Our I-751 Package Acceptable?

[SandM 0]

Hi everyone,

We are just about to send off our I-751 petition, but hope that the good people on VisaJourney can give our package a once-over--please let us know if it looks sufficient or if we are missing anything. Thank you!

I-751 Package

1. Cover Letter

2. Filing Fee $590 (I-751 $505 + biometrics $85)

3. Form I-751

A. additional info for form I-751 (list of former residence addresses)

B. copy of passport from conditional resident

C. copy of marriage certificate

D. copy of USCIS Form I-551 (permanent resident card)

4. Additional documentation regarding the status of our marriage and continuing relationship

A. IRS transcripts (taxes filed married) for 2012 and 2013

B. copy of W-2 forms from petitioning spouse

C. copy of letter from university accepting conditional resident for their graduate program (begun Fall 2013)

D. copy of 1098T issued to conditional resident for 2013

E. copy of university ID for conditional resident and university affiliate ID for petitioning spouse

F. proof of previous residence

-copies of USCIS letters and other mailed material to conditional resident and petitioning spouse

G. proof of current residence

-copy of joint lease for 2013 and 2014

-email from landlord showing rental ledger

-scan of petitioning spouse's driver license

H. copies of utility bills

-copies of shared cellphone bills

-copies of internet bills (under petitioning spouse's name)

-copies of electricity bills (under conditional resident's name)

-copies of gas bills (under conditional resident's name)

I. copies of joint checking account statements

J. email receipt from jewelry store for birthday/anniversary gift to petitioning spouse

K. copies of travel arrangements and itineraries for joint trips (3 conferences and 1 vacation)

L. selected photographs chronicling our relationship from marriage through the present

M. affidavits

-conditional resident's parents-in-law

-petitioning spouse's former employer

-conditional resident's professor

Thanks again!

-M

[hmh33 117]

Much of that is unnecessary and/or irrelevant. You don't want to confuse USCIS.

Marriage certificate and passport are unnecessary, they already know you're married and what country you're from.

W-2s are irrelevant, they care that you filed taxes as married (evidenced by the transcript), not how much you earned.

All the university stuff C,D,E is irrelevant.

Copies of USCIS letters mailed to you? Are you serious?

Shared cellphone bill is good. There's not a lot of point in the bills where only one spouse is listed, except as proof of address, for which you already have other evidence.

Jewelry store receipt proves nothing.

Make sure the joint bank account statements cover the whole duration of your marriage (e.g. one statement for every 6 months)

Are you and your spouse on the same health or auto insurance? Are you each other's beneficiary on life insurance or retirement accounts? If so, include evidence of that.

[seth2013 39]

hmh33 gave good advice. Also, I didn't see a DL/state ID with joint address for the both of you, just the petitioning spouse. Any memberships you have together would be good, such as Costco/aquarium/etc. as well as joint asset titles such as a car would be nice if you had them, if not I wouldn't worry about it. Wills or power of attorney are also powerful evidence and easy to get written up if you feel like you need more to send.

Edited November 19, 2014 by seth2013

[AnotherLostSoul 167]

Why are you submitting C, D, and E? That's not needed in this application as it does not prove anything regarding your bona fide relationship. It just shows you're going to school...no one cares.

Other than that, it looks all right. Do you guys have car insurance together? How about health insurance together? Or retirement benefit showing each of you as a beneficiary?

Seems from the bills that it is either on your name, or the spouse. Would be nice if something stronger was on both of your names instead of like a Target credit card. LOL Also, although some people were fine sending just quarterly bills, I would advise you to send each single month one spanning the entire marriage (if you haven't already done that) since I also read lots of people getting RFE for it. Good luck!

[Mrs.grant 4]

Do you have life and health insurance together? That will be perfect to include, also idk if it's just my luck but I only sent the most recent back statement, yes just one, and was approved with no RFE, you really have a lot of unnecessary documents there, good luck

[SandM 0]

Hi all,

This is S. First: thanks *so* much for all the feedback. Second: my apologies for the delay in responding to the responses. Third: I hope I'm able to provide some context here (context that we intend to include in our cover letter as well) that will explain why several of you have indicated what seem to be extraneous/irrelevant material in our file.

So, very brief recap:

1. Mid-2012, M and I were married. We were both then living with M's parents while working. I had longstanding plans to enter academia, and so was preparing my PhD applications alongside.

2. Early-2013, I was accepted to graduate schools. We were still living with M's parents.

3. Mid-2013, we both moved to New Haven, CT.

So:

1. This is why we don't have a lease for the "previous residence." We do have an affidavit from my parents-in-law (M's parents) confirming our residence with them from 2012-2013. Should we provide some kind of additional proof of this? This is also why I included USCIS mailings in our name to that address, by the way. We're open to suggestions!

2. That's also why we have travel details from various conferences (we usually travel jointly). I guess it's just further evidence of shared life? In addition to our financial merging of lives?

3. M is on her parents' health insurance plan until next year, while I am covered by my university. Our plan, given our age (both mid-20s) and general circumstances (moving to a new place, settling in over 2013) is to bring her over to my university plan as a spouse next year, when she will no longer be under her parents' coverage.

*Thus*:

We plan on succinctly listing these circumstances in the cover letter, which we hope will provide some additional context that, in our case, is key (as you saw, several of you pointed out the seeming randomness of including university material, etc.). Is this something we should do? I mean, we hardly fit the stereotype of sketchiness, but it's also true that we don't have things like cars (university shuttles and New Haven is small), joint health insurance (it's honestly more affordable to bring her over next year), etc.

Thoughts?

Again, I'm super grateful for all the comments and hope the context I've provided clears some things up!

-S

[SandM 0]

Sorry to bump this with another post, but we're planning on filing next week. If anyone has any further thoughts in light of the contextual info provided, we'd be really grateful!