Welcome to your complimentary guide on how to prove your relationship to immigration.
I'm so excited you're here because this video will go over a lot of really important information
that you should know in terms of collecting relationship evidence to prove your immigration
case. If you happen to be watching this video on our YouTube channel or other social media outlets,
please know that this video actually has a free downloadable PDF guide that goes over all of this
information in writing and in even more detail. You can download that guide on our website at
immigrationforcouples.com under our resource tab. But if you are here now on our website and
you've already downloaded that guide, you are on a really great start to your immigration journey
because the guide and this video tutorial is going to review, as I mentioned, a ton
of important information that you need to know for your immigration journey. You're probably watching
this video because you're either engaged or married and you're ready to start the immigration
process and start that next chapter of your lives together in the United States.
In any immigration case for couples, one of the requirements is that you prove to immigration
that you have a real relationship which is referred to as a bona fide relationship. It
is your burden as the applicant to prove to immigration that your relationship is real.
By real, I mean that your relationship is based on love and not just to receive an immigration
benefit. Immigration has a couple different categories of evidence that they are looking
for when they review your application and that is what we're going to review here in detail today.
Please know that immigration has a bit of a cookie-cutter way of
how they look at relationships but what I love about being able to work with couples
and in the realm of immigration and frankly our entire team here at Immigration for Couples,
we love our jobs because every case is different and it is our job to be able to
help our couples to prove their relationships to immigration and it's just wonderful because
every couple, every person has their own unique story. That is really what you need to do with
your immigration case is show your unique story of love to immigration. Without further ado,
I would like to go ahead and jump into those main categories of evidence that immigration
is looking for. The first category of evidence is proof that the two of you are living together.
Some great ideas of relationship evidence to prove you were living together would include
a joint lease, a purchase, a title to a home, identification driver's license, and things of
that nature with a shared address. Bills with a shared address and that's just to name a few. Our
relationship evidence guide that you can download on our website again at immigrationforcouples.com
will have an even more detailed list that you can review. I know you might be thinking,
"I'm applying for a fiancé visa" or "We're going through the spouse visa process and we
don't live together yet" That makes sense that that is common. Unfortunately, not everyone is
able to live in the same country together while they're going through an immigration process
and immigration is aware of that. If you don't have proof that you're living together,
then other evidence that you would want to include would be proof that you are
visiting one another. Plane tickets or passport stamps or tickets for things
and activities that you have done together. Just proof that you've been in each other's presence.
Another category of evidence that immigration looks for is something called commingling of
finances. Fancy way of saying they want to see that you have joint finances, joint credit card
bills, joint bank statements, life insurance that names each other as a designated beneficiary.
Again, that's just a few examples. Now, I know for those of you who are going through the fiancé visa
process, you're not married yet so it makes sense that you might not have those items together.
If that is the case, again that's something that immigration is aware of. That you're not yet
married and there will be a whole other step in the fiancé visa process in the future once you are
married. At that time, you'll probably have those joint finances. But for right now, if you don't
have joint finances and you're going through the fiancé visa process, don't panic. That's
really common. I know a lot of individuals have a belief that if they're going through the fiancé
visa process, they need to find a way to apply for a credit card together and things of that nature.
But with the fiancé visa, you're really going to be focusing on other categories of evidence.
I could talk about that all day and I have a lot of other videos on the fiancé visa. But I just
wanted to note that in general, immigration is looking for commingling of finances. But it's
common in a fiancé visa context that you might not have that yet. There are other categories
of evidence which I will talk about now that you would want to focus on more for the fiancé visa.
Another category of evidence is proof of communication so that sounds that's pretty clear,
right? A proof of communication; text messages, emailing one another, there's so many different
applications that couples use to keep in communication especially if they're
living separately and sometimes another part of this can kind of overlap into the final category
of evidence that I would like to go over which is what I refer to as kind of the lovey-dovey mushy
sentimental evidence. That's photos together, letters that maybe you write one another. I always
love to see couples who still do handwritten notes to one another and might leave it you know
in hidden places for one another to find or card celebrating anniversaries and birthdays or maybe
cards that you've even received from other family and friends and that would also include letters of
support from friends and family as well just talking about your relationship and how you
met and the progression of your relationship. Those are the main categories of relationship
evidence and some things that you would want to make sure you're including. Again, we highly
recommend, if you haven't already done so, that you go to immigrationforcouples.com and download
that complimentary resource on how to prove your relationship to immigration so your case isn't
denied. In that guide we also talk about common red flags and the fraud investigation unit and
other really important things that you should know about proving your relationship to immigration.
The guide is several pages long because it's just so much information that I couldn't include
everything in a video. But I have gone over those main categories and some important evidence that
you should really include in your application again as it is your burden to show immigration
that you have a real relationship. Thank you so much for watching, I really hope that you found
all of this information helpful and best of luck with your immigration journey.