Finalizing my I-129F Packet a few last minute questions

[jhay 0]

Hello all, I am so excited to finally have gathered all ( I think) the information required for this process. My goal is to send out the packet Friday October 9, 2009. I do have a question on the "evidence" needed that my fiancee' and myself have indeed met. I have phone bills (home and cell), pics of us together, pics of us together with her family, letters written from my fiance' to myself..including our intentions of marriage, letters from her father and friend stating that they know me, my relationship with my fiance' and of our intentions of marriage (notarized), letters from my friend and employeer stating the same (notarized) and passport photocopies showing my 3 trips to the Philippines over the past year and a half. <HERE IS THE QUESTION> I never saved my airline ticket stubs and only have 1 E-ticket conformation of my last trip there. Is it really necessary to show further proof that i was actually on the plane?? Should I have all the E-tickets/ Iteneraries??

I am very stressed out of course about having EVERYTHING necessary the FIRST time!! Im sure you all understand

Of course I have everything else as outlined in the guide here.....cover letter, both letters of intent, how we met letter, both I-129F forms, both G-325A forms w/ passport photos, birth cert copy, ...etc etc...

Feedback will genuinely make me sleep better

many thanks in advance,

Jon

[Dakine 26]

You have plenty! Actually to much but it doesn't hurt.

Edited October 7, 2009 by Dakine

[Anh map 2,098]

Passport stamps, boarding passes, hotel receipts, photos are all great evidence that you actually traveled someplace.

Send all that you can. Do you have any of the airline luggage tags? Those will have flight number, etc.

The phone records and affidavits from others do not prove that you have met face to face. These are good for proving the bona fides of your relationship.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Hello all, I am so excited to finally have gathered all ( I think) the information required for this process. My goal is to send out the packet Friday October 9, 2009. I do have a question on the "evidence" needed that my fiancee' and myself have indeed met. I have phone bills (home and cell), pics of us together, pics of us together with her family, letters written from my fiance' to myself..including our intentions of marriage, letters from her father and friend stating that they know me, my relationship with my fiance' and of our intentions of marriage (notarized), letters from my friend and employeer stating the same (notarized) and passport photocopies showing my 3 trips to the Philippines over the past year and a half. <HERE IS THE QUESTION> I never saved my airline ticket stubs and only have 1 E-ticket conformation of my last trip there. Is it really necessary to show further proof that i was actually on the plane?? Should I have all the E-tickets/ Iteneraries??

I am very stressed out of course about having EVERYTHING necessary the FIRST time!! Im sure you all understand

Of course I have everything else as outlined in the guide here.....cover letter, both letters of intent, how we met letter, both I-129F forms, both G-325A forms w/ passport photos, birth cert copy, ...etc etc...

Feedback will genuinely make me sleep better

many thanks in advance,

Jon

Phone bills and letters are NOT evidence of meeting. You do not need those. Photos are good. If you do not have boarding pass copies, then use your passport stamps to show when you were there. USCIS really does not care HOW you got to the PIs. Etickets and itineriaries are useless, they are not proof of travel. They are proof of travel PLANS and there is no telling if you actually got on the airplane. Only a boarding pass confirms that. Again, you could SWIM there and that is fine, just use your passport stamps for entry and exit as proof you were there.

[1orraine 0]

You have plenty -- not having every borading pass isn't going to be a deal breaker.

[brlukath 1]

On my quick read of your list, the only PRIMARY evidence of having met is your passport stamps. Make sure you put those in--front and center-- and that the dates on the photos match the dates of the trips. All of the rest of what you have is irrelevant so it should go AFTER.

[jhay 0]

On my quick read of your list, the only PRIMARY evidence of having met is your passport stamps. Make sure you put those in--front and center-- and that the dates on the photos match the dates of the trips. All of the rest of what you have is irrelevant so it should go AFTER.

In my opinion the passport stamps are kinda bogus, they are photocopied from my passport yes, but there is nowhere on the pages to signify that it is actually MY passport...... I assume anyone could just photocopy someone elses passport ??!!

As far as my pics go, unfortunately they where recently printed at a Wal-Mart photo center because they where on my cameras memory card or stored in my cpu, so the date on the back of the photo is NOT the date they where actually taken.

All of this is somewhat frustrating, I mean in my case the objective of my initial trip to Manila was business, I had no intentions of meeting my fiance there, furthermore no idea of a K1 visa or its guidelines, so how is a person like myself supposed have been prepared for all of this....If it was my intention to travel to another country and find my fiance' I suppose I would have had everything dialed perfectly.........

[thepizzadude 26]

On my quick read of your list, the only PRIMARY evidence of having met is your passport stamps. Make sure you put those in--front and center-- and that the dates on the photos match the dates of the trips. All of the rest of what you have is irrelevant so it should go AFTER.

In my opinion the passport stamps are kinda bogus, they are photocopied from my passport yes, but there is nowhere on the pages to signify that it is actually MY passport...... I assume anyone could just photocopy someone elses passport ??!!

That is exactly what I was gonna tell ya, but at the interview if you are there you could show them your passport, you really need something to PROVE you were there and the only thing you seem to have are those stamps, you kept NO BOARDING PASSES. What about luggage tags, any still attached to your luggage. Can you get copies of the hotel receipts or possibly your credit card statements showing you paid for things there at the time you were supposed to be there, you need something with YOUR NAME and THE DATES and SOMEPLACE IN THE PHILIPPINES showing all together. And it won't do any good with the cc bills showing you bought tickets because it doesn't mean you used them.

As far as my pics go, unfortunately they where recently printed at a Wal-Mart photo center because they where on my cameras memory card or stored in my cpu, so the date on the back of the photo is NOT the date they where actually taken.

The pics are hardly primary evidence so it won't really matter because they can be date stamped with any computer photo editing software. One thing I tell everyone that is going to meet a fiance is when your plane lands get a picture in the airport of you together in front of a date, clock, airline schedule holding a newspaper whatever you can.

All of this is somewhat frustrating, I mean in my case the objective of my initial trip to Manila was business, I had no intentions of meeting my fiance there, furthermore no idea of a K1 visa or its guidelines, so how is a person like myself supposed have been prepared for all of this....If it was my intention to travel to another country and find my fiance' I suppose I would have had everything dialed perfectly.........

Edited October 7, 2009 by thepizzadude

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

On my quick read of your list, the only PRIMARY evidence of having met is your passport stamps. Make sure you put those in--front and center-- and that the dates on the photos match the dates of the trips. All of the rest of what you have is irrelevant so it should go AFTER.

In my opinion the passport stamps are kinda bogus, they are photocopied from my passport yes, but there is nowhere on the pages to signify that it is actually MY passport...... I assume anyone could just photocopy someone elses passport ??!!

As far as my pics go, unfortunately they where recently printed at a Wal-Mart photo center because they where on my cameras memory card or stored in my cpu, so the date on the back of the photo is NOT the date they where actually taken.

All of this is somewhat frustrating, I mean in my case the objective of my initial trip to Manila was business, I had no intentions of meeting my fiance there, furthermore no idea of a K1 visa or its guidelines, so how is a person like myself supposed have been prepared for all of this....If it was my intention to travel to another country and find my fiance' I suppose I would have had everything dialed perfectly.........

Correct and boarding passes are preferred. BUT YOU LOST THOSE!!!!!!! I would copy ALL pages of your passport. They accept this for proof of citizenship, so why not that you were there? It isn't like you have a choice, is it? It is the ONLY primary evidence you have and that is more critical than the photos.

then pout the photos into a color copy machine and print 3-4 photos on one page and send that. They do not have to be on photo paper, they have to be legible. Write a little caption next to them if you want. Photos are secondary evidence.

You cannot be prepared for what you do not know. I had exactly the same situation. I met Alla on a business trip and spent one evening with her and never had any clue she would be my wife (well, yes I thought about it, but never had heard of a K-1 anyway at that point) I did have my boarding passes, as I keep those for business purposes, and Alla had asked a waitress to take ONE photo of us in a restaraunt, she emailed it to me and I used that ONE photo to submit with our petition. Though by the time we had submitted the petition I had been back to Ukraine 3 additional times, I still sent only the ONE photo because that is all you need.

If you do not have the documents you need, you would need to make another trip and another visit. If your evidence is not sufficient (I think it is with a copy of your passport) then you need to do this before you file. The documented meeting needs to occur before you file. You cannot go back and produce evidence that didn't exist before you filed.

No amount of irrelevent documents (emails, letters, phone bills, etc.) will make up for missing evidence of meeting in person.

[DouglasFiel 53]

Passport stamps are not bogus,,, Sure they could be just a photocopy of someone elses passport... But, the US Goverment knows everytime your

passport is used,,, PICs plus Passport Stamps/Boarding passes are best.

And, the last few years all airline manifests for international travel to the US is sent and cleared by homeland security before you ever arrive here.

Regards,

[Mdtdnb 0]

On my quick read of your list, the only PRIMARY evidence of having met is your passport stamps. Make sure you put those in--front and center-- and that the dates on the photos match the dates of the trips. All of the rest of what you have is irrelevant so it should go AFTER.

In my opinion the passport stamps are kinda bogus, they are photocopied from my passport yes, but there is nowhere on the pages to signify that it is actually MY passport...... I assume anyone could just photocopy someone elses passport ??!!

As far as my pics go, unfortunately they where recently printed at a Wal-Mart photo center because they where on my cameras memory card or stored in my cpu, so the date on the back of the photo is NOT the date they where actually taken.

All of this is somewhat frustrating, I mean in my case the objective of my initial trip to Manila was business, I had no intentions of meeting my fiance there, furthermore no idea of a K1 visa or its guidelines, so how is a person like myself supposed have been prepared for all of this....If it was my intention to travel to another country and find my fiance' I suppose I would have had everything dialed perfectly.........

You are required to post every page of your passport even the blank ones. As for the frustration, I understand completely but really it is not as hard as it seems. Just relax some ok It is better to just take your time and take it one step at a time. Just use good "checklist discipline" and create a system for organizing all your stuff.

--> My system was literally I would fill out each form, email/transfer them to my fiance for her to proofread. Then wait for her approval and/or discuss what the issue was. Often times agreeing with each part was the most time consuming part for us...I'm sure you are being very particular about each block. After we agreed on a topic I literally had my entire package spread across my entire bedroom floor for about 3 days which was how much time i spent compiling it all. Just prior to mailing, me and my fiance used a webcam and discussed online EVERY aspect to make sure it was perfect.

For your dates on the pictures, just use a black felt tip pen and you will only need to write your names, location (all I put was city and state) and the approximate date. I had some that I only knew the month and year and my package was still approved.

[busterbrown 0]

We just made color photo copies of our passports including entry stamps. Never received a RFE. If everything is legible, there shouldn't be a problem. Good luck.

[jhay 0]

Thank you so much everyone who responded. I DO feel so much better now reading all of your responses. This indeed has been a long ...almost, 2 years now and both myself and my Fiance' grow impatient. It is really our love and confidence that gets us through all of the waiting and time spent apart.

Ok........so today I do my triple go over of everything and send it off on Friday!! I will post again to report my progress...

Thank you all again!!

Wish me Luck !!

...staying positive- Jon