I-751 concerns

[pook]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York:

I have been married for over four years and almost a year ago applied to have my conditions lifted from my greencard and did the I-751 application. In February of this year I heard back from Immigration saying I needed to provide more evidence of a bona-fide marriage. The issue is my husband and I do not have many of the examples they gave, we do not file taxes together or have a joint bank account due to a situation he is currently in (on advice of a lawyer we keep our finances separate), we live in a family owned house so we do not have a lease, and we do not (yet) have any children.

This time round, We sent in gas bills dating from before we were married but were living together, we sent in proof of a shared medical plan we had in 2008 which we stopped because it was too expensive, we sent in a new medical plan we both now share through a position I only started in February of this year. We sent letters from our lawyer explaining why we do not share our financials and letters from our family members regarding our living situation, plus rental checks to the family members.

We sent in about 30 letters from people who know us in support of our marriage and we sent in itinerary from our trip to Europe last summer. We also sent in wedding invites to us both and some cards for holidays and our anniversaries.

I am really nervous this will not be enough, because we do not have the more clerical things they desire. I have not heard anything back and it has been a while, so I am getting nervous that they will reject my application. I would even be grateful if they asked us in for an interview then we could explain some of this stuff to them.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Zigner]

On the surface, it would seem that you do not have a bona-fide marriage...

 

[ImmigAttyLana]

It might be time to get an attorney involved to assist you with the document gathering for the response to the RFE. If you believe you are in a bona fide marital relationship, even if you do not have a lot of documentation, then you need to fight for it and do it with as much different type of documentation as possible.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions or how I can be of further assistance to you in this matter.

 

[AbigailLawFirm]

I agree it might be worthwhile at this point to hire an immigration attorney who can help you brainstorm documentation. What about photos together, emails, love letters, cards, Facebook messages, mail sent to each one of you at the address where you live, joint insurance, having each other listed as an emergency contact at work, letter from church stating you each attend there.

If your case is outside processing times (check the uscis.gov website) you can also consider calling them or scheduling an InfoPass appointment, but I only recommend this if the case is already outside processing times.