The applicant and the U.S. citizen spouse had lived apart for long periods because of school and work, and had not lived together more than 90% of the time.

With a long-distance relationship and very little time living together, proving the marriage was genuine was difficult.

We used evidence of ongoing contact, including round-trip plane tickets, lodging records, and message screenshots, to show the relationship was real, assembled a tailored evidence package, and ran mock interviews.

The work permit was approved in less than a month and the green card on the day of the interview, with no RFE over the full 7 months (filed 3/13 · work permit approved 4/11 · interview and green card approval 10/15).