visaquestion1234

Thank you. I just looked it up quickly and saw the same thing. The land is valued at around $7,000 USD and they are unlikely to sell it. I definitely anticipate reporting it if a sale is ever made however.

Thank you for the quick reply. If she contributed the money as a gift to her family and she was left off the deed/transaction would that still be required?

Hi all, My wife is a LPR (removal of conditions pending). She and her family are considering buying a plot of land in her home country and she would be contributing a few thousand dollars. This would be the largest share and the plan is to have it in her name. Since she is still a citizen of her home country does this require any legal action on our end in the US? The plan would be to transfer the few thousand to her or her mom’s account in her home country and they would use that account for the transaction. I assume this would need to be declared in a potential future interview/citizenship application. Thank you!

Great, thanks for your input!

Got the extension letter! Do you need to carry around the original copy or can you just use a copy? Just thinking about potential scenarios where something like that might pop up (speeding ticket or if someone of authority needs to see it randomly)?

Okay, I think I'm ready to put a bow on this! I included a cover page, a short intro, and a table of contents with the following (I've redacted some personal info): [A short description] EXHIBIT A: Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence EXHIBIT B: Form G-1145, E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance EXHIBIT C: Lawful Permanent Resident Status and Identification This exhibit includes copies of the following: Current Permanent Resident Card I-797, Notice of Action stating approval of my I-485 application Employment Authorization/Advance Parole Card Social Security Card Driver’s License EXHIBIT D: Marriage Certificate EXHIBIT E: Cohabitation with Spouse This exhibit includes copies of the following: Electric bill addressed to me and my spouse Water bill addressed to me and my spouse Home Owner’s Insurance under me and my spouse Closing statement of current home (purchased prior to me obtaining lawful permanent resident status) Spouse’s current driver’s license matching our address EXHIBIT F: Federal and State Tax Returns for 2019, 2020, and 2021 EXHBIT G: Financial Commingling This exhibit includes the following: Monthly statements from joint [...] checking account Monthly statements from [...] - I am an authorized user on this account, and only the primary account holder’s name (my spouse, [...]) is listed on the statements. The charges are then paid through our joint [...] account Monthly Costco card membership statements Proof of myself as my spouse’s 401k beneficiary Most recent 401k statement Account summary of joint [investment] account Account summary of joint [investment] account EXHIBIT H: Summary of Spouse’s Employment Benefits with as the Beneficiary This exhibit includes the following: Summary page detailing all benefits elected by my spouse, including health and life insurance Copy of current health insurance card EXHBIT I: Evidence of Joint Vehicle Insurance EXHBIT J: Supplemental Evidence This exhibit contains the following: Assorted photographs from throughout our marriage Certificate of marriage into the Catholic Church in [...] Photographs of Catholic Church wedding ceremony

What size fasteners did you use? 2 inch?

Amazing! I know USCIS prefers ACCO fasteners, but it feels weird punching holes in the documents (you need to do that in order to use those, correct?).

Wow! Thank you so much. I really really appreciate you sharing your process. You remind of why the community here is the best on the internet. Good luck to you!

Alright, it’s game time again. Good luck to all who have already submitted or are in the process of compiling the massive mound of documents. How is everyone going to package the files? Mine will likely be over 200 pages and too big for a binder clip but I don’t want to just send a bunch of loose papers.

This is basically my guiding philosophy. My wife and have a typical marriage with basically everything joint, living together, etc. There isn’t anything to hide and our evidence is as strong as it can get, but there’s nothing to lose by front-loading our application. It’s indeed a once in a lifetime expense and action. Therefore, we’ll be going with monthly statements. Two accounts, 38 months, two pages each (so 4 total per month). That comes out to 152 pages. USCIS is free to examine it all. We’re “sacrificing” some extra paper and ink from Staples. Worth it, IMO.

Got it, thanks.

How many utility statements (of each service) did you guys include? Trying to think of a reason why submitting many electric bill statements would be better than a few.

Congrats!

Thank you! I appreciate the quick response.

Hi all, Quick question and title really says it all, but I (US citizen) am the primary account owner of our credit card account and my wife is an authorized user. Therefore, my name is on the monthly statements but we both have our own cards. Our checking account is joint and shows both of our names on the statements and of course shows the monthly credit card charge which would match the statement. When I include our credit card account statements, would a page showing that she is an authorized user suffice?

Hey all homeowners - how many mortgage statements did you include?

Great, thank you!

Yeah I suppose I should have phrased that all differently. Will it cause any issue that we married technically twice? How much should I explain since it resulted in decent sized foreign transactions and money transfers from my parents helping out? I guess I’m overthinking.

Hi All, My wife and were legally married in a small civil ceremony with family and close friends shortly after her arrival on a K1 visa. It was always the plan to have a much larger wedding in the Catholic church down the line. She got her GC in November of 2020 and we got “re-married” in her home country earlier this year. There were 150+ people and it was a much more typical wedding. This of course had a big effect on some of our financial and travel activity. Has anyone done anything similar? It was really a matter of religion and celebration so I’m not sure how USCIS would view a situation like that. Thanks in advance! You all are fantastic.

Thank you all for the advice! I really appreciate it :)

Hi All, I have a quick question about including our utility bills with our application. I stupidly threw a lot of statements away each month so I don’t have them kept in a neat order (eg. quarterly). They all have both of our names on them. Would it suffice to call our providers and have them send historical statements? I suppose I could find a way to print them online but I feel like having them accompanied with the envelope would be stronger evidence.

Thank you! Good luck with the citizenship.

Thank you so much! The bit about the affidavit I’m referring to is in the instructions form: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-751instr.pdf It says “should include, but not limited to”. We never did one for her initial GC.

Hey all - I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and progress. I’ll be filing with my wife soon. Sorry if this should be its own thread but I have couple questions about what your early process was. 1) How far away was your GC expiration when you submitted your packet? My wife’s expires in early November and I’d like to get everything out the door as soon as the 90 day window hits. 2) Did you submit an affidavit of support? The form makes it seem kind of necessary but we’re a typical married couple living together, all finances co-mingled, joint everything etc. Is the affidavit of support more of a cherry on top or is it something that’s more standard now? 3) Are most interviews being waived for those who have already been interviewed? We went the K1 route and were interviewed already when establishing residence (I got extremely anxious with the first one and would rather not re-live that feeling despite our case being pretty standard!) Again sorry to hijack this thread but I’d love to hear from those who have applications in process. Good luck to all!