I-130 Supporting Documents for Proof of Marriage

[Holly&Andreas 38]

Good morning! 

I have been lurking here for several years now and my husband and I are just about ready to submit his petition. We have been married for almost 3 years and lived together in Romania for about 18 months. Since the bulk of our relationship and marriage has been long distance I don't have too much joint stuff with both our names on it. When I was living there, they would not add my name to his account because I did not have an income or a residency permit from his country. Let me list out what I have and hopefully it will be enough. 

 

1. Flight Itineraries and passport stamps from 6 years of flights to meet up and visit each other. I always went to Romania because the one time we tried to get him to visit the US, he was denied a tourism visa. 

 

2. Rental contact from where I lived with him in Romania with both of our names on it (it was translated into English and notarized locally there). 

 

3. Life insurance policy through my employer showing him as the beneficiary.

 

4. Photos of our time together including engagement photos in Spain, pictures with his family, photos of our wedding with his family, and a handful of other photos of our time together both before and after we were married. 

 

I don't know if there's anything else I could include that would strengthen our claim of a valid marriage but any advice is welcome. I have screen captures of a few chats between us including talking about getting married and wanting children together, but most of our communication is done through Facebook messenger video chat where we spend hours upon hours on video chat and I don't know if there is a way to log that.

 

Thanks for your time!

[Verrou 1,899]

it seems fine/enough for me.

[Redro 4,601]

10 minutes ago, Holly&Andreas said:

Good morning! 

I have been lurking here for several years now and my husband and I are just about ready to submit his petition. We have been married for almost 3 years and lived together in Romania for about 18 months. Since the bulk of our relationship and marriage has been long distance I don't have too much joint stuff with both our names on it. When I was living there, they would not add my name to his account because I did not have an income or a residency permit from his country. Let me list out what I have and hopefully it will be enough. 

 

1. Flight Itineraries and passport stamps from 6 years of flights to meet up and visit each other. I always went to Romania because the one time we tried to get him to visit the US, he was denied a tourism visa. 

 

2. Rental contact from where I lived with him in Romania with both of our names on it (it was translated into English and notarized locally there). 

 

3. Life insurance policy through my employer showing him as the beneficiary.

 

4. Photos of our time together including engagement photos in Spain, pictures with his family, photos of our wedding with his family, and a handful of other photos of our time together both before and after we were married. 

 

I don't know if there's anything else I could include that would strengthen our claim of a valid marriage but any advice is welcome. I have screen captures of a few chats between us including talking about getting married and wanting children together, but most of our communication is done through Facebook messenger video chat where we spend hours upon hours on video chat and I don't know if there is a way to log that.

 

Thanks for your time!

Our I-130 was just approved and the only proof of bonafide relationship we included was 

1. photographs together over the years 

2. proof of living in the same apartment for 1 year 

[Holly&Andreas 38]

30 minutes ago, Kor2USA said:

Our I-130 was just approved and the only proof of bonafide relationship we included was 

1. photographs together over the years 

2. proof of living in the same apartment for 1 year 

Okay similar to us then. Thanks!

[Redro 4,601]

8 minutes ago, Holly&Andreas said:

Okay similar to us then. Thanks!

Yep! I was extremely worried about an RFE but we were approved March 22, 2022 no issue. 

 

[Holly&Andreas 38]

1 minute ago, Kor2USA said:

Yep! I was extremely worried about an RFE but we were approved March 22, 2022 no issue. 

 

Also, I'm only submitting a passport photo for myself. Since he lives outside the US, I did read that it is not required from him. I hope that will be okay. He sent me a passport photo but it's the dimensions required for a Romanian passport and I could not make it fit into the US passport size. It cuts off too much at the top and bottom. I've read a mixture of posts on here of people saying they got an RFE for their beneficiary having no passport photo submitted, and other people have said they have had no issue so I'm not really sure what to do but since it says in the actual instructions for the I-130 it's only required if the beneficiary resides within the US, that's what I was planning to go by.

[Redro 4,601]

4 minutes ago, Holly&Andreas said:

Also, I'm only submitting a passport photo for myself. Since he lives outside the US, I did read that it is not required from him. I hope that will be okay. He sent me a passport photo but it's the dimensions required for a Romanian passport and I could not make it fit into the US passport size. It cuts off too much at the top and bottom. I've read a mixture of posts on here of people saying they got an RFE for their beneficiary having no passport photo submitted, and other people have said they have had no issue so I'm not really sure what to do but since it says in the actual instructions for the I-130 it's only required if the beneficiary resides within the US, that's what I was planning to go by.

Our photos were too small and I used photo editing software to get it to the correct size. But, I had digital copies. If you are worried about not having a photo I would get him to take new photos and ask the photographer for a digital photo with:

The minimum dimensions for your photo are 600 pixels x 600 pixels (height x width). The maximum dimensions are 1200 pixels x 1200 pixels (height x width).

[Holly&Andreas 38]

1 minute ago, Kor2USA said:

Our photos were too small and I used photo editing software to get it to the correct size. But, I had digital copies. If you are worried about not having a photo I would get him to take new photos and ask the photographer for a digital photo with:

The minimum dimensions for your photo are 600 pixels x 600 pixels (height x width). The maximum dimensions are 1200 pixels x 1200 pixels (height x width).

Okay thanks!

[Redro 4,601]

Just now, Holly&Andreas said:

Okay thanks!

Good luck! Starting the process is super stressful but sounds like you're off to a good start. My motto is: I'd rather submit a little later than I wanted than get hit with an RFE 8 months down the line for something I thought might be an issue. 

[Chancy 6,233]

10 minutes ago, Holly&Andreas said:

I'm only submitting a passport photo for myself. Since he lives outside the US, I did read that it is not required from him.

 

Photos not required from a beneficiary residing outside the US.  His photos will be required at NVC stage, after the petition has been approved.

 

[Holly&Andreas 38]

1 minute ago, Kor2USA said:

Good luck! Starting the process is super stressful but sounds like you're off to a good start. My motto is: I'd rather submit a little later than I wanted than get hit with an RFE 8 months down the line for something I thought might be an issue. 

I agree! I'm also waiting for my husband to get home so I can go over the entire application with him to quadruple check that everything is in order and accurate to the best of both our knowledge before sending it all in. 

 

Even though I'm just now getting ready to send in the petition it feels like maybe we're on the last leg of our "wanting to live together" journey. An end is in sight! Almost. lol

[Holly&Andreas 38]

2 minutes ago, Chancy said:

 

Photos not required from a beneficiary residing outside the US.  His photos will be required at NVC stage, after the petition has been approved.

 

Can you clarify? I don't understand what you mean. Will we need to submit his passport photos at a later time?

[Chancy 6,233]

7 minutes ago, Holly&Andreas said:

Can you clarify? I don't understand what you mean. Will we need to submit his passport photos at a later time?

 

Yes, the beneficiary's passport photos will be needed months later, not now.  After the petition is approved, it will be transferred from USCIS to NVC.  At that point, you and your spouse will need to submit more documents, including his recent photos.

 

[Holly&Andreas 38]

2 minutes ago, Chancy said:

 

Yes, the beneficiary's passport photos will be needed months later, not now.  After the petition is approved, it will be transferred from USCIS to NVC.  At that point, you and your spouse will need to submit more documents, including his recent photos.

 

Okay thanks for the clarification!

[mflip 17]

8 hours ago, Holly&Andreas said:

 

Hi, 

 

My wife and I got DQ recently. our relationship has been elusively long distance, though we have spent extended amounts of time together in each others country.

 

We sent photos of us together throughout the years, photos with each others family, proof of travel to each others country and trips we took together.

 

They asked us to note on the back of the photo, 1- who was in the photo and their relationship to us. 2- the location. 3- the date 

 

We also got affidavit of supports written up by family members advocating for our relationship and had them notarised. 

 

I too sent a copy of my companies life insurance policy with her at the beneficiary, as long as details showing she is my emergency contact etc. 

 

You will be fine with the evidence you have! Seems like you have more extensive list than what we submitted! We too were worried about this! 

Edited April 4, 2022 by mflip