mespinoz

Hello everyone,

My wife has her IR-1 visa in hand and we are looking to book her flight to Denver from Sicily. We're a bit confused on the COVID and quarantine procedures. Since she is coming from the Schengen region will she have to stay in another country for 14 days before entering the U.S.? She has two annotations on her visa: "Exception under PP on Novel Coronavirus" and "Exception under PP on Risk to Labor Market." I'm assuming this doesn't allow her to bypass any quarantine rules. For those of you who recently came to the U.S. on an IR-1 visa, were you allowed to enter the U.S. directly? Where from? Were you denied entry? Did you have any problems during your trip because of quarantine procedures (layovers, delays, etc.). Sorry, I know I'm asking a lot of questions, but we are just trying to plan carefully with as few issues as possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much!

8 hours ago, NikLR said:

Dont worry about the acco fastener holes.  It requires a special hole punch and they can do it easier. 

Dont use page protectors or binders or folders.  Use paperclips and binder clips.  Anything else is thrown away so dont spend the extra money.  

You can use sticky tabs but make sure they're at the bottom 

I see... so how did you send everything? Did you use a standard vanilla envelope, or a special type of packaging?

On 10/10/2018 at 4:11 AM, ad8816 said:

Ehilà! We provided about 40 pictures (prints) in total for our I-130. I think 400 will be way too many, tbh. I totally understand you wanting to be thorough and provide the correct evidence of a bonafide marriage, but photos are only one portion of it. We also included joint bank account statements, 2 affidavits, screenshots of skype logs and call logs, as well as screenshots of Facebook posts involving my husband and me. In total, our petition was pretty thick, but nothing too crazy! I put things in clear sheet protectors and secured them all together at the top hole with one binder ring so it was organised, but not in an actual 3-ring binder. I also got sticky tabs which I numbered and placed on the pages according to the table of contents. 

Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I know 400 is a bit much. The problem is we don't have much else. We do have itineraries and boarding passes from when I was going back and forth to visit my wife, but we don't joint accounts or shared bills because (1) she's never been to the United States, let alone lived there, and (2) I don't have permanent residency in Italy. I only have a permesso di soggiorno, and we're currently staying with parents.

"I put things in a clear sheet protectors and secured them all together at the top hole with one binder ring..."

I'm a little confused on this! The instructions on the website say that two holes at the top of everything would be appreciated, but I'm not sure what they mean exactly. How far apart do they want the holes? Do they want the holes centered? When you sent your package, did you just send everything in the protectors? Or did you put it all in a folder or a vanilla envelope or something?

Thanks so much for your suggestions!

Hello everyone,

For our I-130 petition, my wife and I are stressing a bit on what kind of evidence to send. From I gather on these forums, the best kind of evidence seems to be joint bank accounts and co-mingling of financial resources. We don't have any shared accounts---I can't put her name on any of my accounts in the U.S., nor can she put mine on her bank accounts. We spent a year living together in France, but the landlord didn't want to include her name on our lease since she didn't have a job there. (Instead, he wrote a letter affirming we were living together, but I'm not sure how good that would be as proof). Everything was in my name. We did have a shared bank account in France, so I'm thinking about using that, even though we are no longer living there have since closed the account. Aside from our marriage certificate, we have a ton of photographic evidence---pictures from traveling, holidays, pictures with family and friends, Facebook screenshots, messages, etc. We also have our flight itineraries and some of our boarding passes. Would all of that suffice?

Also, I know that the instructions for the I-130 petition state that they want translations for everything, so if I were to use an old bank statement from France, would I need to get that translated into English? If so, could I just translate it myself, or do I need a professional translator? On a similar note, do I need to have small things like receipts and utility bills translated into English as well?

As always, thank you all so much for your help!

Thanks bakphx1 and Reqahmed! I appreciate it

Hello everyone!

So, I realize this question has been addressed in other posts, but I really need some advice here.

We are getting ready to file our I-130 petition. I've talked to a few people about evidence to prove that a relationship is bona fide, and everyone has always said to send as many photographs as possible, because it would make the whole process run smoother. Well, we've prepared a photo album loaded with roughly 400 photographs. There are ten photos to a page, so there are about 40 pages total.

After reading a few similar threads, I'm now getting a little worried that this is a little overkill. We put a LOT of time into creating this album (it also has timelines, itineraries, tickets, etc.), so it would seem like an awful waste to just send a page or two after all that effort. My question is, would it count against us, or negatively affect our application if I went ahead and just sent the entire album?

Thanks for any advice!