Documents for Marriage Fraud Interview
"Stokes Interview"
If you are called into a marriage fraud interview, it is your burden to prove that your marriage is bona fide and not a sham just to get a green card.
The following may trigger suspicion of fraud:
- Petitioner and petitioner are of different race or national origin;
- Petitioner and petitioner have different addresses.
- The couple do not speak the same language.
- There is a big difference in age between the Petitioner and petitioner.
- They have a difference in the cultural and religious background.
- Great diffrence in in educational level between the couple
- The application was not properly prepared and may contain inconsistencies.
Understand that it’s not one of these factors that could trigger a marriage fraud
interview, but a combination of factors that leads the immigration examiner to
suspect that the marriage is not “bona fide.” It appears that the couple entered
into the marriage to evade the immigration laws.
Collect and make a photocopy of as many of the following items as possible. Do not send originals, but bring originals to the interview, along with a copy.
• joint bank accounts
• wedding invitations, church certificates, or other reliable documents that show the required
relationship
• joint club memberships
• joint credit card statements
• joint federal and state tax returns
• copies of actual credit cards, health insurance cards, or other "joint" cards that you have together,
showing same account number
• photographs of you and your spouse taken before and during your marriage, wedding photographs
preferably
those that include parents and other relatives from both families
• copies of letters between you
• phone bills showing your conversations
• auto registrations showing joint ownership and/or addresses
• rental agreements, leases, or mortgages indicating that you have lived together and/or have
leased or bought property in both spouses' names
• receipts for gifts that you have purchased for each other
• your mutual child's birth certificate or a doctor's report indicating that you are pregnant or that
you had a miscarriage.
• airline and hotel receipts showing trips that you have taken together
• letters from friends/family to each or both of you, addressed to where you live together
• utility bills in both your names or in either name showing the address that you both live.
• evidence that one spouse has made the other a beneficiary on his/her life or health insurance or
retirement account
• health, car or life insurance with your names on the policy
• car title or other titles to property showing joint ownership
• copies of holidays cards addressed to you both
• other family pictures of you together
• Joint investments
