5 Common Marriage Based Green Card Mistakes - From a Former USCIS Officer and Supervisor
For today’s entry, a short but important topic I get asked about a lot. There are a lot of misconceptions about what USCIS looks for, and what it doesn’t, in determining whether a legitimate marriage exists for green card purposes. Below are 5 common mistakes applicants make:
1) Oversharing: There’s a great story journalist Tanvi Misra wrote here about some of the crazy experiences USCIS officers have had with materials, and uh, unmentionables, that applicants have sent in to show proof of their legitimate love and marriage. A lot of this comes from the understandable anxiety of trying to convince complete strangers of the most intimate details of your life, with the extreme consequences hanging over your head if you fail to do so. But when you submit mountainous evidence or what appear to be staged evidence (awkward photos or text chains), you actually begin to arouse more suspicion for officers. Even if you do not have a long history together, you are much better off providing a small amount of genuine evidence rather than trying to create more proof than actually exists.
2) Finances: Absent a shared child together, comingling of finances is the strongest evidence you can provide of a legitimate marriage in the Agency’s eye. And it’s important to understand what “comingling” truly means. It is shared assets and liabilities, not simply adding someone to a lease or as an authorized user on a credit card. You should be able to show shared investments, bank accounts, mortgage, shared ownership of a vehicle, ect. If you aren’t able to do some of these things due to cost, then look for other ways such as adding the spouse as a beneficiary on a life insurance policy.
3) Lack of Preparation: Do not go into your USCIS interview assuming it will be easy or short. Even if you feel that you have submitted strong supporting evidence, always prepare for a detailed and tough interviewing officer. This means spend time going over details of each other’s lives that you may have not spent time thinking of: college/high school, family, old friends, ect. It also means start thinking of what are seemingly stupid, everyday details of your lives an officer will expect you to know. Do you know what color your spouse’s toothbrush is? Do you both have matching front door keys? Things like this can trip up long-term, legitimate couples and can snowball from there in the interview.
4) Not Understanding Sponsorship: Whether you are using an attorney or not, this part of the process is very confusing. In fact, by far the most common RFE (request for evidence) I sent as an officer was for applicants that did not properly fill out form I-864 or did not meet the requirements for financially supporting the intending immigrant. Make sure before you begin the process you understand what your spouse or sponsor need to meet the requirements and what supporting evidence must be provided.
5) Missing Translations: Much like #4 above, I saw many cases get RFE’d and even denied due to applicants not doing a rather simple, but necessary thing: translate any foreign language documents. Anything you have that you want to submit, be it a birth certificate or marriage dissolution in another language than English, must be accompanied by a certified translation. While USCIS will generally issue an RFE if this is missing allowing you a chance to get the translation and submit it, this can cause a major delay not only in getting your interview scheduled, but also halting issuance of your work permit (EAD) or travel document (AP) if you applied for those.
