Affidavit of Support

This is one of the areas that we see the most issues that people have during their petitioning process and the Affidavit of Support would come sometimes at different stages but it’s along with some type of a petition for an immigrant to come and stay in the United States and the reason behind that is because there is what’s called a public charge of inadmissibility.

In the Affidavit of Support, you are attesting to your income, assets, and past income in order to suffice with the government and satisfy their interest in making sure that that immigrant, when they come over, is not going to fall on the taxpayer’s burden. You basically are attesting that you have sufficient means to provide for this person to be in your household, therefore it has to be above the poverty.

You can find what USCIS designates as their poverty level on their website and that will give you an idea of the income levels which goes up as the number of people in your household go up and every person that you’ve petitioned for or co-sponsored for a joint sponsor for would be then included in your household up to a certain date or time.

See: 2022 HHS Poverty Guidelines for Affidavit of Support

This would be most in line with any adjustment of status or spousal petition and not the fiance petition. Although they’re very similar, it’s a different form for a fiance visa that you would use to support income but the I-864 would need to be filled out by the petitioner even if the petitioner is unemployed and you’re going to need a joint sponsor; you still have to provide all of that documentation.

If you were to get a joint sponsor or even two co-sponsors, then each of those people would have to have a form an I-864 filled out for their income in their household and all of those supporting documents. However, you’re going to support that if you’ve got assets, you’ll have to support those in a different way.

What if both the US citizen petitioner and the spouse are living abroad?

You are still going to have to satisfy that public charge of inadmissibility. You’re going to be a little bit more creative so it’s definitely something that you’d want to talk with somebody who is experienced in doing the Affidavit of Support. If you are a US citizen, even if you are working abroad or living abroad, the US is going to still expect that you have paid taxes.

In trying to figure out who you’ve been working for and whether or not you owe taxes and that kind of thing is something you’d want to talk with a CPA or somebody that does taxes as well as have that discussion with your attorney just so that they are aware and they can definitely try to highlight any joint sponsorship needs before you end up at a consulate for an interview and get turned away because you might need a joint sponsor sometimes re-making those interview appointments or supplying documents to a consulate after the fact is more problematic.

USCIS had a recent announcement that they are redesigning the green card and work authorization. They announced this on January 30, 2023 and the green card will contain new security features. This is something they do with some regularity every three to five years or so.

See: USCIS Redesigns Green Card and Employment Authorization Document

It does not mean that if you hold an older green card, that would be then invalid. Your card would remain valid even if it’s the old style for as long as either the expiration date or if there’s some extension or some other type of notice from USCIS as long as it is a valid green card then it would remain valid.

Additionally, not everyone is going to be issued one of those new cards quite yet. They are still going to be using some of that old stock to make sure that they use that up and then they will all be switching to that newer designed style.