Interview Nerves - AOS Interview coming up fast

[Pole2USHopeful 3]

Hello all, new here. I'm looking for any advice I can get. 

 

The Background

 

My wife and I are in our mid-late 20's, I'm a USC and she's a Polish Citizen. We met while she was working here and dated long distance for a while. On one of her visits here (B2) we got sick of the way we were living and wanted to marry. The ceremony was a tad rushed as we decided this close to her authorized stay expiring. Unfortunately this was in vain, as we hugely underestimated how difficult it'd be to get her health records from Poland and our AOS application was not filed until several weeks after her would-be departure date. 

 

We applied and had a fairly normal timeline for NYC filers. She received her EAD a little over a year ago and has been working fulltime while we're establishing our life together. Our interview was just scheduled for two weeks from now. 

 

The Evidence:

 

We're taking the proof of AOS very seriously given the overstay and the non-immigrant visa. We know for a fact we'll be examined under a microscope. Unfortunately, we paid a consultant to help us file i485+i130 who recommended we did NOT send evidence of a bona fide marriage so this is the only shot we've got. 

 

We have:

• A joint bank account. She's set up for direct deposit, lots of living expenses
• Car title in both our names
• Car insurance in both our names
• Life insurance beneficiaries for each other 
• Apartment Lease in both our names 
• Renters insurance in both our names 
• Utility bills in both our names 
• Internet bills in both our names 
• Roughly 100 mailing labels addressed to both of us (I'm a shredder so I had these anyway) 
• A photo album of about 60 pictures of us both from the last 2-3 years. A good portion are with family members, some from Poland
• Flight itinerary from my visit
• Her name and SSN are on my tax return documents

 

The Ugly:

 

Here's what I determine will definitely bother a USCIS Officer:

• No wedding photos besides one blurry shot (you can barely tell its us) 
• There's a separate bank account in just my name (result of a big identity theft attack that hit us last year), my paychecks go here to split the money
• Separate health insurances (financially made sense given our employees) 
• No rings (we were pretty deep in debt when we married, we're thankfully fully out now) 
• B2 Visa implications 
• Overstay (explained above) 
• There is a second vehicle in JUST my name (I bought this in cash and we needed it registered asap for my new position, she was away at work so I rushed the DMV stuff myself) 
• The tax returns have her name and SSN but aren't joint, they're "Married Filing Single" at the advice of my tax preparer. She had no income in 2018 as she'd only just gotten the EAD by year's end. 

 

Stokes Interview:

 

We practice common Stokes Interview questions every night. I do everything with this woman and visa versa and have no fear about an inability to pass one of these. It's the evidence I'm worried about. 

 

The Plea for Help:

 

She truly is my world and I want this life together so badly, but as you can see my case is far from anything to feel confident about. Please help critique my evidence, give me tips, anything I can do to strengthen this upcoming interview. 

Edited November 21, 2019 by Pole2USHopeful
Important part about tax returns

[Duke & Marie 1,389]

Why married filing single? That needs amending... key thing missed off was marriage certificate... surely you’ve got other photographs etc since married? Ones with family over Xmas... joint memberships are an option... wills, next of kin with employers, affidavits from family... write something explaining seperate insurers and why if financially viable.. not sure why money needs splitting.. if account insecure, close it and open a new one... if your out of debt now like you said, go buy rings even if just hers common for men not to wear them

Edited November 21, 2019 by Duke & Marie

[Pole2USHopeful 3]

2 minutes ago, Duke & Marie said:

Why married filing single? That needs amending... key thing missed off was marriage certificate... surely you’ve got other photographs etc since married? Ones with family over Xmas... joint memberships are an option... wills, next of kin with employers, affidavits from family... write something explaining seperate insurers and why if financially viable.. 

We do have a marriage certificate yes. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, we have tons of photos together many with family and friends. 

 

Joint memberships are an option. I will print out any and everything we're subscribed to. 

 

And MFS as a tax return status was what my preparer recommended last year... iirc the intent was to dodge some extra complication which would add fees to their firm that totaled more than I'd save? (I know it's off topic but I'm certainly not using them again as I feel this was bull) 

[Duke & Marie 1,389]

1 minute ago, Pole2USHopeful said:

We do have a marriage certificate yes. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, we have tons of photos together many with family and friends. 

 

Joint memberships are an option. I will print out any and everything we're subscribed to. 

 

And MFS as a tax return status was what my preparer recommended last year... iirc the intent was to dodge some extra complication which would add fees to their firm that totaled more than I'd save? (I know it's off topic but I'm certainly not using them again as I feel this was bull) 

Wills are easy, you can get self do kits for like $30 off the shelf... same same, nok with employers, emergency contact etc.. what about 401k? Plenty of options there for you to choose from

[Pole2USHopeful 3]

7 minutes ago, Duke & Marie said:

if your out of debt now like you said, go buy rings even if just hers common for men not to wear them

I'll be doing this tomorrow. I must be so stressed I'm not thinking clearly as this seems obvious in hindsight 

 

1 minute ago, Duke & Marie said:

Wills are easy, you can get self do kits for like $30 off the shelf

Will I be able to get a legal document with both of our names on it within two weeks you think? 

 

2 minutes ago, Duke & Marie said:

what about 401k? Plenty of options there for you to choose from

She does not have one. I have a request in for my employer to get me this signed ahead of time but they are dragging their feet, most I can do is a screenshot of her on the beneficiaries. 

[Duke & Marie 1,389]

9 minutes ago, Pole2USHopeful said:

I'll be doing this tomorrow. I must be so stressed I'm not thinking clearly as this seems obvious in hindsight 

 

Will I be able to get a legal document with both of our names on it within two weeks you think? 

 

She does not have one. I have a request in for my employer to get me this signed ahead of time but they are dragging their feet, most I can do is a screenshot of her on the beneficiaries. 

Wills become effective as soon as signed off... some kits can be done and submitted online, depends who u go through... perhaps google will kits and read up a little, I know here in Aus their very easy to do without a lawyer 

[Pole2USHopeful 3]

Just now, Duke & Marie said:

Wills become effective as soon as signed off... some kits can be done and submitted online, depends who u go through... perhaps google will kits and read up a little, I know here in Aus their very easy to do without a lawyer 

Thank you so much. I'm going to do both tomorrow. In the event that NY last-wills require more or a notarization of some sort, I've also just sent a few emails out to local lawyers for consultation if it comes down to it. The Will sounds like an excellent idea and frankly, something I should have anyway - AOS or not. 

[mandsophia 160]

I do not think you should include "married on b2 visa" and "overstay" on the parts to be worried about...people do both all the time and they are not mentioned at the interview most of the time.

 

I did not overstay (we filed two weeks before it expired),but I did marry on a b2 visa and it was not even brought up at the interview at all. My interviewer did not look through most of our photos (I had hundreds) and just flipped through a couple. He saved and remarked upon one or two wedding photos, and that we had a dog together. 

 

I agree that you should try to work on the bonafide marriage documents. I was asked for all that I had, even though I did include quite a few in the initial app. I gave him joint health insurance, chequing and savings, credit cards, gym membership, pet ownership, mail at the same address, and car insurance.

 

So in my opinion, do not waste too much worry on the b2 aspect. i did it myself as well, ignoring others on the forum who said it was not even mentioned at the interview, and everything was totally okay and easier than expected. in and out in 30 minutes, approved on the spot and greencard 5 days later. 

 

goodluck

[Pole2USHopeful 3]

@mandsophia thank you very much for the encouragement. I don't know if I've got the time to create a new account but I can certainly get her as an authorized user on all the cards that aren't joint accounts. 

[US-UK 32]

To close the loop on one thing: taxes MFS is Married filing separately, not Single. This is fine. No need to amend anything. Don’t say the word Single.

[SalishSea 16,737]

On 11/20/2019 at 7:03 PM, Pole2USHopeful said:

• The tax returns have her name and SSN but aren't joint, they're "Married Filing Single" at the advice of my tax preparer. She had no income in 2018 as she'd only just gotten the EAD by year's end. 

 

Married filing separately was bad advice.  Far bigger standard deduction if MFJ.

[Pole2USHopeful 3]

On 11/23/2019 at 2:42 PM, Jorgedig said:

Married filing separately was bad advice.  Far bigger standard deduction if MFJ.

Yes I took it upon myself to get educated on taxes after trusting the cheapest tax-prep I could find. I'm considering that my one-time "stupid-tax" :-/

[Pole2USHopeful 3]

On 11/23/2019 at 8:47 AM, US-UK said:

To close the loop on one thing: taxes MFS is Married filing separately, not Single. This is fine. No need to amend anything. Don’t say the word Single.

This makes me feel a lot better. Thank you for this comment, I would've been dropping the word "Single" everywhere had it not been for this. 

[ZeeZeeZee 11]

I suspect it depends a lot on the interviewing officer, but my partner and I sailed through our interview last week with way less evidence than you have. (Also admittedly no overstay issues though, and being white, fluent English speaking, highly educated also helped) It's not just the paperwork, they're watching how you interact with each other. People are comfortable with their life partner in a way that they aren't with people they barely know, and it shows.

 

My partner and I had a very small wedding, and we don't live together and don't plan to in future, which means we haven't combined most of our finances; we also filed our taxes separately last year, because it did actually work out cheaper for us that time. We pretty much just had a few photos, joint health insurance, and a joint credit card and a log of google pay transactions showing that we split the cost of paying it off each month. We had planned to have more evidence, but various things (super slow EAD, and suprisingly early interview) got in the way.

 

Don't hide or lie about the stuff you're worried about in the interview, but don't bring it up either. You've got a lot of good stuff there: joint lease, joint car, joint insurances, etc, so talk about _those_, not what you don't have. They're not looking for you to have 100% merged your lives! Eg my partner and I own our cars separately, and they're insured separately; it literally never came up in the interview. If they do ask about one of the things you listed, just tell the story behind it, no apologies. Especially if you're both contributing parts of the story, correcting details, etc.

 

We got asked how we chose our rings, so if you're planning on getting rings just for the interview, make sure you've agreed on a narrative that doesn't sound like "yeah, um, we thought we should have rings for the interview". The truth works well: "we didn't get rings immediately because we were super in debt at the time; now thankfully we're on top of that, and we actually only found time to go ring shopping a few weeks ago... we looked at X, Y, Z, and..." etc.

 

 

 

[SalishSea 16,737]

21 hours ago, ZeeZeeZee said:

we don't live together and don't plan to in future,

Really?  I'm really surprised they didn't question this even though you're white and educated.