Bona Fide Marriage questions

[Jay S 3]

Hello everyone.

Working on getting our Marriage bona fides ready for notary and I am a little stumped. All of the Affidavit examples I have seen are based on the US citizen for their immigrant spouse or for a third party. Does this mean that my wife doesn't need to do one or is there a better example from the spouses point of view?

I have 3 Affidavits ready to go, one for me along with 2 Third party affidavits, as well as plenty of pictures of us together and life insurance beneficiary pages. I just want to be able to include as much as I can with the first submission to avoid unnecessary delays.

Thoughts and input are appreciated

[TimeTravel 78]

Evidence of a Bonifide Marriage

The USCIS now requires that when filing an I-130 for a spouse that you include evidence of a bonifide marriage. They list examples of acceptable evidence as:

1. Documentation showing joint ownership or property; or

2. A lease showing joint tenancy of a common residence; or

3. Documentation showing co-mingling of financialresources; or

4. Birth certificate(s) of child(ren) born to you, thepetitioner, and your spouse together; or

5. Affidavits sworn to or affirmed by third parties havingpersonal knowledge of the bona fides of the maritalrelationship (Each affidavit must contain the full nameand address, date and place of birth of the person makingthe affidavit, his or her relationship to the petitioner ofbeneficiary, if any, and complete information and detailsexplaining how the person acquired his or herknowledge of your marriage); or

6. Any other relevant documentation to establish that thereis an ongoing marital union.

Read the guides here for I-130 - http://www.visajourney.com/content/i130guide1

[Laure&Colin 560]

Hello everyone.

Working on getting our Marriage bona fides ready for notary and I am a little stumped. All of the Affidavit examples I have seen are based on the US citizen for their immigrant spouse or for a third party. Does this mean that my wife doesn't need to do one or is there a better example from the spouses point of view?

I have 3 Affidavits ready to go, one for me along with 2 Third party affidavits, as well as plenty of pictures of us together and life insurance beneficiary pages. I just want to be able to include as much as I can with the first submission to avoid unnecessary delays.

Thoughts and input are appreciated

- you don't need a whole collection of affidavits, a couple is fine. If you lack on other types of evidence, then maybe a few more but don't base all your evidence on affidavits.

- the affidavits USCIS expects are from third parties who can testify that you have a bona fide relationship with your spouse. An affidavit from the petitioner or beneficiary is pretty worthless. You can write a letter explaining how you met and how your relationship developped, but making a notarized affidavit is pointless (it wouldn't be if your beneficiary was in a country like China or Vietnam, but in the UK, noone's ever gonna pay attention to it).

Where are your travel itineraries/passport stamps/boarding passes showing you spent time together? Do you have a joint account? Common property? Bank statements showing you used your credit card in her city? Phone logs showing you communicate regularly? etc...

The only strong piece of evidence you talk about is the life insurance, you should work on getting more primary evidence of time spent together rather than getting multiple affidavits.

Take a look at the guides, they have a comprehensive list of items you can use as evidence of bona fide relationship.

[cathy2904 97]

When we filed we had only been married a few weeks so we had no evidence of an ongoing marital union. We were also living on different continents so we had none of the financial commingling evidence. All we submitted along with our marriage certificate were three affidavits from people who knew us. They were all friends but one also happened to be my husband's ex-boss. We had no issues with our approval. We then worked on the other evidence ready for the interview but of course London did not ask for any of it.