Well my wife and I received a wonderful update from USCIS via mail today.
Read the letters yourself. The first letter is addressed to me. The first point is because I renewed by passport at some point. The new one they are asking for is my new passport. The second point was a little scary at first but after looking at my award letter it said nothing about having to be a US citizen/perm resident. Keep in mind that this is a private scholarship from a private university. I was interested by what they meant by "publicly available information". Well I searched online and lo and behold my school now lists that as a requirement for the scholarship. The issue that USCIS did not consider though is that may be true now but not 2 years ago when I was awarded this scholarship. From the day that I set foot at my school I have been an international student paying international rate (besides that scholarship). And the admissions staff knows about this and so does financial aid (in fact the officer that handle's my wife's and I's case can testify to this). In my original application I listed my then current immigration status as "pending AOS" which was correct for the time because back then I was a beneficiary to a now denied case of my mother.
The second letter was addressed to my wife. They basically intend to deny her petition because we failed to establish a spousal relationship. They said we needed insurance policies, property leases etc... We did submit two rental agreements, last year’s income tax forms, a shared bank account (with shared use), shared credit cards, shared utilities, cell phone, wedding pictures, official transcripts from the same school and 4 testimonies from friends (including our sponsor). My wife also transferred from her previous school into mine.
In this second letter they cite examples of why they intend to deny her petition. Their first point is a technicality. It is true that we lived with our parents while married before January 2007 but we omited her address at the dormitory because we did not consider that a residence. Besides the weekdays my wife lived with her parents, received mail at her parents. We did not lye we just didn't consider it as a "home". Also they said that our parents do not know about the marriage. This is true for her parents (we are not ready to tell them yet) but my parents fully know about this and support us (my mom loves my wife, calls my wife her youngest daughter).
The other point is that we have never "shared a bonafide marital residence". This is utter bullcrap, we lived in a single bedroom apartment together for 6 months (Jan - June 2007). At the end of the school year a few of our old high school friends approached us and asked if we would like to rent a big apartment together. After running through the bills we realized that we would save about $400 a month. We did that and we have our own room. Who are they to say this isn't a bonafied marital residence. We love each other and we like to live like this. Plus they are good friends and we felt alienated from the school at the apartment (also that area was a very dangerous area, a girl from our school was recently robbed and severely attacked there)
They go on to say that we do not have enough financial support and dismisses our shared expense because we don't have the income to back it up. While that may be true we did have $8000 saved up from marriage gifts and my personal savings. We lived on that money until this past summer. I worked during the summer full time and currently work part time and jenny receives grants + loans to cover some of the expenses. And yes we have a lot of debt because of this (student loans). Also why do we need "joint marital income" per say. We have a sponsor doesn’t that cover the income requirement for adjustment of status?
Their last point is a mistake by her father. Last year we explicitly told her father "please don't claim your daughter as a dependent". Apparently he did not and we didn't realize up until now. We've already spoke with her father and we will do a correction to his 2006 return. We submitted a joint return that year. We will also be doing her parent’s return this year just to make sure.
I thought our case would be straight forward, that is why I did all of this myself. But clearly they want to play hard ball and this is a game beyond my league. I've already made an appointment to see a lawyer on Monday. Let’s see what she has to say.
I was surprised that USCIS actually went out of their way to find all of this information. Actually went to my school's website to check on the scholarship eligibility and requested her parent's 2006 return from the IRS. But I'm confident we will prevail. Every single point that they made can be refuted. We did not do anything illegal. They are just picking a fight and bulling someone in a difficult situation. My wife and I struggle to pay the bills and go to school, we can't work full time and paying for this lawyer is going to kill us. We're probably going to have to take out a loan....
Read the letters yourself. The first letter is addressed to me. The first point is because I renewed by passport at some point. The new one they are asking for is my new passport. The second point was a little scary at first but after looking at my award letter it said nothing about having to be a US citizen/perm resident. Keep in mind that this is a private scholarship from a private university. I was interested by what they meant by "publicly available information". Well I searched online and lo and behold my school now lists that as a requirement for the scholarship. The issue that USCIS did not consider though is that may be true now but not 2 years ago when I was awarded this scholarship. From the day that I set foot at my school I have been an international student paying international rate (besides that scholarship). And the admissions staff knows about this and so does financial aid (in fact the officer that handle's my wife's and I's case can testify to this). In my original application I listed my then current immigration status as "pending AOS" which was correct for the time because back then I was a beneficiary to a now denied case of my mother.
The second letter was addressed to my wife. They basically intend to deny her petition because we failed to establish a spousal relationship. They said we needed insurance policies, property leases etc... We did submit two rental agreements, last year’s income tax forms, a shared bank account (with shared use), shared credit cards, shared utilities, cell phone, wedding pictures, official transcripts from the same school and 4 testimonies from friends (including our sponsor). My wife also transferred from her previous school into mine.
In this second letter they cite examples of why they intend to deny her petition. Their first point is a technicality. It is true that we lived with our parents while married before January 2007 but we omited her address at the dormitory because we did not consider that a residence. Besides the weekdays my wife lived with her parents, received mail at her parents. We did not lye we just didn't consider it as a "home". Also they said that our parents do not know about the marriage. This is true for her parents (we are not ready to tell them yet) but my parents fully know about this and support us (my mom loves my wife, calls my wife her youngest daughter).
The other point is that we have never "shared a bonafide marital residence". This is utter bullcrap, we lived in a single bedroom apartment together for 6 months (Jan - June 2007). At the end of the school year a few of our old high school friends approached us and asked if we would like to rent a big apartment together. After running through the bills we realized that we would save about $400 a month. We did that and we have our own room. Who are they to say this isn't a bonafied marital residence. We love each other and we like to live like this. Plus they are good friends and we felt alienated from the school at the apartment (also that area was a very dangerous area, a girl from our school was recently robbed and severely attacked there)
They go on to say that we do not have enough financial support and dismisses our shared expense because we don't have the income to back it up. While that may be true we did have $8000 saved up from marriage gifts and my personal savings. We lived on that money until this past summer. I worked during the summer full time and currently work part time and jenny receives grants + loans to cover some of the expenses. And yes we have a lot of debt because of this (student loans). Also why do we need "joint marital income" per say. We have a sponsor doesn’t that cover the income requirement for adjustment of status?
Their last point is a mistake by her father. Last year we explicitly told her father "please don't claim your daughter as a dependent". Apparently he did not and we didn't realize up until now. We've already spoke with her father and we will do a correction to his 2006 return. We submitted a joint return that year. We will also be doing her parent’s return this year just to make sure.
I thought our case would be straight forward, that is why I did all of this myself. But clearly they want to play hard ball and this is a game beyond my league. I've already made an appointment to see a lawyer on Monday. Let’s see what she has to say.
I was surprised that USCIS actually went out of their way to find all of this information. Actually went to my school's website to check on the scholarship eligibility and requested her parent's 2006 return from the IRS. But I'm confident we will prevail. Every single point that they made can be refuted. We did not do anything illegal. They are just picking a fight and bulling someone in a difficult situation. My wife and I struggle to pay the bills and go to school, we can't work full time and paying for this lawyer is going to kill us. We're probably going to have to take out a loan....
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