i-130 Visa: Evidence of a Bonafide Marriage.

One of the strangest things about the visa process, is that you have to PROVE you are in a real relationship. Even though you know it’s real, when you send the package off to USCIS, you can’t help but wonder ‘what if they think it’s fake?’. How can you prove that you love someone when it’s how you feel in your heart? You have to get that feeling onto paper and in an official way.

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Evidence of a Bonafide Marriage

Table of Contents

The i130 visa application requires you to provide ‘Evidence of a Bonafide Marriage’. Our pack has since been accepted, so what I included was obviously satisfactory and I also share with you a copy of my i-130 affidavit sample!

I’m not an immigration specialist, I’m just sharing my experience, please check against official websites in case of changes.

This (taken from the USCIS i-130 instruction form):

“Documentation showing joint ownership or property; or

A lease showing joint tenancy of a common residence; or

Documentation showing co-mingling of financial resources; or

Birth certificate(s) of child(ren) born to you, the petitioner, and your spouse together; or

Affidavits sworn to or affirmed by third parties having personal knowledge of the bona fides of the marital relationship. (Each affidavit must contain the full name and address, date and place of birth of the person making the affidavit, his or her relationship to the petitioner of beneficiary, if any, and complete information and details explaining how the person acquired his or her knowledge of your marriage); or

Any other relevant documentation to establish that there is an ongoing marital union.”

…scared me. I thought it was going to be over before we’d even began. We live in 2 separate countries…we’re after the visa so we can legally live together so we had no documents showing joint ownership of property, no joint tenancy, we don’t have joint bank accounts, we have no children together, we had to hope that the bottom 2 would be enough to carry us through.

Affidavits of Support

I drafted a template myself and got THREE people to fill it in (I repeat THREE, that seems to be the magic number). We used:

• 1) my partner’s sister…who was there when we met
• 2) My Mum…who I tell everything to
• 3) my partner’s best friend…who flew over to be Best Man at the wedding. That way we hoped that by showing that a friend had flown 4000 miles to be at the wedding, it had to be real!

i-130 Affidavit Sample Letter Template

Here’s an exact sample affiidavit of a bona fide marriage letter for immigration. Simply just fill in the upper case ‘brackets’ with your own details!

AFFIDAVIT OF BONA FIDE MARRIAGE

Name:

Date of Birth:

Place of Birth:

Citizenship:

To whom it may concern,

I, , residing at solemnly state and affirm as hereunder:

•That I am a citizen of the , and hold a current passport.

•That I was born on in

•That I am years of age, continue to reside in , and am lawfully employed as , by

•That this affidavit is being submitted on behalf of the following persons in support of their respective I-130 Petition for Alien Relative:

PETITIONER:

BENEFICIARY:

•

•That this affidavit is being made by me for the purpose of assuring the US Government that the persons named in item IV have an ongoing true and loving relationship that was entered in good faith, and is not for the purpose of circumventing immigration laws. They continue to demonstrate an ongoing sound, felicitous relationship and I have full confidence that their marriage will remain a lifetime commitment.

•That I acquired my knowledge of the relationship between the persons named in item IV in the following manner.

I swear under the pains and penalties of perjury that all of the information in this document is true and correct to the best of my own personal knowledge.

If you have any further questions or concerns, I am more than happy to be contacted on the details provided below.

Signed _________________________________ Date ________________

Email:

Cell:

Address:

We aimed to make it fit on just one standard page so it wasn’t a whole load of waffle.

“Affidavits sworn to or affirmed by third parties having personal knowledge of the bona fides of the marital relationship” …sounds VERY official, almost like you need to go and have it checked by some high up person or a judge or something.

I wrote the letter on my computer and then had our chosen people fill it in for me and sign it. We didn’t do anything special and this was excepted in our case!

Downloadable PDF i-30 Affidavit sample:

Other Relevant Documentation

This one took a while and ideally needs to be started as early as possible in the relationship. I created a timeline that pretty much documented our relationship from day one. Below are 2 sample pages of what our timeline looks like.

Things I included:

• Scans of passport stamps – hopefully they are clear and show the date of entry and the airport code. A passport is obviously a legal document.
• Screen grabs of FaceTime chat logs – to show how often we’d actually video call each other. I used the date list and included a few showing the length of some of the calls.
• Photos of us together from EACH time we visited – normal ‘selfies’ that clearly showed our faces, it’s good to show backgrounds that could show different times through a year, such as: pictures where it could be winter (snow and jackets on), summer (shorts and t-shirt), worldwide destinations that obviously aren’t where you live, in front of flags/signs etc (we had visited the Tower of London during the temporary ceramic poppy display)
• Anything that shows you have similar interests. We included Go-Karting results, photos of us snorkelling etc.
• Photos with each others family and friends. 10 of my partner’s friends and family came over to the UK a week before the wedding and me and my family took them round to see the sights. Everywhere we went we had a giant group shot in front of a land mark. I believe this is something that gets looked at…they like both people in the relationship to have met each others family.
• Facebook is your friend…every time you change a relationship status and people like/comment on it, take a screenshot, it showed that the people around you, support your relationship and are happy for you! Included random status updates and evidence of the public messages you sent to each other. Even better if they have the date on them too!
• Photos of gifts that you sent/received from each other

I explained everything I included with a short sentence and organised it all in date order. I am keeping this timeline update even after the i-130 has been accepted, I’ll take it with me when I have my interview at the London embassy just in case they ask for evidence.

I then had to include ANOTHER timeline when I applied to remove the 2 year conditions of my Green Card, but it wasn’t in as much detail as this. It’s still worth keeping ‘evidence’ in your mind, even after you’ve moved to America!

Please remember, I am not an immigration professional, the advise is based on my experience. This book was my lifeline…Fiancé and Marriage Visas: A Couple’s Guide to U.S. Immigration (Fiance and Marriage Visas)

Want to get all my visa tips and advice in one place?

You can find all of my USA Green Card application resources here: Our CR1 Spouse Visa Journey. I tried to document as much of the process as possible and answer all the questions that I had while going through the application, so hopefully you’ll find them useful!

About the Author – Kylie

My travels have taken me to over 40 countries worldwide (& I lived in USA for 4yrs). I hold a BTEC National Diploma in Travel & Tourism (triple distinction) and have been writing on Between England & Everywhere since 2015.

Expert in: Adventure travel 🎢 , beach destinations 🏖️ , and packing light (mid-budget backpacker) 🎒

Last Updated on April 29, 2024