank you..

Fortunately, we didn't get RFE to both 130 and 129-F. We just included only the affidavits and the marriage license as "secondary" because we didn't have those listed in 1 to 4, and our "primary" was the original Marriage Certificate.

As to the content of this affidavits, at least i think it helped though our petition in some ways.

Frankly, all you can be sure of is that the affidavits haven't hurt anything so far.

Again, the purpose of my comments is to assist others in how they use your example, not to comment on your case itself.

Honestly, I don't take it wrong, you've been helpful to me as always, I am still thanking you for commenting about the content of the affidavit we sent to USCIS. Others , can also have ways on how or what they are goin to put in their affidavit's contents.

And also to others, we didn't use this affidavit as primary, we use this as only a secondary documents.

Thanks Pushbrk, I do appreciate your assistance explaining this matter here.

[LonelyGround 0]

I think that Shape of My Heart did not get what Pushbrk was talking about. Shape of My Heart kept saying things about documentation, but that is not the main point Pushbrk tried to point out.

I agree with Pushbrk. We just got married and we are not even live together because she is overseas, of course. We have nothing more than what we had in the past to convince immigration officials. Therefore, I asked the couple from my church who introduced us to know each other to write this affidavit for us, describing how we have known each other, how we developed our relationship, how we made a decision for marriage, and how we have planned our future.

As a matter of fact, we got the certificate of marriage from the U.S. Embassy in Korea, and we have not had any ceremony yet. We have scheduled a ceremony in Korea in May, and this couple will fly there to attend our ceremony. They also noted this trip in the affidavit.

I do understand that USCIS is looking for new facts occurring after marriage to support an ongoing relationship. However, it is just near impossible in my case (and I believe in most cases when the marriage occurs overseas and the spouse is not in the U.S.). This is the best thing I can do, and I hope it helps.

[✿Ice Rain✿ 0]

I think that Shape of My Heart did not get what Pushbrk was talking about. Shape of My Heart kept saying things about documentation, but that is not the main point Pushbrk tried to point out.

I agree with Pushbrk. We just got married and we are not even live together because she is overseas, of course. We have nothing more than what we had in the past to convince immigration officials. Therefore, I asked the couple from my church who introduced us to know each other to write this affidavit for us, describing how we have known each other, how we developed our relationship, how we made a decision for marriage, and how we have planned our future.

As a matter of fact, we got the certificate of marriage from the U.S. Embassy in Korea, and we have not had any ceremony yet. We have scheduled a ceremony in Korea in May, and this couple will fly there to attend our ceremony. They also noted this trip in the affidavit.

I do understand that USCIS is looking for new facts occurring after marriage to support an ongoing relationship. However, it is just near impossible in my case (and I believe in most cases when the marriage occurs overseas and the spouse is not in the U.S.). This is the best thing I can do, and I hope it helps.

Hello,

That was a very nice thing to say. Did you read though from the beginning until the end the start of this conversation?

I don't think so.

Shape

[crazysamurai 0]

Personally, I consider the affidavits described to be totally useless and of no assistance whatsoever. The affiants offer no information about the bona fides of the relationship. They only attest that an official wedding took place. That's what the official marriage certificate does.

If you supply afficavits, they should attest to the bona fides of the relationship not the validity of the legal marriage. They would contain statements as to what has been observed about the relationship. Statements indicating the affiant has observed the evolution of the relationship, maybe double dateed, or observed the couple together on multiple occasions, saw the passionate kiss at the conclusion of the ceremony, helped them move into their new home together, provided pre-marital counselling etc.

Many newlyweds just cannot provide any such evidence and I've seen nothing to indicate USCIS wants affidavits that swear to being at a wedding, a party afterwards where the couple seemed eager to start the honeymoon or where the best man slept in the adjoining hotel room and swears to hearing the headboard banging.

There's a whole thread I started here months ago where many report they submitted absolutely none of the "should include on or more of the following..." items and were approved with flying colors.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...c=77987&hl=

People with scam marriages can prove they got married.

You are absolutely correct pushbrk. I called the immigration lawyer in my town and he said that affidavits are just 'biased' sworn statements by 'biased' people (friends, family, etc.). Nothing more than that. They don't have that much power.

CS

[✿Ice Rain✿ 0]

Not all of us has the same content of affidavits. Maybe, it would be good if you share your samples here.

[kitty loves moudi 0]

Personally, I consider the affidavits described to be totally useless and of no assistance whatsoever. The affiants offer no information about the bona fides of the relationship. They only attest that an official wedding took place. That's what the official marriage certificate does.

If you supply afficavits, they should attest to the bona fides of the relationship not the validity of the legal marriage. They would contain statements as to what has been observed about the relationship. Statements indicating the affiant has observed the evolution of the relationship, maybe double dateed, or observed the couple together on multiple occasions, saw the passionate kiss at the conclusion of the ceremony, helped them move into their new home together, provided pre-marital counselling etc.

Many newlyweds just cannot provide any such evidence and I've seen nothing to indicate USCIS wants affidavits that swear to being at a wedding, a party afterwards where the couple seemed eager to start the honeymoon or where the best man slept in the adjoining hotel room and swears to hearing the headboard banging.

There's a whole thread I started here months ago where many report they submitted absolutely none of the "should include on or more of the following..." items and were approved with flying colors.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...c=77987&hl=

People with scam marriages can prove they got married.

You are absolutely correct pushbrk. I called the immigration lawyer in my town and he said that affidavits are just 'biased' sworn statements by 'biased' people (friends, family, etc.). Nothing more than that. They don't have that much power.

CS

I didnt send any with my application, I did however send a few pics of us with family, receipts of our hotels, my itineraries.. that's it.

[crazysamurai 0]

I understand. Do you? Your affidavits don't attest to the bona fides of the marriage relationship. Hopefully you submitted a marriage certificate not just a marriage license. A marriage certificate is all the evidence you need that you both "got married" and that your "marriage" was duly recorded with the appropriate government entity registering the "marriage". A marriage license only shows evidence you took care of the preliminaries.

The purpose of my post is to inform the readers your affidavits serve only as examples of what NOT to do. I don't know how I can be more clear about that.

Number 5 states the following...

5) Affidavits sworn to or affirmed by third parties having personal knowledge of the bona fides of the marital relationship (Each affidavit must contain the full name and address, date and place of birth of the person making the affidavit, his or her relationship to the petitioner of beneficiary, if any, and complete information and details explaining how the person acquired his or her knowledge of your marriage); or

Please note the keyword "relationship" and avoid confusing the meaning of "marriage" with "wedding" or "ceremony".

The format of your affidavits is a great example. The content is all wrong.

I believe the affidavits newly weds submit from their friends and family are just proving that marriage took place. You have marriage certificate for that. You don't need affidavits for that. This is what I submitted for my I-130

1. I-130

2. G-325 A (all 4 pages) for me.

3. G-325 A (all 4 pages) for my wife.

4. Copy of Marriage Certificate

5. Copy of US passport

6. Copy of Naturalization Certificate

7. Passport size photos of myself

8. Passport size photos of my wife.

9. Check of $355

I hope this is enough. If I get RFE for bona fide of marriage relationship, I am gonna shoot myself. As, I don't have anything but these stupid affidavits to provide, which again don't prove sh*t about "marriage relationship".

CS

Edited April 26, 2008 by crazysamurai

[✿Ice Rain✿ 0]

LonelyGround,

I posted the sample of the affidavits we sent to USCIS as requested by some fellows who asked me as to what an affidavits that we sent to USCIS looked like.

I didn't post this samples to be criticized. If you guys did different with ours then fine.

We didn't have any problems with it, we didn't get an RFE either. Some people opted not to submit affidavits, some people opted to submit affidavits. And in our case, we opted to submit. If you have problem with how our affidavit's contents look like, then that is not my problem anymore. Your case is absolutely different from ours.

Now, i guess it's better, why don't you just share your affidavits here.

[N360 0]

I think most people here understand Pushbrk. and realize Shape is not understanding Pushbrk.

I, like Shape, submitted sworn affidavits from friends and family. It is similar to what SHape submitted but not quite. First off, the affidavits I submitted were all from US citizens notarized by US notaries. Second, the affiants didnt "just say" they saw the wedding. They swore to the bona fides of the relationships and even pointed to proofs such as dated photos posted online.

On top of affidavits, we submitted other proofs of relationship such as a "joint" bank account and our names on leases. I honestly think these carried more weight than my affidavits. I was just giving them all I've got.

Having said that... Pushbrk is right. I dont think what Shape, posted is gonna be of help to anyone. You will get approved or denied with or without the foreigner's "relatives" saying... Oh yeah, I saw them get married."

[N360 0]

LonelyGround,

I posted the sample of the affidavits we sent to USCIS as requested by some fellows who asked me as to what an affidavits that we sent to USCIS looked like.

I didn't post this samples to be criticized. If you guys did different with ours then fine.

We didn't have any problems with it, we didn't get an RFE either. Some people opted not to submit affidavits, some people opted to submit affidavits. And in our case, we opted to submit. If you have problem with how our affidavit's contents look like, then that is not my problem anymore. Your case is absolutely different from ours.

Now, i guess it's better, why don't you just share your affidavits here.

Shape you posted your examples on a public forum. If it was a reply to a request, a better avenue would be a PM or email to that someone who requested it. By posting it here, you are basically telling everyone, hey... this is how affidavits should look like.

I'm so sorry but in a public forum, everyone will get corrected from time to time. I've been corrected here before and its fine. We are afterall a community dedicated to helping each other.

Edited April 26, 2008 by NoelandTintin

[LonelyGround 0]

Shape, I was not trying to be offensive. If you think that way, I apologize. Actually, your example is providing a good start for people, but I think what Pushbrk said was that we should add information more than just saying a status of marriage. Basically, my affidavit had a similar format as yours at the beginning, but I added a few more points (as I described in the earlier thread) to it. Certainly, I cannot show people my affidavit here because those parts are very perosnal and private. As I mentioned, I was trying my best to give more information to USCIS but was not sure if that would be helpful.

As I have been through the immigration process in my own case, I understand that the decision of whether to grant a visa (immigration or nonimmigration) is on a case-by-case basis. Immigration officials have their own power of discretion. The decision also depends on who is looking at the case. I think Pushbrk's points are important if the affidavit is the only option (like my case) for this requirement. We cannot view the approval of your case as a guarantee that all other cases that are similarly situated will receive the same treatment. More support should be good, even though we don't know if immigration officials care about what we submit.

Since you and Pushbrk have gone through 2 pages back and forth and I did not see a connection between you guys' conversations, I thought I should jump in to get it straight. Again, I was not trying to be offensive.

[pushbrk 12,134]

Shape, I was not trying to be offensive. If you think that way, I apologize. Actually, your example is providing a good start for people, but I think what Pushbrk said was that we should add information more than just saying a status of marriage. Basically, my affidavit had a similar format as yours at the beginning, but I added a few more points (as I described in the earlier thread) to it. Certainly, I cannot show people my affidavit here because those parts are very perosnal and private. As I mentioned, I was trying my best to give more information to USCIS but was not sure if that would be helpful.

As I have been through the immigration process in my own case, I understand that the decision of whether to grant a visa (immigration or nonimmigration) is on a case-by-case basis. Immigration officials have their own power of discretion. The decision also depends on who is looking at the case. I think Pushbrk's points are important if the affidavit is the only option (like my case) for this requirement. We cannot view the approval of your case as a guarantee that all other cases that are similarly situated will receive the same treatment. More support should be good, even though we don't know if immigration officials care about what we submit.

Since you and Pushbrk have gone through 2 pages back and forth and I did not see a connection between you guys' conversations, I thought I should jump in to get it straight. Again, I was not trying to be offensive.

Let me clarify. An effective affidavit would probably contain information about the relationship before during and after the "wedding". For instance, if this additional information had been suggested at the time I filed, I might have gotten affidavits from my daugthers and a friend of my wife's who actually observed some of the evolution of our relationship during courtship. They might not have meant much but would have provided information about the relationship, not the "wedding".

In most cases, newlyweds who have never even lived in the same country, just don't have anything meaningful to add, from the list of "should include one or more...." on the new I-130 instructions. USCIS understands this. Evidence of bona fide ongoing relationship will be dealt with at the visa interview.

Remember, the I-130 is also used for those relationships that develop in the US, where the couple has witnesses to the relationship, not just the wedding and for cases where both petitioner and beneficiary live abroad. Even so, I've only seen a couple of instances where there were RFE's for this in a visa process and both were DCF cases through London. Those people lived together in the UK or they couldn't have filed DCF to begin with.