Protocol417

Wish I'd read this first. I would've saved a bit of money not having to print photos on photo paper

I think some of the instructions I've read were written 20 years ago. They mention copies of letters and phone bills, too. HAHAHAHA!

People obtaining green cards/citizenship through the Dream Act have to fit very specific requirements, requirements that I don't think your fiancee would be barred from trying to attain should she choose to.

I understand your frustration... we're all going through this, aren't we?... but I think you might be a little misinformed about the color of the grass on the other side, if you will.

My ex-husband's sister (a USC) was married to a Mexican who had entered the country illegally. They owned a home together, had a child together, and he worked multiple jobs and paid taxes just like everyone else for 10 years (just under an assumed name), and they lived in fear the entire time that he would be driven from the country. In fact, apart from being in the country without the correct paperwork, he had to be far more law-abiding than the common American citizen, because something as mild as a speeding ticket could have ripped that family apart. Once, they actually had to flee the state to avoid such a fate, leaving their very frightened daughter in the hands of her grandparents, not knowing if her parents could ever return. After a decade of this, they were lucky enough to be placed across from an extremely incompetent DA and in front of a very kind judge, who said "enough already" and granted him the green card he'd been fighting for.

So it's not as easy, or dear god "preferential" (really?), as you make it sound.

Is a 9-12 month wait, if that option is available to you, worth avoiding all of that?

YES. A million times YES. That is precisely why we are all here, and not in some back alley trying to get an identity for our loved ones.

Question about financial documentation:

The K-1 Guide and the I-129F instructions don't list having to provide documentation of your income. Everything that I can find says that this is needed during the consulate interview after the NOA2 is received. But some of you are saying that you received an RFE because your proof of income was missing or mismatched?

I'm only asking because my ex-husband and I filed our taxes jointly until the divorce was final, which was 3 months ago (the process took two years), and he held on to our tax documents. I just found out that he can't find my 2011 W-2. I haven't sent the package in yet but I'm getting close to the point where I can, and I don't want to hold up the application for something that isn't necessary.

Is it typical to have to send income documentation in with your I-129F application?

This is where this thread is going to confuse many. Getting an RFE for lack of evidence to prove you have met in the past two years almost always is due to a lack of primary evidence. Supplying more, or many photos (secondary evidence) will usually not overcome the burden of proof.

This has been borne out time and again by USCIS decisions whereby they have found mostly in favor of primary evidence and rejected secondary evidence such as photos when submitted as sole proof.

Primary evidence is documentary in nature: airline boarding passes, passport exit/entry stamps, hotel receipts, atm withdrawals in city of question, utility bills, apartment leases, etc.

Secondary evidence The USCIS defines secondary evidence as any documentation that can be used to supplement primary evidence but in itself cannot stand alone to prove ones assertions.

Photos are secondary; so are letters from relatives, neighbors or acquaintances, bus/train tickets and essentially anything that cannot be used to prove your point with a very high degree of certainty.

To sum up; very good Primary evidence with some secondary evidence = NO RFE

very weak Primary evidence with some, or lots of secondary= Possible RFE

No Primary evidence..........................................................= RFE

No Primary, lots of secondary.............................................= RFE

This is extremely helpful, thank you!

The process of proving you've met in the last two years is so frustrating. The receipts are especially so. We saved a whole bunch of 'em, to document being in each others' home countries, but when we started copying them for our application we were horrified to realize that none of them actually had our names on them!!! Whether that's the bank's doing or the individual businesses' I don't know, but what we thought was really good evidence turned out to be useless.