DCF Delhi

[ms_jinga_lala 0]

After a failed visa attempt in 2009/2010 I moved to India to be with my (now) husband. Things are not going so well health-wise for me living here and we've decided to move to the US. I will be filing DCF in the very near future at New Delhi. While I will be searching the forum and the web for up to date information before filing I would greatly appreciate any tips you guys have.

I know I have to have lived here more than 6 months and I have that covered. I've been here for 7 months now, the relationship is 3 years old and by the time we make it to the consular I will have my PIO card (provided IST doesn't slow that down too much lol).

One question I know I have that I haven't been able to answer previously from searching is in relation to proving residence. I moved into a joint family. The house is in the grandfather's name and the power bill in the fathers name. We do have a separate power connection in my husbands name but my name is on nothing of value in relation to the house. I have my residence permit, train tickets from traveling around the country and motel receipts, etc. Are those kinds of things accepted to prove my residence here? I don't even have mail with my name on it because it never would have made it to me that way (since no one seems to use the mail system much here the postman has hard enough time finding the house for packages to reach my husband that my family sends me). Any insight onto ways I can prove that I've been living here would be great. (Not sure if it works that way for everyone or not, but my US accounts that I've maintained do not allow the addition of a foreign address so I can't print bills or bank records to prove it either.) I do have a joint bank account with my husband here. I guess if it comes down to it I can print my bank statements with all the ATM charges well listed for proof I was here as well, if you guys think that will even matter/help/be a long shot but worth it.

Thanks in advance for any help, advice, tips, etc.

[ms_jinga_lala 0]

50 views and not one single reply?

Anyway I have another question now. I was going over some documents and getting papers together to file and noticed a small discrepancy on our marriage license. Hubby seems to think getting a correction will be a nightmare. Now I'm not sure what to do. This will conflict with what other documents say and even though it's small I want everything to be as perfect as possible. It took us 3 weeks and many long hours at the courthouse to convince the jerk there to register us at all. He claimed he didn't know how because he had never had a American/Indian marriage before. It was bs, he wanted a bribe but that's another story. We checked everything but didn't notice this small mistake. It's in regards to my husbands birthday. They have the wrong day listed. Any ideas how to handle this? I doubt the CO is gonna say - it's okay, we know it was just at typo. I don't think an explanation is in order to get the issue fixed. Ugh. I know we have to try but what happens if they refuse to fix it here at the courthouse?

[danthai 0]

I'm in Thailand, so I don't know the particulars in India, but you'll need proof of realtionship and if that's just a marriage certificate and joint bank account then that's what you have. COs can be particular, therefore, I suggest you document as much as you can, such as, emails while you were in US, letters, etc. as well as pictures of you both including family if possible. The documents must match, the Embassy here says if there is a discrepancy get it fixed before submitting it. Hope that helps.

[Penguin_ie 5,994]

You might want to get his parents and yours, and some other people to write affidavits, but with DCF, having lived together for months, I think you'll be ok. Don't forget you ALSO need to show that your residence in India is temporary and/or you have taken steps to re-establish domicile in the USA. So proof such as having started to look for a job in the US, still owning property there, having your furniture in storage, valid drivers license and voter record etc.

In terms of the birthday in the marriage license- it very much depends on the embassy. Is it just the date- month and year, as well as name etc are correct? Then you might be ok. But if you can, I would get it corrected, even if it means a small bribe and/or delay.

[Harsh_77 718]

After a failed visa attempt in 2009/2010 I moved to India to be with my (now) husband. Things are not going so well health-wise for me living here and we've decided to move to the US. I will be filing DCF in the very near future at New Delhi. While I will be searching the forum and the web for up to date information before filing I would greatly appreciate any tips you guys have.

I know I have to have lived here more than 6 months and I have that covered. I've been here for 7 months now, the relationship is 3 years old and by the time we make it to the consular I will have my PIO card (provided IST doesn't slow that down too much lol).

One question I know I have that I haven't been able to answer previously from searching is in relation to proving residence. I moved into a joint family. The house is in the grandfather's name and the power bill in the fathers name. We do have a separate power connection in my husbands name but my name is on nothing of value in relation to the house. I have my residence permit, train tickets from traveling around the country and motel receipts, etc. Are those kinds of things accepted to prove my residence here? I don't even have mail with my name on it because it never would have made it to me that way (since no one seems to use the mail system much here the postman has hard enough time finding the house for packages to reach my husband that my family sends me). Any insight onto ways I can prove that I've been living here would be great. (Not sure if it works that way for everyone or not, but my US accounts that I've maintained do not allow the addition of a foreign address so I can't print bills or bank records to prove it either.) I do have a joint bank account with my husband here. I guess if it comes down to it I can print my bank statements with all the ATM charges well listed for proof I was here as well, if you guys think that will even matter/help/be a long shot but worth it.

Thanks in advance for any help, advice, tips, etc.

If you just need to prove length of your stay out of country then you can use the stamps in your passport. There was a stamp put with date by immigration when you entered the country.

You are still in the country so CO can count how many months you have been in the country from that date.

[ms_jinga_lala 0]

Thank you all, those are really helpful answers! I'm going to have him look into getting the date corrected. Everything is just such a nightmare here to get it done. The bribe I can deal with, just not another 3 long weeks of them giving us the run around. Poor hubby almost lost his job we were spending so much time at the courthouse just to get the initial registration done.

[SimranS 9]

Thank you all, those are really helpful answers! I'm going to have him look into getting the date corrected. Everything is just such a nightmare here to get it done. The bribe I can deal with, just not another 3 long weeks of them giving us the run around. Poor hubby almost lost his job we were spending so much time at the courthouse just to get the initial registration done.

For proof of Indian residence your residency permit and passport stamp will be plenty. For proof of a US domicile, you have probably filed income tax the past few years and have a valid driver's license, etc. so that shouldn't be a problem.

If you give them the bribe up front why do you think it will take another 3 weeks just for the correction? They will probably do it in 1-2 days if you bribe them. Although I think getting the correction is a good idea, it may not be as big a deal as you think. I was also married in Amritsar and was legally supposed to register my marriage there but didn't because we live in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Ours is a special status state with no registrar of marriages so we got our marriage registered through a court here.

On the day of the CR1 interview the Indian guy who did our pre-screening tried to ask why our marriage wasn't registered through the marriage registrar, and we explained that our state doesn't even have a marriage registrar. He tried to argue that he has other people's registration certificates from the J & K registrar but after looking and looking he was unable to find one to show us, so he accepted what we had. No one even thought to question why we didn't just register our marriage with the registrar in Amritsar where the wedding took place.

Our original marriage certificate from the Gurudwara we married at had only my first and middle name (which isn't even on my passport) without my last name at all. On the court registration cerificate our ages were off by like one year each. No one at the Embassy even mentioned this and we got our visa without any problem. Minor errors are common here.

[ms_jinga_lala 0]

Thank you Simran. I may just be overly nervous but after the last fiasco I probably have good reason to be. We gave them everything and in the end they denied us because we were honest and we hadn't even done anything wrong. I'm quite sure the CO was ex military and so was my ex-husband and he flipped out over the divorce. I just couldn't believe how he went off on my Indian husband over it. The entire embassy was surprised, including workers and visitors.

We went to the courthouse and they have our old file still. They said we could get another one made in a day or two but to get the error corrected we had to start the whole process over which means making a new file. We tried to pay the bribe up front last time and then the price went up. They saw me as a cash cow and I am nothing of the sorts. We are not rich, barely have enough in savings to cover what we need for the filing, moving and savings requirements to qualify. Bribing some jackass at the court with another $1000 USD is not what I want to do. I was pissed off when FIL payed that much last time and the guy remembers us because after his demands kept going up FIL went to the commissioner on him. We still wound up having to pay because the commissioner didn't do squat other than raise a fuss. Even with anti-corruption movements going on, this won't be cheap. I think I'm going to call the embassy and see what they say just as a precaution. I've been putting that off because I know I'll just get the diplomatic answer telling me to fix it. However, I do value your feedback, it's given me some very helpful information.

[ms_jinga_lala 0]

Now that I'm thinking on these things I want to ask. Is it considered immigration fraud if we supply affidavits about our relationship instead of the marriage license?

We have the license but I know it is wrong. So I'm wondering if we can choose the option (even though it's not supposed to be a first choice option) to supply affidavits in place of the document. I can assure the affidavits are accurate and I can even type them up to say all the same things as the original marriage certificate minus the errors and have them notarized by a local lawyer. That would solve the bribe problem the fight with the jackass at the courthouse and the fear of submitting the original license knowing it's inaccurate. (Yes, I do have some fear of the immigration officials too even though I'm the citizen lol. I do tend to go overboard on accuracy because I don't want to get screwed on a technicality.)