Explanation Letter To Accompany I-130

[Apalis 3]

Hi everyone,

I really need your advice on my I-130 prepared for my wife (alien spouse). The thing is that my wife and I actually got married 1 year after we were registered due to some weird customs in my wife's hometown. I am writing an explanation letter to the USCIS to explain this and I would really appreciate if you could help me by reading it and providing some feedbacks.

Please kindly note that TXTXTX is the current country that my wife and I are living in and YZYZYZ is my wife's original country. I omitted them due to some privacy concerns and I hope you understand.

Here is the letter I have written so far:

January XX, 2012

(Petitioner’s Name)

Current Address: …..

Permanent U.S. Address: ……..

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

Attn: I-130

131 South Dearborn - 3rd Floor

Chicago, IL 60603-5517, USA

Subject: Explanation Letter/Addendum to Cover Letter for I-130

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I, (Petitioner’s Name), would like to use this letter as a chance to clarify a couple of things on our I-130 Petition for Alien Relative and to inform you of our future plans together.

First of all, I would like to explain why the date on our marriage certificate (XX/XX/2011) and our actual wedding dates (XX/XX/2012 in (my wife’s hometown)) are 1 year apart. Originally, we wanted to have our wedding shortly after we were registered in 2011. However, according to the traditions in my wife’s hometown where the wedding date is normally chosen based on the broom’s and the bride’s birthdays and birth years, the year 2011 was not a good year for our marriage ceremonies. Unfortunately, we found out about this custom only after we were registered and we regretfully had to postpone our wedding ceremonies to 1 year later.

In addition, in 2011, since my wife was still working toward her Bachelor degree in YZYZYZ, we decided against applying I-130 at that time for my wife to move to the United States with me.

In September 2011, I moved to TXTXTX and started working for XXXXX Company in order to stay closer to my wife. After my wife completed all her coursework at her university, she moved to TXTXTX in October 2011 and started living with me while working on her thesis for her graduation in 2012. During the period from October 2011 to June 2012, my wife flew back and forth between YZYZYZ and TXTXTX to work on her thesis. In July 2012, after completing her thesis and all the graduation requirements, she started working full time in TXTXTX. In November 2012, we flew back to YZYZYZ for our wedding ceremonies and came back to TXTXTX in December 2012. At the present, we are living together and both working in TXTXTX.

Looking forward, we would like to settle down in the U.S. and plan to have our first child in 2014-2015. We also would like to live closer to my parents so that we can take care of them better. We sincerely hope that our wishes will be granted so that we can reunite with our family in the States.

Thank you very much for your kind understanding and attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

(Signed)

(Petitioner’s name)

Thank you in advance for all your helps.

[lierre 224]

I'm not sure how to understand your situation. You were saying you registered (registered where?) a year before you had a wedding? By registering, did you have wedding rites or was it a court or city hall wedding?

[Apalis 3]

I'm not sure how to understand your situation. You were saying you registered (registered where?) a year before you had a wedding? By registering, did you have wedding rites or was it a court or city hall wedding?

Thank you for your reply. We registered our marriage at a civil court (owned by the government) in my wife's hometown. The marriage certificate is officially signed by the government body in my wife's country so I am sure there's no problem with it.

I am writing this letter because I am not sure whether USCIS will have any problem with us having our wedding ceremonies 1 year after we were registered.

Would really appreciate if you guys could provide some advice for my situation.

Thanks.

[caly 48]

You shouldn't have a problem with this. USCIS considers you married as long as you are legally married in the country that issued your marriage certificate.. Which would be the date of your civil ceremony. Not at all a bad thing that you subsequently had a big wedding ceremony that follows the customs/traditions (picking an auspicious day for the ceremony) of your spouse's culture.

[NikLR 13,220]

Like it was mentioned, your date of marriage is from the certificate date. That is the date you were legally husband and wife. They don't care about the rest of it. You can send a letter explaining the difference if you choose just make sure your paperwork is done properly. Also they don't care if you file the I-130 a year, 2 years or 10 years after your marriage date.

You need make sure to fill out the I-130 with the date you we're legally married btw, not your "wedding" date.

[Ryan H 3,790]

First of all, I agree with all the others, USCIS will not care about the date you were married compared to the time you had a wedding ceremony.

Secondly, submit this letter when you file the I-130 so it will be in the file by the time it reaches the Consulate. IMO, it will be of more use to the CO at the Consulate that reviews the file when a decision on the visa is being made.

Thirdly, and now to the semantics:

In addition, in 2011, since my wife was still working toward her Bachelor degree in YZYZYZ, we decided against applying filing the I-130 at that time for my wife to move to the United States with me.

I pulled out a section of your letter above and made a correction. The I-130 is a form that you file, not something that is applied for. It's also a petition form, not an application form.

[Darnell 8,478]

If you are legally married, use the date of marriage from the legal date o marriage.

The marriage ceremony can be anytime after that, and doesn't count from any concept of 'watching the calendar' to twig to IR-1 type designation.

as to your letter - i can understand why you would want to send it, but do you feel there are other red flags as well? Might want to write a seperate letter of attestation to cover those.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Darnell

[Apalis 3]

Hi all,

Thank you very much for your kind replies . You have been very informative so thank you very much.

Yeah, that was the only red flag I can think of and the main reason why I wrote this letter. From what you have been advising, it looks like this letter is not necessary then. All the information about what my wife and I have been doing/staying are more like supplemental information for the case. We all have other documentations to prove it and we will include them with our filling.

@Ryan, thanks for the correction. My bad .

Edited January 10, 2013 by Apalis

[lierre 224]

For filing I-130, you may want to make an Evolution of Relationship letter. Format was posted by Darnell months ago. It was very helpful for us.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/260331-wife-speaks-no-english/page__p__3995116#entry3995116