BINATIONAL SAME SEX COUPLES !! Show up!

[Not a Tailor 1,370]

Congratulations! I'm very happy for you and I look forward to hearing how your wait progresses (and all the good news I hope will follow).

I had hoped I would be in a similar situation by now, but some financial upsets have made it uncertain when we should file, and school has made it difficult to compile the necessary supporting evidence so our application isn't complete either. I've been recommended to frontload our petition (Juarez apparently needs it), but I've found it difficult to decide what messages actually demonstrate our relationship, since most of our communication has been online and there aren't phone records we could provide as evidence. Does anyone have any helpful advice, or links to helpful threads?

If you use skype, you can get a fair bit of record from it even if you aren't like my wife and archive everything (she seriously has every conversation we've ever had online, save for a brief period where she hadn't backed up in awhile and her computer died, on an external harddrive). We sent in a neutral (read: not super personal) conversation from each month. We picked bits of conversations where we hadn't been talking about anything embarrassing. We both love to cook so hilariously most of our conversations we sent (and indeed, we talk about this nearly every day) were about adapting beloved recipes or new recipes to accommodate for each others' personal taste.

If you voice on skype or another program, there are ways to get the call log and screencap this, I believe, but it depends on what program.

Emails are good, too. As are shipping receipts of things you've sent to each other. Photographs of the pair of you together (I have to admit, we both hate having our photo taken and always forget when we're together to make it happen, so mostly we sent selfies from around her apartment). Receipts from hotels you've stayed in together. We even sent in a few receipts from restaurants we'd eaten at together.

We were newlyweds when we sent our parcels and they want proof of 'bonafied marriage' for us, but we didn't have much evidence of that yet, so we sent what we could. We've spent our wait time building the foundations for our marriage so we have more evidence to take to the interview.

[NYCruiser 423]

Thanks Davesings & dsldesch.

Hopefully you get to file soon dsldesch. When you say online do you mean facebook? We included 15 pages of convo from facebook. We chose parts where we spoke about spending our lives together, where we menation ed by gifts for each other and taking trips together.

We had about 3 years of communication so we tried to have a conversation from each month. We also sent 20 pics, copies of postcards he sent me and immigration stamps. I am no expert at this BUT I should find out in a few months if we were on the right track.

Good luck?

Based our our K1 application (and approval) front loading is a great way of answering any potential questions at the Embassy. We discovered that the questions that the CO asked were from the initial application. ie: When did we meet, when was the last time we met, are our families supportive of the relationship, any new chat logs...and that was it...no need for pictures. (We included 8.5" X 11" printer paper photos) of the various times we met (with dates).

[dsldesch 27]

Thank you all for the helpful remarks, especially yours, Not a Tailor--the detail you provided was wonderful. I greatly appreciate it.

We had about 3 years of communication so we tried to have a conversation from each month. We also sent 20 pics, copies of postcards he sent me and immigration stamps. I am no expert at this BUT I should find out in a few months if we were on the right track.

About how long was each conversation? Some of the ones Harel and I have had span a few pages since we were both online at the same time.

Based our our K1 application (and approval) front loading is a great way of answering any potential questions at the Embassy. We discovered that the questions that the CO asked were from the initial application. ie: When did we meet, when was the last time we met, are our families supportive of the relationship, any new chat logs...and that was it...no need for pictures. (We included 8.5" X 11" printer paper photos) of the various times we met (with dates).

I've heard of one other person who printed their photos on standard white copy paper with no problems, though I had initially been under the impression supporting evidence photos should be printed at Walgreens or someplace like that on photo paper. Do you think one way or the other is better? Clearly, printer paper would be the faster and more affordable option, and explanations of photo can by neatly typed next to each picture.

[Davesings 30]

A tip for people providing photos is to use software such as Time to Photo. It was really great for us when preparing the K1 package. We stamped the dates on the computer and then printed out the photos at the local drug store. Our lawyer told us we only needed 5 photos that showed us together during the two years prior to the petition, so we only sent the 5 instead of the many more that we had. The photos were attached to paper and had a brief comment below to identify the people, time and place.

The other evidence we provided aside from the required documents were 1) letters of intent, 2) travel confirmations with us both together, 3) a blog post about us on Freedom to Marry. We did not use emails or chats, etc, but it can't hurt.

[Not a Tailor 1,370]

Thank you all for the helpful remarks, especially yours, Not a Tailor--the detail you provided was wonderful. I greatly appreciate it.

About how long was each conversation? Some of the ones Harel and I have had span a few pages since we were both online at the same time.

I've heard of one other person who printed their photos on standard white copy paper with no problems, though I had initially been under the impression supporting evidence photos should be printed at Walgreens or someplace like that on photo paper. Do you think one way or the other is better? Clearly, printer paper would be the faster and more affordable option, and explanations of photo can by neatly typed next to each picture.

We definitely used printer paper. It didn't seem worth it to us to get it all printed out on fancy paper, since if we did that it wouldn't lay flat in the file and would be more likely to get damaged or lost. The way they organize the files at the service centres is by putting holes in the top of each document and putting it in a binder. That's why they're so particular about the plastic baggie requirements for the photos for the G325A. We felt that printer paper would lay flat, so have a lesser chance of getting damaged or a photo coming off of it/getting separated from it and causing a delay. We could have done the baggie method, for sure, for each photo, but it seemed like that would get bulky quickly. The last thing we wanted was for our documents to have to be spread over two binders as they added any annotations they might need to add, and something to be lost. We went for sleek and slim and all on the same type and size of paper.

[bob72601 13]

We used card stock in the printer and added 3 pictures with description to each of 4 pages. I think our total was around 12 pictures. Was not a problem and the Embassy looked at them in the file during our interview. We did not need to submit anything further.

[hklad 9]

Just to add a bit from the great advice above. First, VJ suggests you to make three copies, one to send and at least one for yourself and one for the consul if he wants to keep a copy. I'd say keep your copy in very good shape as this process will go on for 3+ years. For us, it started in July 2013 and it is now October 2014, 15 months later and we are waiting on AoS, and another 3 years for removal of condition, so our copy has grown. Here are the evidence we submitted:

Emails, Chat Log (select few), Property Record / joint leases (if you have any from living together before), Joint Accounts (if you have any), plane itinerary and boarding passes (these are probably the best to show we have met in the past two years for K1), travel insurance, photos, and passport pages (stamps and visas) where they show both of us visiting a foreign country together or when the USC visited the fiance's native country.

For emails, because we met many years ago, I printed out our very first email (luckily, I still have it) and most others are the two immediate years. The way we prepared our evidence it, if we say we met 10 years ago, I want something to prove that, but after that, focus on more recent years, like the last two years. I hear some consuls don't care for emails as they said they could be fabricated, but it can't hurt to include them. For photos, we sent in color copy printed on letter size paper (two per page) with captions underneath and sent them with the I-129F. Later at the embassy, I brought a photo album with the photos printed out since the photo store nearby did it for 12 cents a piece on regular photo paper and I got everything back in an hour. In the US, you might try some pharmacy (CVS / Walgreens) they might be able to help you.

I have all of them in a nice folder and the photo album. This definitely comes in handy for consul interview, any Adjustment interview (if any), and removal of conditions. So being organized is definitely key. The whole preparation was very time consuming with the added difficulty of being apart, but in the end, it is all worth it!

Edited October 19, 2014 by hklad

[NYjones 13]

About how long was each conversation? Some of the ones Harel and I have had span a few pages since we were both online at the same time.

We didn't have specific lengths, we just picked out important conversations...for example...one day we were chatting about a future together, what he wanted in a partner and what I wanted. It was just about half ofull a page. For others there were up to 2 pages of one convo. We wanted to show that yes we spoke about a future and we have been planning for it.

We printed our pictures at Walgreens and wrote on the back so this may be a problem for us but time will tell.

[Not a Tailor 1,370]

We didn't even put full conversations. We just picked a page of conversation from each month

[zuluweta 250]

Just a note, since Walgreens was mentioned regarding photo prints. We printed our photos for the AOS marriage interview at CVS. It was easy, automated, painless and relatively cheap! I just brought a USB thumb drive with the digital photo files.

[hklad 9]

About how long was each conversation? Some of the ones Harel and I have had span a few pages since we were both online at the same time.

You want to establish a pattern of communications while being apart. Like many others, we didn't print the whole conversations just the important parts. Things like when we talked about spending time together, saying goodbyes at various airports (that ripped my heart out everytime), planning trips to see each other, how hard it was being apart during holidays, making some joint decisions together, etc. So you don't need to print every single words in each conversation. Chat logs, emails, etc. are good, but one of the requirement is that you two have to have met during the last two years, so get those airlines boarding passes, itinerary, hotel receipts, passport stamps, etc. Those are even more important than the chat logs.

Remember, while you want to front load your application, attaching 1,000 pages of emails saying the same things aren't useful to the officer. You want to summarize your lives for them.

[hklad 9]

http://www.visajourney.com/news/2014/10/06/uscis-biometric-appointment-notices-issued-in-error/

USCIS Biometric Appointment Notices Issued in Error

October 6th, 2014
by VJ News

If you have already attended an ASC biometric appointment, and received a second appointment notice for the same application type, please call the National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283 (TTY for hearing impaired: 1-800-767-1833) to confirm that you do not need to return to the ASC to have biometrics collected again.

If you have not yet attended your ASC appointment and received more than one ASC appointment notice, you should attend just one appointment and take both ASC notices to that appointment.

[NYjones 13]

Just a little update...I'm kinda worried already! Our package has not been delivered to the USCIS yet. We were told it was expected to arrive on the 23rd OCTOBER (by the folks at the post office and by the tracking website) but we haven't received a tracking update since the 19th October.

I called USPS and spoke to a rep (after getting frustrated with the prompt). She said the maximum shipping time has not elapsed as yet,it is up to 14 days.

I hope it isn't lost. Maybe it is a sign?

I just needed to share. Any updates from anyone?

[zuluweta 250]

Just a tip, front load any pictures of the same-sex couple with family members.

At my AOS interview for the green card, the IO asked me if my husband (the USC) has met my parents and thankfully, I had a picture of us with my parents and other family members. At the time the picture was taken - which was many years ago - we just started dating so I introduced him to my family at Thanksgiving dinner as a friend.

[NYCruiser 423]

Just a tip, front load any pictures of the same-sex couple with family members.

At my AOS interview for the green card, the IO asked me if my husband (the USC) has met my parents and thankfully, I had a picture of us with my parents and other family members. At the time the picture was taken - which was many years ago - we just started dating so I introduced him to my family at Thanksgiving dinner as a friend.

My fiance was asked with both families were supportive of the relationship. There were just letters from one side of the family. However this is understandable with some people from other countries...

You mentioned the AOL interview? Did they refer to the original I-129f application too? I imagine they will have copies of that anyway.