Red flag filing married but separately?

[toh son 0]

attn: garry & alla .... i am about to file in my i-751, i have all the financial co mingling, lease, credit card, sams club joint acct,auto,medical and life insurances, but my tax return was married but filling separately, due to spouse not been ready at time of filling, would this raise any red flag?

[toh son 0]

i am about to file in my i-751, i have all the financial co mingling, lease, credit card, sams club joint acct,auto,medical and life insurances, but my tax return was married but filling separately, due to spouse not been ready at time of filling, would this raise any red flag?

I had the great opportunity to have dinner with a director of the VSC Saturday evening. A sit turns out his wife is Russian, came here on a K-1 and is now an aquaintance of Alla. So we had some great conversation. Our next step will be the I-751 and he has worked in his career as an IO who conducted AOS and lifting of conditions interviews and gave me lots of good information on evidence. Here are some things he likes to see and others which are "useless" in his words

Good stuff

Joint bank accounts, joint tax returns, joint ownership of property, cars. Joint leases. Joint insurance. Named as beneficiaries on life insurance and medical insurance. Joint credit cards. Any other joining of financial interests (the theory is that if one is willing to risk your property and money the relationship is more likely valid) Government documents showing common address, drivers lisence, etc. Photos are good, kind of expected, but NOT primary evidence.

Children?

Yes and no. If you just had a child together and the man is nothing more than a sperm donor...no. IF you have children, whether "together" or with a blended family and there is evidence that BOTH participate in the child's development and education, and care that is great! I told him I am listed on all of our son's school papers as parent, I am an emergency contact and I sign all the permission slips, etc. He is covered by my medical insurance. All good stuff. A birth certificate in itself ("Look we have a kid") does not prove a legitmate relationship. It is especially important that the school (an objective 3rd party) recognizes both people as "parents" and accepts this. Medical records for the child showing both people as parents. same reasoning. If a doctor will recognize and treat a child based on their knowledge of both being parents, that is pretty darn good evidence.

Useless or not so useful stuff

Magazine subscriptions together (WHAT??? "Yes, you would be surprised how many couples present a Sports Illustrated subscription as proof") <img src="http://www.visajourney.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laughing.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="laughing.gif" /> Utilities, cards and letters from relatives, emails, chats etc. Theory? all of these can be easily faked and in themselves prove nothing. Utilities do not verify information before adding someone to an account and hey, it's the electric bill, you are going to pay the electric bill anyway. There is no financial risk involved, no commitment as in joint ownership. Affidavits from friends or family do not have a lot of weight. None of these things are BAD and in conjunction with other evidence are fine, but not enough to prove anything themselves.

This is probably not news to a lot of people, but it was good to hear it from the "horse's mouth" anyway.

Incidentally, I mentioned that we never had a question at any of our interviews and never were asked for any evidence and he said "Sometimes we can just tell. Whatever you did, whatever your body language or how you acted, the IO was immediately convinced you were legitimate" I cannot say what that was, unfortunately.

Another question I asked, actually Alla did since she did not change her name

<b>Does it matter if the woman changes her name?: </b>NO, not at all.

About citizenship (Alla also asked)

<b>Can I be a dual citizen?</b> Answer..."The United States does not recognize other citizenships. You are a US citizen or you are not a US citizen. Once you become a US citizen the United States does not consider you anything else. We will not take your passport from Ukraine and we will not tell Ukraine you are now a citizen of the US. If you want to keep your Ukraine passport and renew it in Ukraine when you are visiting, it is none of our concern"

So the US has no policy and does not recognize any such thing as "dual citizenship" per se, but has no prohibitions from a person being a citizen of another country also, for the US you will always be considered a US citizen

<b>Can I use a Ukraine passport to enter Ukraine and a US passport to enter the US?</b> Yes, no problem.

<b>What about stamps in the passport from the US or Ukraine?:</b> The officers at the POE will ask where you have been, they rarely will look through all your exit stamps and really don't care. They are admitting you to the US, they really don't care if the country you LEFT stamped your passport, the US does not stamp passports on exit.

<b>I ask this because Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship and I do want to keep my Ukraine passport for ease of travel to Russia, etc, and also if we ever decided to return, we have property there, I could easily work, etc. I do not want to do anything wrong and get in trouble here.</b> The US does not care about Ukrainian law regarding citizenship, that's between you and Ukraine, but WE won't tell. Unless there is some order from a court or something, we don't give out that information.