Are bank statements required to prove your relationship for your immigration case?
The answer is it depends. That’s a famous attorney go-to but it really does depend.
Part of the immigration process if you’re married to a United States citizen is showing immigration that you have a real relationship based on love and not just to receive an immigration benefit. They have different categories of evidence they’re looking for sentimental evidence; photos and letters you’ve written one another. But financial evidence, specifically what they call commingling of finances, is something that they will look for as well.
One of the types of evidence to show that you have combined your finances are joint bank statements. In reality, if you have a joint bank account that you use together, that’s great evidence. But we always tell couples that we work with that we want to use your particular situation, we want you to do you and your immigration case.
We’ve seen couples who go out and open a joint bank account but don’t actually use it. That can actually be very harmful to your case. If you don’t have joint bank account statements, you’ll have to be prepared to explain to immigration why that is but you can if you opt to not have joint accounts.
There are other ways you can show commingling of finances such as a retirement account and then you have your spouse listed as a beneficiary or perhaps you’ve taken out a loan together and you’re both equally responsible, and to pay that loan back.
