huacheetah

Hi everyone,
My husband and I are getting ready to file the I-751 to remove the Conditional Residence Status on his green card. The two year anniversary of his entry to the States is in about 70 days. I'm hoping to mail in his paperwork tomorrow.

First I wanted to check how our list of evidence of a bona fide marriage looks to you all, as I would like to do this once and get it over with, without requests for more evidence from USCIS, if possible. As much fun as all this paperwork is...

Are we missing anything obvious? (we don't have kids)
Are we including anything we may want to leave out?

So this is what we've got:
• Photos of us together and with our families since we’ve moved to the States, and on a few different vacations together in North America and Chile
• Copy of our joint US tax return filed in 2010
• Copy of the titles of our vehicles, showing joint ownership
• Copy of our health insurance cards that we are using presently showing a joint policy
• Copy of our present rental agreement for our present house
• Copies of a previous rental agreement for an apartment in Portland – we each filled out our own agreement as per the policy of American Property Management, but the address we list is the same
• Copy of our Costco Club cards on a joint account
• Copy of our drivers licenses showing a joint address
• Copy of credit cards showing our names using the same number
• Copy of our boarding passes for a recent vacation we took together to Florida, although missing my husbands second boarding pass for the return ticket, as I couldn’t find it
• Copy of our travel itinerary from United for an upcoming family vacation to Florida
• Copy of a letter from my father to the US Embassy in Chile asking that they grant tourist visas to my in-laws for our upcoming family vacation with my husband, parents and in-laws in Florida**
• Copies of our joint car insurances for the years 2010 and 2011
• Certificate of Health Plan Coverage from BlueCross BlueShield for February 1, 2011 – June 1, 2011
• Two affidavits from friends attesting that our husband-wife relationship is bona fide.
• Bank statements from fall of 2010 and present showing we have joint accounts at two different banks

** So I'm not sure the letter about my in-laws coming is a good idea or not. It shows that my husband and I and our parents are planning a vacation together in Florida soon, which is good evidence of a bona fide marriage. However my concern is that the official might think we are trying to bring my in-laws here on a tourist visa and then let them stay illegally afterwards. This isn't our plan-or theirs!, and they were granted tourist visas at the U.S. Embassy because they aren't a flight risk, but I'm worried about how this will be perceived by someone looking at our case.

Thanks for having a look at this!
I'd appreciate feedback as to whether this looks like it could be good enough or not.

Cheers,
Mae

Noorah101

Looks like a bit too much, to me.

You don't need all that evidence of traveling together (boarding passes and itinerary). You don't need the evidence of the in-laws visiting. You don't need the affidavits from friends. You don't need pics of the two of you together, but if you choose to include them, only use a few pictures. Also, you are already including health insurance cards, no need to include the certificate of insurance as well.

What happened to the 2009 tax return? Were you married then?

The rest of the evidence looks fine to me.

Rene

S Folinsky

I agree with Renee about a tad overkill -- have pity on the poor government functionary who has to read the thing!

On court filings, they have a requirement to index and paginate. May not be a bad idea. Full blown Acrobat has a "Bates Numbering" function.

[A long time ago, an experienced immigration attorney mentioned at a lecture that he prepares EVERYTHING as if it was eventually be part of an exhibit in District Court litigation.]

huacheetah

Thanks guys! I'll pare it down a little bit then, and leave out the vacation stuff. Also, I don't have my 2009 tax returns with me. Do I need the entire thing? It's kind of long. I just called my accountant's office and explained to them why I needed it. They were going to take a look and see if they could just scan the necessary part as they see fit. (My 2010 tax returns are easily a hundred pages.) Perhaps, just the first few pages would be enough, with a note attached to call my accountant if they want more paperwork on that?

Trixie_b

Don't forget that you need to establish the legitimacy of your marriage for the past 2 years, not just now. (I made that mistake!)

Noorah101

Yes, you should include the 2009 tax return as well. For both years (2009 and 2010), you only need the 1040 portion, which shows you filed in the "married" category. No need to include all the backup.

As Trixie points out, make sure you include some evidence from the time he arrived in the USA until now (sounds like you're already doing that by including previous rental agreement). Perhaps you could include a couple of pages of bank statements, health insurance, and car insurance papers from the time he arrived.

Rene

Moxie

To pare down the number of pages, I sent only page 1 of the Form 1040 for each year. Same with bank statements. We got no RFEs for doing it that way.

huacheetah

Thanks! I'll be sure to include info from last year as well as this year. I also plan to pare down any paperwork I can while proving the "bona fide" quality of our marriage over the last two years.