Last minute questions before filing (G-325A, I-129F supp, frontloading)

[dsldesch 27]

We're getting closer to filing, and I can't believe how complicated some of the most simplest things have become.

1. G-325A Missing Information

I'm the kind of person who saves everything; my fiance (the beneficiary) is not. So we're missing a lot of his work history, such as employer addresses and the months in which he began/stopped working at each place. He's still looking and asking around to fill in the blanks, but I suspect we'll still have gaps even after it's all said and done. How should we handle this when filling out the forms?

2. I-129F Supplement: Explanation of Meeting

I've written the explanation of meeting in the first person, so I know I (the petitioner) definately need to sign it. Should my fiance sign it as well?

3. Frontloading

I was told some initial frontloading is recommended for the Ciudad Juarez consulate, but I'm concerned we're sending the wrong amount (I feel like I've got too much, but who knows, maybe I still don't have enough). Does the following look sufficient or should I trim it down?

40 pages of Facebook, WhatsApp, iMessages messages, and emails (3-line 12-pt header on each page; messages in 11-pt font)

3 pages of boarding passes (scanned; three trips to visit in Mexico)

6 pages of pictures (scanned, pasted into MS Word with comments stating date/place/people; 3-4 pics each page)

4 pages, printed copy of engagement announcement on Facebook with comments from friends and family

About 55 pages of supporting evidence still seems excessive to me (even though it covers our relationship for its entire 16 months), so I'm not sure if it's an acceptable amount or if we should scale it back some. Any feedback would be appreciated, as would any advice on how to further narrow down our selection of messages.

[KayDeeCee 4,892]

1.) You can simply use city, state, country for the addresses. They do not have to include the exact/entire address. If he needs to, have him guess on the dates, getting as close as possible to the times he actually worked there.

2.) The I-129F petition is filed by the USC. A supplement page is not even required for the question about how you met, so if you include one, the USC is the one to sign it. The foreign fiance(e) only needs to sign their own G-325A and statement/letter of intent.

3.) The most important thing for the I-129F is to show you met face to face within the 2 years prior to filing. So, things like the passport stamps and boarding passes from those trips should be forefront and emphasized for importance in your petition package. The proof of relationship stuff can be added, and selecting a few samples of various types of evidence that span the entire length of your relationship should be plenty. Then you can take more relationship evidence to the actual K-1 visa interview.

[emcia_81 43]

Hi,

1. If I am not mistaken he needs to write his employment info from the last 5 years with no gap. If he changed jobs frequently it may be hard to remember all details. I would just give him more time to figure it out and contact his former co-workers. If it's still gonna be a problem I would just put approximate dates of his employments.

2. The I-129F form is signed only by the petitioner

3. Our package had 50 pages in total. Pictures has to be printed out and need a little description on the back. It may be a bit too much cos I don't think they read every piece of paper but I know people whow sent over 100 pages applications

[ddtenor2 80]

Congratulations on beginning your journey. Having gone through the process a year ago, I can sympathize. Hopefully my answers will help reduce some of the stress.

1. Can't help much with this one. I'm assuming you are not able to to find employer addresses by doing an internet search on the company's name. Does he have W-2s from his employment? That should have the employer's address on it. Do your best to come up with the months when he started and ended employment with a company. If there are gaps bewteen ending one job and starting another make an entry of "None" under the heading Full Name and Address of Employer and specify the start and end dates of not having worked. There should be no gaps in the dates that are not accounted for.

2. I (the petitioner) added an attachment explaining how we met. Only I signed it, and this was not an issue

3. It is always better to have more proof of a relationship than less. Photocopies of boarding passes for each visit are good. I also included photocopies of passport stamps for each visit. I included 5 or 6 photos of the two of us together on two of my three visists. I thought I read somewher that USCIS preferred glossy photos so I sent the digital images off to Walgreens to have them printed. On the back of each picture, I wrote our names and the location where the photo was taken. I included transcripts from half a dozen Skype conversation and half a dozen emails. These were spaced over an interval of 2 years. Also include envelopes (to show postage cancellations) and cards if you exchanged birthday or Christmas cards.

I made three copies of the ENTIRE packet--one for USCIS, one for me, and one for the beneficiary.

I know it seems scary but you will be fine. Good luck, and I hope your process goes as smoothly as mine did.

[dsldesch 27]

Thank you all for your help--everything was very clear and understandable, I especially appreciate it!

I think I'll keep the message compilation I've prepared for the K-1 interview and trim it down as much as I can for the application itself. As far as conversations go, do I need to include the entire conversation, or is it okay to take snippets from the middle to keep them shorter?

With my pictures, do you think it would be acceptable to print a few pictures on 8.5/11 pages for the application (to show us together) and then bring in hard copies of the same images, and maybe a few more, to the interview in case they want them? All our pictures are digital, so I could easily do it both ways.

[Pitaya 2,577]

All we submitted were digital photos printed on standard copy paper using a color laser copier.

Keep it simple.

[ddtenor2 80]

Since every embassy is different, it's hard to know what they are looking for when reviewing documentation. My personal preference would be to use fewer examples of the communications between the two of you, but provide the complete conversation/email. Use your judgement regarding photos. Keep in mind that you want your petition to be approved (and you want to avoid getting an RFE, as that will slow down the already slow process) so provide the evidence up front, don't expect to bring additional proof to your embassy interview. At our interview in Rio de Janeiro, we were not even asked to provide additional documentation proving our relationship--presumably because:

1. My presence at the interview demonstrated my commitment

2. We had provided enough documentation with the I-129F petition

I know this sounds contradictory: Provide all the information at the time of application--don't go overboard and provide too much. The person reviewing your application at USCIS will appreciate your having all the categories of proof provided, while not having to wade through reams of pages of similar documentation. The best advice I could have received along the way is that if you follow the guidelines/examples provided in VisaJourney you will have no problems, so don't sweat it.

[KayDeeCee 4,892]

Yes, you can print photos out on regular printer paper.

They will not get an RFE for not providing relationship evidence with the I-129F petition. The adjudicator most likely will not even bother looking at any of it, since it is not required to get an I-129F petition approved. They will be looking for evidence that you are both free, willing and able to marry, and that you have met at least once in person within the 2 years prior to filing. They will make sure all the required supporting evidence is there and correctly filled out. They do not hash through the relationship evidence and decide if you have a valid, ongoing relationship. That evidence is for DoS at the consulate stage, K-1 visa interview. The CO will decide if they believe the relationship is real or just for immigration purposes. Front-loading is for the CO at the K-1 visa interview, not for the USCIS to approve the I-129F petition.

Juarez may or may not ask for additional relationship evidence, so it is best to bring more with you just in case. Always better to have what you don't need than to not have what you do need.

[CF41051 3]

I personally would not send 50 pages. I frontloaded some as well but I don't think you want to irritate the USCIS officer. You just need to show proof of having met, that is all. There is a list of items to use for proof somewhere on here that you should look for. Basically, boarding passes and hotel receipts are the most important and are primary proof. Pictures are nice but they are only secondary proof. If you want to include some FB chats and skype logs you can, but I would only put a couple pages total. Heck, I didn't send anywhere close to 50 pages for my fiances interview and we had over 75k fb messages and hundreds of hours on the phone. Prove your relationship, but don't be obnoxious either.

If it were me, here's what I would send:

1) Copies of all your boarding passes and hotel receipts. Make sure these are labeled and easy to follow, don't just send random copies of junk. You want to make this as easy as possible for the USCIS so they spend as little time as possible reviewing your file before approving it. Make things easy for them.

2) 5-10 pics of the two of you at different places. Include pics of the two of you with her family and friends. Make sure you label each pic with date, location, and who is in the pic.

3) Cope of engagement ring receipt, if already purchased. If not, no big deal.

4) If you want to send proof of relationship such as fb posts, messages, and skype logs, I would limit it to 3-5 pages total. Again, don't make life difficult for the USCIS or they might make it difficult for you.

Also, rather than worrying about the above stuff, you would be better served to be double and triple checking your application to make sure everything is done correctly. You would be shocked how many people get RFE's and denials because they didn't follow directions and provide what was asked. Keep asking questions, everyone on this site is here to help and if you have a question, then many more people have that same question.

[Tee and Megan 10]

We're getting closer to filing, and I can't believe how complicated some of the most simplest things have become.

1. G-325A Missing Information

I'm the kind of person who saves everything; my fiance (the beneficiary) is not. So we're missing a lot of his work history, such as employer addresses and the months in which he began/stopped working at each place. He's still looking and asking around to fill in the blanks, but I suspect we'll still have gaps even after it's all said and done. How should we handle this when filling out the forms?

2. I-129F Supplement: Explanation of Meeting

I've written the explanation of meeting in the first person, so I know I (the petitioner) definately need to sign it. Should my fiance sign it as well?

3. Frontloading

I was told some initial frontloading is recommended for the Ciudad Juarez consulate, but I'm concerned we're sending the wrong amount (I feel like I've got too much, but who knows, maybe I still don't have enough). Does the following look sufficient or should I trim it down?

40 pages of Facebook, WhatsApp, iMessages messages, and emails (3-line 12-pt header on each page; messages in 11-pt font)

3 pages of boarding passes (scanned; three trips to visit in Mexico)

6 pages of pictures (scanned, pasted into MS Word with comments stating date/place/people; 3-4 pics each page)

4 pages, printed copy of engagement announcement on Facebook with comments from friends and family

About 55 pages of supporting evidence still seems excessive to me (even though it covers our relationship for its entire 16 months), so I'm not sure if it's an acceptable amount or if we should scale it back some. Any feedback would be appreciated, as would any advice on how to further narrow down our selection of messages.

I can help with 2 & 3!

2. Both of us signed the explanation of meeting; I think it helps add to its legitimacy, but perhaps if it's not easy to get his signature ( for example, if you're separate at the moment) I am not sure it is too big of a deal.

3. Your frontloading sounds great! My husband and I did the same thing. I think our whole I-129F packet ended up being around 5lbs total. It was a hefty amount of paper. As he is from Cambodia, another country which people recommend you frontload, we sent in everything we had, organized by trips to see one another. I know there could be such a thing as too much information, but I figure when you're applying to embassies which experience high fraud, enough is never enough, particularly if you have a lot of concrete evidence, like boarding passes, copies of receipts and bank account transactions made during your trips together, pictures of you with other people in Mexico and stamps made into your passport. We felt really good when we got to the final interview at the Embassy and we could see the interviewing officer smiling as he looked through our documents.

Sounds like you've got an awesome packet prepared. Best wishes to you.

P.S. For FB conversations, we just submitted selections from each month we've been together. They don't need to see the whole thing.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Tee and Megan

[NYCruiser 423]

I personally would not send 50 pages. I frontloaded some as well but I don't think you want to irritate the USCIS officer. You just need to show proof of having met, that is all. There is a list of items to use for proof somewhere on here that you should look for. Basically, boarding passes and hotel receipts are the most important and are primary proof. Pictures are nice but they are only secondary proof. If you want to include some FB chats and skype logs you can, but I would only put a couple pages total. Heck, I didn't send anywhere close to 50 pages for my fiances interview and we had over 75k fb messages and hundreds of hours on the phone. Prove your relationship, but don't be obnoxious either.

If it were me, here's what I would send:

1) Copies of all your boarding passes and hotel receipts. Make sure these are labeled and easy to follow, don't just send random copies of junk. You want to make this as easy as possible for the USCIS so they spend as little time as possible reviewing your file before approving it. Make things easy for them.

2) 5-10 pics of the two of you at different places. Include pics of the two of you with her family and friends. Make sure you label each pic with date, location, and who is in the pic.

3) Cope of engagement ring receipt, if already purchased. If not, no big deal.

4) If you want to send proof of relationship such as fb posts, messages, and skype logs, I would limit it to 3-5 pages total. Again, don't make life difficult for the USCIS or they might make it difficult for you.

Also, rather than worrying about the above stuff, you would be better served to be double and triple checking your application to make sure everything is done correctly. You would be shocked how many people get RFE's and denials because they didn't follow directions and provide what was asked. Keep asking questions, everyone on this site is here to help and if you have a question, then many more people have that same question.

We sent over 80 pages if information. Chat logs, passport stamps (actually the entire passports of both of us), photos, letter of intent for both of us, letters of support from friends and relatives. The photos were printed out on regular printer paper (not glossy) and some were in black and white. Rather amateur in some cases.

So as not to irritate the USCIS officer we used a table of contents with sections labelled by exhibit numbers. That way they would just need to go through the TOC then select what they wanted. Still took 6 months though......

[NYjones 13]

We sent over 80 pages if information. Chat logs, passport stamps (actually the entire passports of both of us), photos, letter of intent for both of us, letters of support from friends and relatives. The photos were printed out on regular printer paper (not glossy) and some were in black and white. Rather amateur in some cases.

So as not to irritate the USCIS officer we used a table of contents with sections labelled by exhibit numbers. That way they would just need to go through the TOC then select what they wanted. Still took 6 months though......

My fiance was the only one who signed the explanation of how we met.

We included up to 20 pictures with an explanation (on the back) of who is in the pic and location.

We included copies of immigration stamps from both of our passports showing trips together and we only found 1 boarding pass.

about 10 pages of Facebook conversations were included (over the course of 4 years).

We also threw in some postcards we sent each other.

We have received NOA2 as yet soon we may still get a RFE.

Goodluck!

[dsldesch 27]

The feedback on this thread has been absolutely invaluable, and I am so greatful to each of you for helping us through this. Thank you so much!