If you are planning on coming to the United States to marry a U.S. citizen, one of the main pieces of supporting evidence you will need (in addition to your U.S. based partner) is the letter of intent to marry. There is a general outline for this letter that should be followed. This blog will go through the details of this letter so that when you present it to the USCIS officer, they will be able to legitimately tell if your marriage is sincere or not. The format of the letter also helps with any applicants fiancé visa case in terms of documenting the status of the relationship.
Here are some basic elements to include in the letter. We will also breakdown the main content of the letter below:
1. Full name (of the applicant)
2. Full address (foreign address)
3. Current phone number and/or email
4. The date the letter is being written
5. The intent to marry within 90 days (in some cases, various consulates will require the fiancé visa applicant to have an intent to marry within 30 or 60 days, so be sure to check the consulates details or call directly in order to have the correct information)
6. Longer statement on how the couple met, fell in love, proposed, and other in depth information about the relationship.
7. Possible statement about pregnancy/children (if applicable).
8. Signature.
Part five should be the introduction of the letter, and should no more than a few paragraphs. As a fiancé visa applicant, you should describe how you will be going to marry your partner when you get to the United States, with details about where you plan on having your wedding if you already know them. You can also keep this part brief by simply stating that once you are in the U.S. and have moved in with your U.S. counterpart, you will make an appointment with city hall to get married and receive your marriage certificate.
Meeting Statement
In the next section, you will go into more detail on how you actually met your partner in the U.S. Fiancé visa applicants will usually run into trouble here if they haven’t actually spent physical time with their partner in the U.S. Note that if you have not actually spent time with your partner in the U.S. you might have your fiancé visa application rejected and it will be difficult to write a legitimate letter of intent. There is a general rule for this type of visa that you should have spent some time with your fiancé in the immediate two years preceding your K-1 visa application.
In the meeting statement, you might describe a place where you first met your partner, if in the United States. Share personal details such as how you continued to date your partner, or the fact that you were both living in the same town at the time, or that you were both working in the same building. The stronger the tie, the more the consular officer will be able to determine that a real relationship was founded, and it wasn’t one that was forced or manipulated.
In this section, you might also strengthen your letter (for both parties) by talking about things you do together with your partner, cultures, customs, or religious practices that you both share in common, and how these shared interests helped in fostering a real relationship.
Child Planning
Additionally, although this is not required for the letter of intent, an optional section can be written discussing plans for having a child. Keep this section short if this is just an aspirational wish.
