Marriage Bona Fides

[MarineClimateLover]

Continuing to put our I-130 application packet together and I'm moving onto evidence for marriage bona fides.

 

Background: my wife and I have been married for 2.5 years, have a child together, she's been to the United States to meet my family. We've lived in China the entire time we've been together, met here, and have photos from every era of our relationship.

 

Would getting a letter from say my mother and a family friend that met my wife be meaningful?

 

Unfortunately we don't have any joint accounts and the names on our leases from rented apartments all have her name on it (it was just easier to have her do all the paperwork - things in China can be inconvenient for foreigners).

 

Thanks for any insight.

[dnoblett]

Simple, attach a copy of child's birth cert to the petition. Birth of a child together IS evidence of Bona Fides.. This should satisfy this requirement nothing else needed.

 

http://i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad334/dnoblett/Immigration%20Stuff/I-130Bonafides.png

 

Note H. and the word "OR" after each option, it means just one of these things should do.

 

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-130instr.pdf (Page 3)

[MarineClimateLover]

Good advice

 

Thanks!

[tsap seui]

As usual, Dan is the man with the plan.

 

In our case we got letters of attestation from my wife's son and her two brothers, one of whom was the family spokes person for ma and ba. We also had another affidavit from a waitress who knew us from the hotel we used to stay in before we bought a home in China, which she came to visit us in. Then on the American side I had letters from my daughter, my sister, and two friends who knew about Wenyan, our marriage, and what we were trying to do.

 

Load up the evidence for your case. You can't have too much, so ask anyone you know if they would write a letter for you. You are smart to preload everything you can before you send it in. This is basically your only shot at painting your story. Rarely does the consulate take anything from you in this vein later.

 

I'll add, on the Chinese side my wife had them write their letters in Chinese, then we translated them into english and the people wrote out the english version in their own hand. They didn't understand english but they could write the english letters. Then we put a color copy of their Chinese ID cards, front and back, down below what they wrote, along with their phone numbers and addresses.

 

If you are weak in one area of evidence pile it on where you are heavy.

 

Good luck

 

tsap seui