Bona Fide Marriage

[ebios 0]

I'm a US citizen currently overseas. I got married earlier this year. My wife is Taiwanese. We have plans to move to the US next year and I am starting the I-130 application for her.

I am stuck on Bona Fide marriage because it is difficult for me to produce evidence for joint residency with rental statement, joint residency for utility bill, or bank statements for two reason. 1) We are currently living at my parent's house, so we have no mortgage of statement under our name. 2) even if we apply for bank statement, everything will be written in Chinese, so I am not sure the immigration officers will admit that as evidence.

The best option I have is a third party affidavit from my father stating that we are indeed living together. However, it seems like the weakest form of evidence, especially since my marriage certificate already has a witness. I'm not sure what the immigration officer will think.

Can anyone tell me if a third party affidavit alone is enough?

Please help!

[ShannonFritschi 0]

If you have a bank statment in Chinese you will have to get it translated into English, this is what we had to do with both the bank statement and our rental agreement. My personal opinion is that the affidavit is good, but the bank statemnet would be better. If they list it as an example, try to include it.

[Zombie69 363]

You have to translate the bank statement into English, and you can hire companies that do official translation. You have to have official bank statement in English, the Taiwanese banks might be able to do it as well, The third party affidavit that proves your bank account is not good, you have to have the original bank statement in English.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Zombie69

[needsmorebutter 5]

I'd include as many different forms of proof as you can provide. If you don't have a whole lot of proof around common residency, I'd beef up on other kinds of proof to show that you guys have built a life together. I have a friend who was in a similar situation - she entered the US on a K1 visa, and for the first two years of marriage she and her husband lived with her in-laws. As a result, they didn't have a joint lease or mortgage. However, they were still able to establish proof of a "bona fide" marriage through other evidence, and she was able to get a green card and remove conditions with no problems.

As other commenters have mentioned, even if your bank can't issue an english language statement, you should still open an account and obtain the chinese language one and get it professionally translated. On that note, you can use foreign language documents as proof as long as you get them professionally translated.

Getting an affidavit or two (say from your dad and maybe someone else who knows you as a couple) would be helpful, but I wouldn't rely on that alone. Here are some other stuff that you could think about including:

- photos of you two together at various events, on trips etc.

- itineraries/invoices from trips taken together

- insurance policies showing each other as a beneficiary

- joint credit cards

- email correspondence

- phone bill showing a shared phone plan plus call histories

- joint tax returns

- any letter or mail sent to you both at the same address

- any joint memberships to gyms, clubs etc

- a cover letter summarizing your relationship so far.

it's hard to tell how little or how much to include, but I'd say err on the side of too much than too little good luck!

[ebios 0]

It turns out the banks in Taiwan do not provide joint bank accounts. So now I am really down to just a signed affidavit + honeymoon pics/plane itinerary.

I am not sure if this is enough. Is there anyone out there that has gotten approved with just these two items?

[ebios 0]

I just want to provide an update to this topic. My I-130 petition was approved by the USCIS. Now it is on to the next step which is to follow whatever instruction the NVC will send me. I thought I was done after the I-130, but it looks like I will still need to provide other forms to officially get a VISA for my wife.