Young couple with minimal evidence of genuine relationship

[evan12 0]

Hi everyone. I am new to this site as I am just beginning the process to petition for my spouse to live with me in the US (IR-1/CR-1).
We are a relatively young couple from Australia (I'm 22 and my partner is 20) and we were just married last month (31 March 2014). Seeing that we were just married and are still young, we don't have many of the items that US immigration would like to see as evidence of a genuine relationship.

For starters, we don't have a joint bank account yet we do commingle our wealth. For example, we take turns paying for each other whether it be eating out, groceries, doctor bills, etc. However we can't really prove that and we never thought to keep any of our receipts. Also my spouse is on the dole here and we can't open a joint bank account because Centrelink may cut off his payments if I am supporting him. If we were in the US I'd gladly open an account in both our names but seeing we can't afford to just fly there to do that... How can we explain this situation and/or prove that we commingle our wealth?

Secondly, we live in the same house however he are not under a lease because we live in a section of my partner's grandparents property along with his mother. Would a statutory declaration from his grandparents and/or mail addressed to us be sufficient proof or should we have the grandparents write up a lease for us?

Also, the utilities are under the grandparents' name so we can't provide that as well. In the past when I lived in the US, I flew my partner up to Seattle to live with me for 3 months. I was on the rent and utilities and he was not. Same when I lived in Melbourne, Australia... I was on the lease and utilities before my partner came to live with me. How can we explain that?

The only proof I can think that we can send in is:

1) Notarised statutory declarations from family members/friends in Australia and US swearing our relationship is genuine.

2) Plane itineraries showing we visited each other/went on holidays together.

3) Our wedding photos and marriage certificate

4) Photos of us throughout the time we knew each other

5) Chat logs on facebook/skype/texts

6) Mail addressed to us both

Does anyone know if this will be enough proof? Or has anyone been in a similar situation and had a good or bad outcome? We'd love to know. I am so stressed thinking they will deny our petition when we are a true and genuine loving couple. I'd die if my partner and I could not live together

Thanks in advance for any replies or help!

Cheers,

Evan

[nightingalejules 678]

What you have should be fine. All of those things are suggestions. The only vital piece is the marriage certificate. Photos from throughout your relationship of the two of you together, and a good cover letter will show the rest. You'll be fine.

[Penguin_ie 5,994]

***** Moving from General Immigration to CR-1 forum ******

What you have should be fine; living together counts for a lot.

[evan12 0]

Thanks for the replies everyone. That makes us feel more confident So just to clarify several statutory declarations saying we do live together should be enough?

Also is it really worth trying to pull up facebook and skype chat logs (they go back 2 years and will take a lot of paper to print!)

Cheers

Evan

[Penguin_ie 5,994]

The declarations won;t be worth much. Photos of you together over the course of your relationship, letters addressed to both of you, chat logs, phone bills from when you were not living together, plane tickets etc count for me. Also, you don't have joint bills or utility bills, but if you have anything "official" going to the same address that would be good, such as tax papers, or separate cell phone bills but going to the same adress etc.

[evan12 0]

Hmm... Was hoping that the notarised declarations would help. They will be making up most of the evidence since we have over 20 declarations being made.

The only photos we have are the wedding photos and a few here and there from holidays and "selfies". We're not really the type to have many photos taken every time we go out. So maybe 15 to 20 photos from the wedding and maybe 15-20 photos from here and there. Is that considered sufficient?

On a side note our wedding was just a small ceremony (included both our mothers, my aunt and my partner's sister) in the Department of Internal Affairs (court marriage) and we didn't have a professional photographer cause we couldnt afford one. Our parents/friend took most the photos.

Edited April 29, 2014 by evan12

[tulskir 5]

Hmm... Was hoping that the notarised declarations would help. They will be making up most of the evidence since we have over 20 declarations being made.

The only photos we have are the wedding photos and a few here and there from holidays and "selfies". We're not really the type to have many photos taken every time we go out. So maybe 15 to 20 photos from the wedding and maybe 15-20 photos from here and there. Is that considered sufficient?

On a side note our wedding was just a small ceremony (included both our mothers, my aunt and my partner's sister) in the Department of Internal Affairs (court marriage) and we didn't have a professional photographer cause we couldnt afford one. Our parents/friend took most the photos.

15 to 20 photos should be good considering I only sent in 5 My wife lives in India and I live in the US, so to prove a relationship I sent the following:

1) 5 Non-Wedding pictures of us togehter

2) 2 pictures from the wedding

3) Marriage Certificate

4) 2 Declaration from in-laws saying they were at the wedding and everything is legit

5) Receipts of money transfers I sent her (about 6 of these)

That is all and I did not get any RFE's.

[evan12 0]

15 to 20 photos should be good considering I only sent in 5 My wife lives in India and I live in the US, so to prove a relationship I sent the following:

1) 5 Non-Wedding pictures of us togehter

2) 2 pictures from the wedding

3) Marriage Certificate

4) 2 Declaration from in-laws saying they were at the wedding and everything is legit

5) Receipts of money transfers I sent her (about 6 of these)

That is all and I did not get any RFE's.

Wow, that makes me feel a lot better

Unfortunately I still can't show commingling of wealth but I guess me paying for the plane tickets and my partner paying for the hotels should count for something, right? Hmm... maybe I can show that my partner pays for my health insurance by printing out his bank statements...

[tulskir 5]

Wow, that makes me feel a lot better

Unfortunately I still can't show commingling of wealth but I guess me paying for the plane tickets and my partner paying for the hotels should count for something, right? Hmm... maybe I can show that my partner pays for my health insurance by printing out his bank statements...

Dont get too stuck on the comingling of wealth as that is only a suggestion. I couldnt show any comingling at all so that is why I sent the other things. In your case you should send the plane tickets, hotel rooms (with visa stamps to try and prove you 2 were in the same country at the time), a few of your chat logs (dont have to send them 20 pages but feel free to do so. I know of people who went in like 50 pages of logs), all your pictures, and a few declarations.

The job is just overload them with evidence so they can just move on from this requirement. There is no such thing as too much evidence.

[Abby&Mario 100]

Hmm... Was hoping that the notarised declarations would help. They will be making up most of the evidence since we have over 20 declarations being made.

Twenty is overkill and will just slow you down, IMO. Try two, maybe three if you really feel like you want to include some (although you don't have to include any at all). And they don't have to be notarized, either. If you find yourself sitting around waiting for people to get their affidavits to you, just forget about them and send your petition already. Good luck!

[Ketsuban 1,034]

I sent in 21 photos spanning 7 visits (of which spanned 2011 - 2013), screenshots of my email inbox, like 2 skype screenshots, couple of PayPal receipts from me to him, flight itineraries with corresponding passport stamps for the both of us and amazon gift receipts. I was approved at USCIS earlier this month. You're from a low fraud country so don't need to automatically worry about proof as much as other foreign nationals would.

[tehans 52]

You need the boarding passes not just itineraries. You have about the same evidence as we did and ours went fine with no RFE.

[squirrelisan 23]

You're immigrating from a "low-fraud" country. Just make sure you don't have any crazy typos, mismatching dates, and what you have now (and others have said in terms of standard paperwork requirements) seems to be well enough. I wouldn't worry about the co-mingling of wealth. I think this is necessary for many of the "high-fraud" countries, where they want to make sure people put their money where their mouth is, so to speak (in my opinion).

BUT money is something you need to verify and do your due diligence. On the 2nd half of this process, your spouse needs to have enough finances to support you in the country. There's a formula and rules involved in what counts. Money your spouse will have to document they have in the form of W-2 statements, bank account, real estate, stocks, etc. If not you will need to get a co-sponsor.

Edited April 29, 2014 by squirrelisan

[Ketsuban 1,034]

You need the boarding passes not just itineraries. You have about the same evidence as we did and ours went fine with no RFE.

I included only itineraries with the passport stamps and it wasn't an issue. The stamps kind of prove I got on the plane...

[bkghosh 121]

The only proof I can think that we can send in is:

1) Notarised statutory declarations from family members/friends in Australia and US swearing our relationship is genuine.

2) Plane itineraries showing we visited each other/went on holidays together.

3) Our wedding photos and marriage certificate

4) Photos of us throughout the time we knew each other

5) Chat logs on facebook/skype/texts

6) Mail addressed to us both

Does anyone know if this will be enough proof? Or has anyone been in a similar situation and had a good or bad outcome? We'd love to know. I am so stressed thinking they will deny our petition when we are a true and genuine loving couple. I'd die if my partner and I could not live together

Others have already given you excellent advice. For our filing, I just sent USCIS the Marriage Certificate issued by the Orange County here in LA (court marriage). I did not think of sending anything else (I had not found VJ yet) with the I-130 petition. We did not have any problems in getting the I-130 approved (no RFEs).

But by then I had discovered VJ (so happy about my discovery ). So along with the IV document package (to NVC) I included a photo album (40 pics, inserted in a Word document, printed in color 2 to a page, plain white paper), one affidavit from a family friend who attended the traditional wedding in India, copies of money transfers, gifts sent, chat logs, telephone logs, WhatsApp log etc. I do not think NVC even bothers with that, but they send it to the consulate where they will have a few days to look at all these extra optional material (evidence).

So what you have is quite good already. Best wishes.