AOS Interview documents

[Lisa88 3]

I am international and got married to my US citizen spouse. We are a same sex married couple. 

We have been together for 4 years (3 years girlfriend-girlfriend relationship, and 1 year marriage). It has been about a year since we got married. and we have our interview scheduled about a month from today.

I would like to know what kind of documentations we should bring with us to the interview to prove that our relationship is bona fide. The below are my concerns:

 

1) Since we are both still young, and we are both of same sex, we cannot and are not going to have a baby.

2) Since we both work and have a different style of spending habit (I am an over-spender, and my wife saves every cent), we decided NOT to commingle our finances. We have a joint bank account but we rarely use it, and we both have our own bank account. 

I didn't wanna over-spend the money she saved because I know she owes a lot to her parents, and needs to pay back. 

3) We did not have a wedding ceremony. We only went to a country court with a few friends of ours,  and the judge there married us. So the marriage is real, and it happened and we have a married certificate too, but we did NOT have a real wedding ceremony (where all families are invited and have good meals, and the couple make a speech etc). 
4) Since we are same-sex couple, and my family is strongly against homosexuality and I am afraid of getting disowned, I haven't been able to come out to my parents NOR told them I got married. My wife's family is quite opposite and they are very supportive of our relationship and marriage. So my wife and her family have never met any of my family members (they even live overseas) nor we have a family photo. We only have a family photo of me and my wife's family. Since I am on F1 and already live in the US, I have visited her family and took a photo together. 

5) We did not go on a honeymoon. We were not really financially capable at that time of marriage, and our work has kept us busy since then.

 

 

So we are thinking about bringing the following:

1) Lease agreement with both of our names on it. We have been living together since marriage. 

2) Photos of us from dating and marriage. These are all taken by phones, so we are going to print them on papers. Does they count as real photos? We didn't take any photos with an actual camera.

3) Receipts from when we both went out together, or ate out together, since marriage. We sometimes split bills but I stapled both of those receipts to show that we were there at the same time. 

4) Rent payment receipt done by both of us. It is done online, so I am going to print them to show that we have been paying rent together.

5) Bills (Light/Water etc) sent to us that have both of our names on them.

6) Car insurance with my and my wife's names. I have a car and my wife doesn't but my car insurance coverage insures both of us.

7) Health insurance with both of our names. My wife doesn't have insurance from her work, but I do and it covers both of us. 

8 ) Old text messages from back in 2014. I am going to screenshot some lovey-dovey messages from each year until our marriage. We texted almost every day while we were in a relationship and lived apart.

9) A stuffed animal my wife gave me on 2015 Valentine. (I am not sure if this even counts... we don't have a receipt)

 

I know there is no definite answer, but do you think these can be used as good evidence to prove us bone-fide? Since we are missing some important things written in the first half of this question, I am very concerned.

[Roel 7,192]

2 minutes ago, Lisa88 said:

1) Since we are both still young, and we are both of same sex, we cannot and are not going to have a baby.

Doesn't matter.

 

2 minutes ago, Lisa88 said:

2) Since we both work and have a different style of spending habit (I am an over-spender, and my wife saves every cent), we decided NOT to commingle our finances. We have a joint bank account but we rarely use it, and we both have our own bank account. 

Probably won't be an issue, since you have other proofs. Might be somewhat of an issue for ROC?

 

2 minutes ago, Lisa88 said:

 

3) We did not have a wedding ceremony. We only went to a country court with a few friends of ours,  and the judge there married us. So the marriage is real, and it happened and we have a married certificate too, but we did NOT have a real wedding ceremony (where all families are invited and have good meals, and the couple make a speech etc). 

Doesn't matter.

2 minutes ago, Lisa88 said:

 

4) Since we are same-sex couple, and my family is strongly against homosexuality and I am afraid of getting disowned, I haven't been able to come out to my parents NOR told them I got married. My wife's family is quite opposite and they are very supportive of our relationship and marriage. So my wife and her family have never met any of my family members (they even live overseas) nor we have a family photo. We only have a family photo of me and my wife's family. Since I am on F1 and already live in the US, I have visited her family and took a photo together.

Doesn't matter.

2 minutes ago, Lisa88 said:

 

 

5) We did not go on a honeymoon. We were not really financially capable at that time of marriage, and our work has kept us busy since then.

Doesn't matter.

 

2 minutes ago, Lisa88 said:

 

So we are thinking about bringing the following:

1) Lease agreement with both of our names on it. We have been living together since marriage. 

2) Photos of us from dating and marriage. These are all taken by phones, so we are going to print them on papers. Does they count as real photos? We didn't take any photos with an actual camera.

3) Receipts from when we both went out together, or ate out together, since marriage. We sometimes split bills but I stapled both of those receipts to show that we were there at the same time. 

4) Rent payment receipt done by both of us. It is done online, so I am going to print them to show that we have been paying rent together.

5) Bills (Light/Water etc) sent to us that have both of our names on them.

6) Car insurance with my and my wife's names. I have a car and my wife doesn't but my car insurance coverage insures both of us.

7) Health insurance with both of our names. My wife doesn't have insurance from her work, but I do and it covers both of us. 

8 ) Old text messages from back in 2014. I am going to screenshot some lovey-dovey messages from each year until our marriage. We texted almost every day while we were in a relationship and lived apart.

9) A stuffed animal my wife gave me on 2015 Valentine. (I am not sure if this even counts... we don't have a receipt)

 

All of this is good, but I wouldn't include the toy.. I mean really? It's not a proof of relationship. Also old txt messages won't matter so I wouldn't include it. It might have matter for K1 interview but not with AoS. Especially since it's been so long ago.

[Ben&Zian 4,398]

11 minutes ago, Lisa88 said:

 

 

 

So we are thinking about bringing the following:

1) Lease agreement with both of our names on it. We have been living together since marriage. 

2) Photos of us from dating and marriage. These are all taken by phones, so we are going to print them on papers. Does they count as real photos? We didn't take any photos with an actual camera.

3) Receipts from when we both went out together, or ate out together, since marriage. We sometimes split bills but I stapled both of those receipts to show that we were there at the same time. 

4) Rent payment receipt done by both of us. It is done online, so I am going to print them to show that we have been paying rent together.

5) Bills (Light/Water etc) sent to us that have both of our names on them.

6) Car insurance with my and my wife's names. I have a car and my wife doesn't but my car insurance coverage insures both of us.

7) Health insurance with both of our names. My wife doesn't have insurance from her work, but I do and it covers both of us. 

8 ) Old text messages from back in 2014. I am going to screenshot some lovey-dovey messages from each year until our marriage. We texted almost every day while we were in a relationship and lived apart.

9) A stuffed animal my wife gave me on 2015 Valentine. (I am not sure if this even counts... we don't have a receipt)

 

I know there is no definite answer, but do you think these can be used as good evidence to prove us bone-fide? Since we are missing some important things written in the first half of this question, I am very concerned.

 

 

For starters, being same sex has nothing to do with any outcome, nor is not having a baby. A kid just means people had sex, it isn't even relevant.

 

As for your evidence, what did you initially send in with the I-485? 

 

As for your list above, lease agreements with both names good. Joint bills with both names, good. Joint car insurance good. Health insurance and all good. Those are main things that show mingling.

 

The receipts from dinners and such, not so much just means you two went to eat somewhere.... but you can use them if you want to. Gifts, not sure that holds much weight either.

 

The joint bank account is good though. We have only a joint savings, but kept separate checking accounts.

 

Court house wedding is fine, it's legal so... we did the same. 

 

Literally for us, as we didn't have to do the AOS interview or anything, we only sent with out original I-485 packet, copy of joint lease with both names and the joint savings account. That was it. We didn't have time to get everything else in order to go with it; but we had no issues. 

 

So again for you, joint lease, joint bills, the joint account, car insurance and medicals all are good things. 

 

Perhaps you have a life insurance policy where your spouse would be main beneficiary of the money? That is also good evidence.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Ben&Zian

[Lisa88 3]

5 minutes ago, Roel said:

Doesn't matter.

 

Probably won't be an issue, since you have other proofs. Might be somewhat of an issue for ROC?

 

Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

 

All of this is good, but I wouldn't include the toy.. I mean really? It's not a proof of relationship. Also old txt messages won't matter so I wouldn't include it. It might have matter for K1 interview but not with AoS. Especially since it's been so long ago.

1) What does ROC mean?

 

2) Ok not the toy. I heard that showing the length of your relationship is a good proof; the longer the relationship, the more true/real than, say a marriage that happened after only 6 months long of a relationship. And I thought showing the old texts can show that we have met back then and we have been communicating for the past years as a couple.  

[Roel 7,192]

RoC means Removing Conditions on green card. It's a process that you'll have to go through about 1 year and 9 months after you receive your 2 year green card. AoS is not the last step of this journey.

 

RoC means new petition, new fee, new proofs of relationship - currently it takes about 15 months for approval and when it's approved, you'll receive a 10 year green card.

 

Guides are available on forum.

[Lisa88 3]

8 minutes ago, Ben&Zian said:

 

For starters, being same sex has nothing to do with any outcome, nor is not having a baby. A kid just means people had sex, it isn't even relevant.

>> I-130 instruction states that birth certificate of children both to you and your spouse (if available) as evidence as well. In our case, we can never show that.

 

As for your evidence, what did you initially send in with the I-485? 

>> Nothing. We hired an immigration lawyer and he said all documents supporting the bona-fide relationship can be brought to the interview with us, and we don't have to submit them at the time of application. 

>> And we did not get any RFE and we got an interview notice. We only got a letter notice saying we are missing I-693, and we have to take it with us to the interview. 

 

The receipts from dinners and such, not so much just means you two went to eat somewhere.... but you can use them if you want to.

>>I guess I will take anything with us that might help even tiny a bit. 

 

The joint bank account is good though. We have only a joint savings, but kept separate checking accounts.

>> We do have a joint saving account but we rarely use it. Do you think I should still take it with us?

 

Perhaps you have a life insurance policy where your spouse would be main beneficiary of the money? That is also good evidence.

>> I felt bad for my parents about me not being to tell them about my relationship and marriage. So I set 50% for my parents and 50% for my spouse as beneficies or my life insurance policy. Do you think this is still good evidence?

 

[Lisa88 3]

5 minutes ago, Roel said:

 

RoC means new petition, new fee, new proofs of relationship - currently it takes about 15 months for approval and when it's approved, you'll receive a 10 year green card.

Wait so, After you get a conditional green card, it takes about 1 year + 9 months + about 15 months = 3 years till you get a 10 year GC???

[Roel 7,192]

1 minute ago, Lisa88 said:

Wait so, After you get a conditional green card, it takes about 1 year + 9 months + about 15 months = 3 years till you get a 10 year GC???

 

No..

You file for ROC about 90 days before your 2 year green card expires.

Then the ROC process takes about 15 months to approve but in the mean time you'll receive an extension letter that will allow you to legally live and work in the US until ROC is approved.

[Lisa88 3]

2 minutes ago, Roel said:

 

No..

You file for ROC about 90 days before your 2 year green card expires.

Then the ROC process takes about 15 months to approve but in the mean time you'll receive an extension letter that will allow you to legally live and work in the US until ROC is approved.

Right,,, so you get a condition GC and wait for 1 year + 9 months. Then about 15 months of processing time. So It takes a total of 3 years to get a 10 year GC, from the date when the conditional GC was obtained.

 

Sounds like a long journey ^^;

[Ben&Zian 4,398]

It's giving me issues with quoting for some reason but, that's fine if you didn't send any initial evidence, means all you have now is in play so that's good. Some send a  ton with the initial I-485 so that's why I asked. We did a K-1 visa so we didn't need probably as much as some who AOS from in the US; but regardless you're fine still.

 

And again kid's still aren't evidence, while the form maybe states it; it isn't really for that purpose but again that won't come into play at all so don't worry about that.

 

Definately take anything you feel is valuable evidence, again joint bills, leases, insurances, those are good proof for most of us on here to show.

 

And it's understandable to split life insurance policies, just because you're giving 50/50 isn't a bad thing, that's quite normal. My husband is 100%, but again it is very very normal to be split up like yours is so that still is beneficial evidence.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Ben&Zian

[Roel 7,192]

1 minute ago, Lisa88 said:

Right,,, so you get a condition GC and wait for 1 year + 9 months. Then about 15 months of processing time. So It takes a total of 3 years to get a 10 year GC, from the date when the conditional GC was obtained.

 

Sounds like a long journey ^^;

Yes it is!

[Ben&Zian 4,398]

Ugh we have ROC in a year almost, not looking forward to starting that myself personally.

[Roel 7,192]

4 minutes ago, Ben&Zian said:

Ugh we have ROC in a year almost, not looking forward to starting that myself personally.

It's not that bad, beyond annoying waiting time. 😛 Personally I thought that AoS was sooo much worse, with all the uncertainty when can I work if I even receive a green card or not..  😛

[Ben&Zian 4,398]

1 minute ago, Roel said:

It's not that bad, beyond annoying waiting time. 😛 Personally I thought that AoS was sooo much worse, with all the uncertainty when can I work if I even receive a green card or not..  😛

 

True, I just hate filling out paperwork mostly hah.

[Sunnyland 639]

31 minutes ago, Ben&Zian said:

 

True, I just hate filling out paperwork mostly hah.

 

Not to mention the paranoid addiction (at least for me) to collect every single bill or proof that seemed important for the future steps. Even now that i'm done with immigration I still kept all my previous AOS, ROC and N400 packages as a reminder of all our hard work.