Welcome to The Immigration Answers Show!
How helpful are letters when trying to prove that a marriage is valid? On this weeks episode we explore what you can do to make your letter some of the strongest evidence you can provide.
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Transcript
[0:00] This is the Immigration Answers Show episode number 23
[0:05] Welcome to the immigration answer show with your host immigration lawyer Jim Hacking.
In each episode Jim will answer your questions about the u.s. immigration system. Discover why the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, national public radio, and buzzfeed.com have all featured Jim and get the help you need navigating our complex immigration laws. Now onto the show.
[0:31] Welcome to the immigration answers show where we answer your immigration questions 3 days a week you’ve got questions and we’ll do our best to answer them every Monday Wednesday and Friday.
Now onto today’s question about the u.s. immigration system.
What information should I put in letters are affidavits from people that want to a test to our marriage being valid?
We handle a whole lot of spouse and fiance cases. In those cases sometimes our clients want to submit evidence above and beyond the financials and the photos and the documentation of a life together.
They ask us if we want to have a letter or an affidavit from a family member to explain to USCIS or the state department that our relationship is valid so the first thing to keep in mind is that this evidence is not particularly compelling. I don’t think that the immigration service sees this
as the most important evidence. If I had to give a hierarchy of evidence of course the best evidence of a valid marriage is a child with both parents on the birth certificate.
After that, the main thing that they’re concerned about is the commingling of assets, so they want to see documentation that you have incurred debt together, spent money together, have joined your money together, that you’re living together, that you’re incurring the bills that a normal married couple would have.
[1:45] But in the event that you want to submit evidence like this though we’re talking about today affidavits or letters I do have some important things to keep in mind number 1 is that you dont want it to be an affidavit and a letter signed by someone that may or may not even be a real person.
It is not very compelling to the immigration service I was in an interview a couple weeks ago in Memphis Tennessee and the officer said I don’t necessarily put any wait into the letters that people bring to me they could have been written by you could have been written by your lawyer I don’t really put much stock in it but I think that be harder to do.
It was an affidavit if the if the information provided by the person writing the letter of the affidavit
put it in writing and put it under oath in front of a notary that means they’re sworn to tell the truth, and that means that the letter should carry more weight so I think an affidavit would actually carry more weight than just a plain old letter. An affidavit is simply a written statement that is sworn to under penalty of perjury that is that you swear to tell the truth.
And what should you put in the affidavit? Well the first thing you want to do is going to have identifying information for the person providing the affidavit you want to have.
The person who’s writing at explain who they are what their full legal name is what their address is and their contact information because in theory usas could contact the person in,
verify what’s in the affidavit so you want to make it easy for the officer or at least show that you’re not scared to have them go contact the person who wrote to the affidavit.
[3:16] This piece of information that you’re going to have them put his their immigration status so it’s probably best to have an affidavit from someone who’s a US citizen or green card holder.
The next thing to keep in mind if you want to have someone who’s known you for awhile at least known one member of the couple for a while.
And they want to explain their knowledge the basis of their knowledge and how they know you what they know about you how long they’ve known you those kinds of things and then they want to talk about the foreign National how they were introduced to the for National Forest.
They’ve always on the for National and they’re just getting to meet this US citizen they want to explain what they’ve observed at they can’t just say I think this is a great couple.
And I think you should give him a green card now know what you want them to do is start and give examples of how they seen you two together.
How they seen you spend time together how they seen you interact together if they seen you fight that’s not so bad either because that’s what married couples sometimes do so.
Anything in there that can give it some flavor that can let the officer see that this is not just some regular old affidavit that this is like a form printed off the internet.
Those kinds of things are going to be helpful in the last thing you might want to have him do as is regardless of whether they knew the citizen longer or the beneficiary longer is to have them.
[4:26] Explain their feelings for the beneficiary explain why they think this is a good person why they think they should get an immigration benefit why you think they’d be a good lawful permanent resident United States.
And then you can even invite them to contact you if they feel the need I think those are all the great things put in the affidavit and then once it’s written up.
You’re going to want to take it to a notary public so notary public is someone who is authorized by the state that you live in to give.
Oats or do you receive those sent it to make people swear things under penalty of perjury so you have the notarized that they’ll put a little stamp on it and that’s going to go a long way towards making the evidence a little bit more compelling.
We hope you found this immigration answer interesting and helpful we look forward to answering more of your questions in the future.
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[5:35] Thanks for listening to the immigration answer show with Jim hacking be sure to visit us on the web at immigration answers show.com if you have an immigration related question please send us an email.
Questions at immigration answers show.com we look forward to serving you on our next episode and remember the answers provided on the show are of a general nature,
the show does not constitute legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed,
if you have specific questions about your situation be sure to consult with an experienced immigration lawyer.