Proof on an ongoing relationship sent with the I-129F Package?

[BirdyGirl85 23]

So, is it really necessary to have proof of an ongoing relationship sent with the I-129F Package? Even the instructions to file for Form I-129F don't ask for proof of an ongoing relationship, just proof that we have met in person within the last two years. I know I will need proof on an ongoing relationship later, but for now, is it ok if I send the I-129F Package without that information? Does it look bad if I don't? Of course I have proof of us meeting in person in the last two years. I'm curious what others have done. Thank you for your help, I am currently working on the I-129F Package now. I am excited to start this process. My fiance was visiting me in the U.S. for the past three months and he just flew home yesterday. I miss him already.

Edited March 7, 2010 by BirdyGirl85

[d&z 1]

So, is it really necessary to have proof of an ongoing relationship sent with the I-129F Package? Even the instructions to file for Form I-129F don't ask for proof of an ongoing relationship, just proof that we have met in person within the last two years. I know I will need proof on an ongoing relationship later, but for now, is it ok if I send the I-129F Package without that information? Does it look bad if I don't? Of course I have proof of us meeting in person in the last two years. I'm curious what others have done. Thank you for your help, I am currently working on the I-129F Package now. I am excited to start this process. My fiance was visiting me in the U.S. for the past three months and he just flew home yesterday. I miss him already.

While you do not have to it can be very important to send them more than they need at this stage. Here people will call it frontloading. Phone bills, pictures, e-mails. letters, copy of skype pages. You do not have to send all , just examples from each month is what i did to show ongoing relationship over time. It is not needed now but can be VERY helpfull to have it in your file when it goes to the consulate.

[Otto 83]

Your statements are all pretty much correct - most folks don't include on-going relationship evidence with the I-129f petition. USCIS is primarily concerned that you both are free to marry and have met in person (within the past 2 years).

In some cases - depending on the country involved - it may make sense to front-load a petition with various things but I can't imagine that Finland is one of them.

We included pretty much what you see in the VJ guides and had no issues.

[az110965 252]

I-129F only requires proof of you and your fiancee having met in person within the last 2 years and the petition will be approved with just this evidence included (along with all other items required such as the G-325A's, letters of intent to marry, proof of citenship, divorce, etc...).

However - that being said - many of us have choiseb to "front load" our petitions with not only proof of having met in person but also proof of ongoing relationship (boarding passes from subsecquent trips, emails, phone records, photographs, etc). The purpose of front loading is not so much the I-129F approval (as I stated above, the petition will be approved with just proof of having met within 2 years), but as the Consulate reviews the I-129F PRIOR to your interview and may be more apt to approve the K-1 visa with evidence presented of the ongoing relationship with the I-129F.

Simply front loading the petition does not relieve you of the obgligation of prooving the relationship at the time of the interview (the Consulate will still want to see updated letters of intent, current emails, phone records and other primary and secondary proof of you and your fiancee having a bonafied relationship.

Asd you will read in the various posts, some have had success with just sending the minimum required attachments to the I-129F, while others have attached much more than is necessary., The choice is yours - just make sure to include all the REQUIRED items (see the guides), make sure you provide original signatures and fill out the forms correctly.

Good luck,

Alan

[VanessaTony 3,567]

So, is it really necessary to have proof of an ongoing relationship sent with the I-129F Package? Even the instructions to file for Form I-129F don't ask for proof of an ongoing relationship, just proof that we have met in person within the last two years. I know I will need proof on an ongoing relationship later, but for now, is it ok if I send the I-129F Package without that information? Does it look bad if I don't? Of course I have proof of us meeting in person in the last two years. I'm curious what others have done. Thank you for your help, I am currently working on the I-129F Package now. I am excited to start this process. My fiance was visiting me in the U.S. for the past three months and he just flew home yesterday. I miss him already.

It's not needed at all. If you WANT to do it it's completely fine, but in all honesty they don't read any of it until it gets to the consulate anyway so it kinda seems pointless in my opinion (but then I'm from a low-fraud country so that could be why I feel this way).

Some of the high-fraud consulates tend to front-load just to be safe (I'm pretty sure Finland isn't considered high-fraud) so if you have some emails from your relationship, or copies of letters, maybe a phone record or two it can't HURT. It's always better to be safe than sorry (plus I just read what the person above me wrote about them reading the stuff BEFORE your interview and I agree with that).

We included 4 pictures, boarding passes, travel itinerary, and photocopy of passport stamp as evidence of having met in the last 2 years though I'm not sure if some people would see that as "proof of ongoing relationship". None of our relationship evidence was even LOOKED at at the interview. All we did was follow the requirements and not the extras and we were fine and in fact if my police check hadn't taken longer than it should have my "6 months" of processing would have been more like 5.

Edited March 7, 2010 by Vanessa&Tony

[BirdyGirl85 23]

Thank you for your replies everyone... It's helpful. Well I don't think I have to worry about it too much then, Finland isn't considered a high-fraud country. Finland is apart of the Visa Waver Program, so he doesn't have to get a visa to visit the U.S. I could always provide some proof of an ongoing relationship just to be safe I guess, but it seems pointless and would take so much more time. I don't have any phone bills of us talking to each other, I just use a calling card to call him. He has phone bills of him calling me, but it's in Finnish which means he would have to get it translated into English... For now, it seems like that will just take so much more time to do that, and I just want to send the I-129F package to get the whole process started... But, I am going to send photos of us together, travel itineraries from the past two years of visits, boarding passes (From what he saved, unfortunately I didn't save any of my tickets when I flew to Finland because I didn't know I would need them in the future) and photo copies of all of stamps in both of our passports. Even though it only asks for proof of meeting in the last two years, I am going to tell them of all of our visits in our almost five year relationship. Combining all of our visits together over the last five years, we have been together in person for two years and one month, which I think is pretty good... I'm hoping it will look good that we have been together for this long and have met up as much as we have, since we are obviously not rushing into this marriage very early into our relationship.

Again thank you everyone for your advice, I just wanted to make sure...

[baron555 934]

So, is it really necessary to have proof of an ongoing relationship sent with the I-129F Package? Even the instructions to file for Form I-129F don't ask for proof of an ongoing relationship, just proof that we have met in person within the last two years. I know I will need proof on an ongoing relationship later, but for now, is it ok if I send the I-129F Package without that information? Does it look bad if I don't? Of course I have proof of us meeting in person in the last two years. I'm curious what others have done. Thank you for your help, I am currently working on the I-129F Package now. I am excited to start this process. My fiance was visiting me in the U.S. for the past three months and he just flew home yesterday. I miss him already.

No

Yes

Yes

No

Same as you stated except some of the proof of having met was also proof of our relationship, so double duty.

[Kristin&David 0]

One of the things we included was a timeline of our relationship with all of the visits we have had back and forth listed and explained. We then included the copies of each of our passports (all pages) the dates on the entry stamps then back up and confirm our timeline. The nice thing about this is it shouldn't take you very long to put it together because you can have your fiance scan their passport pages and send them to you electronically to print and include in the packet, should be able to it in an afternoon.

Hope this helps!

[BirdyGirl85 23]

One of the things we included was a timeline of our relationship with all of the visits we have had back and forth listed and explained. We then included the copies of each of our passports (all pages) the dates on the entry stamps then back up and confirm our timeline. The nice thing about this is it shouldn't take you very long to put it together because you can have your fiance scan their passport pages and send them to you electronically to print and include in the packet, should be able to it in an afternoon.

Hope this helps!

I actually did that! I made a timeline of all our visits and I scanned and printed out all of our passport stamps to show those visits really happened. I'm almost done with my package. Tomorrow I'm going to print some photos of us together at a photo place and buy a folder to put all the papers together and an envelope to ship it in. Thanks for your advice.

Edited March 8, 2010 by BirdyGirl85

[Kristin&David 0]

I actually did that! I made a timeline of all our visits and I scanned and printed out all of our passport stamps to show those visits really happened. I'm almost done with my package. Tomorrow I'm going to print some photos of us together at a photo place and buy a folder to put all the papers together and an envelope to ship it in. Thanks for your advice.

Cool! Best of luck with those finishing touches, and with the whole process!

[rs1971 0]

While you do not have to it can be very important to send them more than they need at this stage. Here people will call it frontloading. Phone bills, pictures, e-mails. letters, copy of skype pages. You do not have to send all , just examples from each month is what i did to show ongoing relationship over time. It is not needed now but can be VERY helpfull to have it in your file when it goes to the consulate.

Your response reminds me of a question I had. I'm considering including a few emails from my fiancee with my I-129F, but they are in Spanish. I know that required foreign language documents need to be translated but since the various pieces of evidence of relationship are optional, would it be okay to include some of them in a foreign language? Thanks.

-rs1971

[Leo&Maria 0]

I am also wondering how much proof they need for having met in person and ongoing relationship... It feels strange to send both passport stamps and boarding passes! But I think the more the better.

Also do I have to explain a lot about everything I send? For example we are including a copy of my engagement ring receipt - do we have to add a paper there saying "This is a copy of her engagement ring receipt" - and sign it and everything? "This is a copy of his phone bill", etc.

Edited December 21, 2010 by Leo&Maria

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Your response reminds me of a question I had. I'm considering including a few emails from my fiancee with my I-129F, but they are in Spanish. I know that required foreign language documents need to be translated but since the various pieces of evidence of relationship are optional, would it be okay to include some of them in a foreign language? Thanks.

-rs1971

Emails would be considered front-loaded evidence of a relationship, which USCIS does not require. Since the emails won't even be considered in determining if the petition is approved, it won't be necessary to translate them. Just make sure it's clear to them that the emails are emails, and not some sort of required document (divorce decree, etc.), or they could end up sending an RFE for a certified translation just to figure out what the heck you sent them.

The objective of sending front-loaded evidence of a relationship is to get the consular officer to see them, and also to prevent the consular officer from claiming that the evidence didn't exist. This is a trick that CO's at tough consulates pull a lot - they don't ask the beneficiary to produce specific evidence at the interview, and then they deny the visa claiming the evidence doesn't exist. Consulates will usually accept evidence in the native language of the local country.

Front-loaded evidence can also be extremely useful for addressing issues in your case that the consulate may consider to be red flags. When a consular officer denies a visa they return the petition to USCIS with a recommendation that the approval of the petition be revoked. Obviously, they have to provide USCIS with a reason for doing this, and they aren't supposed to cite a reason which USCIS knew about when the petition was approved unless they are claiming that USCIS obviously screwed up and approved an unapprovable petition. If you explain your red flags with your front-loaded evidence then the consular officer can't claim USCIS didn't know about it when the petition was approved. HOWEVER, if the front-loaded evidence was not in English or accompanied by an English translation then the consular officer can presume that USCIS didn't know about it. If you intend to use front-loaded evidence, like emails, to address red flags in your case then you should provide translations if they aren't in English.

I am also wondering how much proof they need for having met in person and ongoing relationship... It feels strange to send both passport stamps and boarding passes! But I think the more the better.

If you've got it, then send it. Because the decision is discretionary, you don't know where the finish line is and you won't know when you've crossed it. There's no penalty for overdoing it.

Also do I have to explain a lot about everything I send? For example we are including a copy of my engagement ring receipt - do we have to add a paper there saying "This is a copy of her engagement ring receipt" - and sign it and everything? "This is a copy of his phone bill", etc.

If it isn't obvious what it is then you should explain it. Since you should only be sending copies of this stuff, and not the original documents, you can just scan the evidence into your computer, paste the image onto a page in MS Word or some other word processor or document layout program, and add page titles and explanations. It's ok if you have to reduce the copy image a little in order to get it to fit on one page. I did exactly as I described here with both the I-129F and the AOS packages, and never had any problems with USCIS.

[bobbyA 20]

...The objective of sending front-loaded evidence of a relationship is to get the consular officer to see them, and also to prevent the consular officer from claiming that the evidence didn't exist. This is a trick that CO's at tough consulates pull a lot - they don't ask the beneficiary to produce specific evidence at the interview, and then they deny the visa claiming the evidence doesn't exist. Consulates will usually accept evidence in the native language of the local country.

Front-loaded evidence can also be extremely useful for addressing issues in your case that the consulate may consider to be red flags. When a consular officer denies a visa they return the petition to USCIS with a recommendation that the approval of the petition be revoked...

Jim,

1) Are these CO's given a quota, i.e. to deny a certain number of visa applicants?

2) When you say deny, did you mean a White slip with no chance of appeal? From the posts I read here so far, some people are given Blue slips so that they can come back with evidence for reconsideration.

In my case where I have recent divorces from a supposedly "high fraud" country (China), I asked friends and family to write letters supporting our case, but that was after I mailed my petition. I was hoping that these letters can be brought to the interview in case the CO asks for more evidence.

Then my 3rd question is, if the CO issues a Blue, can my SO immediately pull out the evidence (whatever it may be) and hand it to the CO?

Thank you.

[Misuzu 10]

I have a question for these proofs. So, I know I (or rather my fiance) should send the proofs in the package of I-129F form, but for example if we have plane tickets should we send these tickects or scan them? I know these tickecs might be useful on an interview in the embassy later, so if we send them we won't have it anymore... So these proofs has to be 'real' or sccaned?