letters of support, relationship evidence for the I-130 spouse petition for fiancé visa
applications and for adjustment status applications is something
that's very important to include. I would really like to go over with all of you
what letters of support are, what the letters of support should include, who can write them and
all of the common questions that we are receiving about letters of support so you know exactly what
you should be doing on that front when you're including letters of support with your application.
To back up for those of you who are maybe just starting your immigration journey,
if you are filing an application for your spouse or your fiancé for their green card,
part of that process is showing immigration that you have a real relationship based on
love and not just to receive an immigration benefit. To show immigration that you have
a real relationship based on love, you have to provide evidence and proof of your relationship.
One type of evidence is letters of support. It's really important
to have a mix of relationship evidence, lots of different kinds, but I'm just going to talk about
letters of support specifically. Some people refer to these as
sworn affidavits or affidavits of support. We like to call them letters of support because
affidavits of support is an actual immigration form that is for financial information. I just
wanted to give those other terms in case you've heard affidavit of support, sworn affidavit
or letters of support. A letter of support is someone else who knows you, a
friend, a family member that knows you and your fiancé or you and your spouse is a couple.
They've seen you together, maybe they've gone to dinner with you but they know about you and
they know your relationship is real and so they can write a letter explaining what they have seen
in terms of your relationship and that your relationship is a real relationship based on
love. That is what a letter of support is and again, it's part of the relationship
evidence that we include with fiancé visa petition, spouse visa petitions, and adjustment of status.
What should letters of support include? This is a really popular question people will ask, "Is there
a template? Can you give us a sample?" When we have all of our clients, we give them
a long document list of things that we want so we can prove their relationship to immigration.
A lot of times people ask, "Can you give us a sample letter so people who are writing letters
know what to write?" We purposefully do not give clients or anyone a template because what happens
when you give somebody a template is that they usually will all end up looking the same.
The number one rule of what a letter of support should include is unique information. Something different
than all of the other letters. You don't want them to all look the same. If all of your letters of
support look the same, it doesn't look real. It looks like you're creating evidence.
Maybe that's not the case at all. That's not what you're doing but you definitely want to make sure
that the letters of support look different. By that I mean each person who knows you, maybe you
have a grandparent or a parent or a friend that would write letters, they all have a unique way of
how they explain things, they all have something unique that they know about you as a couple.
We give clients some general information of what the letter should include
but let the person who's writing a letter do their own thing and be creative and tell what they know
about you. The letter of support should definitely include the person's full name, that is
writing the letter, the person's full address if they are a lawful permanent resident or a United
States citizen, they should put that in the letter as well. They don't have they don't have to be a
United States citizen or lawful permanent resident. It's helpful to have a few letters from people
who are though. The letter of support should also be sworn to or notarized
The instructions don't specifically say you have to have the letters notarized but we
know that immigration officers prefer that the letter is notarized to prove yes, this person
really was the one that gave the statement. This really is their identity. Those are some
of the main things and then the other thing the letter of support should include, like I mentioned
earlier, are unique things about you as a couple. The letter doesn't have to be terribly long
We're not looking for a book. A paragraph or two would do the
trick. Things that they know about you that are unique. For example, "I know Johnny
-if it's a grandmother- I know my grandson Johnny, he went and recently visited his fiancée
in France and they have known each other for three years. She has come here and visited. I've
gotten to meet her. We went to dinner." Those are the kind of things that they are looking for
just to see that yes, this person knows who you are and can tell information about your relationship.
I mentioned already who can write letters of support.
Anyone who knows you and knows not just you but you as a couple. Family,
parents, grandparents, friends, and family members from both sides of the family.
It doesn't just have to be from the petitioner, the United States citizen or lawful permanent resident.
This seems to be a very popular question, "How many should I submit? How many letters of
support should I include?" Everybody seems to think that they might have a magic number
you should submit five or three. What I will tell you is it really just depends. We usually ask
our clients try to get about two to three, that is good. You want to be careful in immigration
that's a whole separate topic not to have an over-submission which means you submit so much evidence
it seems like you're trying to over-prove something and you don't want to submit too little
because then you will get a request for evidence and that can delay the case.
Again, there isn't a magic number but two to three is a good rule of thumb. It's also
important to understand the reason that I say it depends is that each couple, each relationship
is unique and what we do with our couples is we tell their story of love. It will really depend
on your story of love how many letters would be a good amount. It also depends on what other
relationship evidence that you have. A lot of people tend to gravitate towards "I should have
tons of photos and tons of letters of support." It's good to have photos and letters of support
but in terms of relationship evidence, immigration considers certain evidence stronger and some other
evidence weaker. Letters of support and photos are on that lower end, that weaker
end. Usually, an application that only has photos and letters of support, that would not be enough.
And by weak, I don't mean you shouldn't include them. Immigration's
perspective is that letters of support and photos are things that people can make
but they want to see other types of relationship evidence depending on your case type. That
could be financial, commingling of finances, joint accounts, travel together. We have a
whole relationship guide on our website that you can download and a relationship evidence
class so check that out if you want more details about other types of evidence but that is
basically the letters of support component of the application.