Question

[Shae]

Good morning,

I am confused on something and can use some clarification.

If as a US Citizen, i am filing for my husband (I-130, I-485 and I-765) and stating that i make enough money to be financially responsible for him. How can i expedite the EAD on the grounds that him not working is causing me financial hardship. Would that mess me up when i go to my interview for the GC?

[Tezza]

Good morning,

I am confused on something and can use some clarification.

If as a US Citizen, i am filing for my husband (I-130, I-485 and I-765) and stating that i make enough money to be financially responsible for him. How can i expedite the EAD on the grounds that him not working is causing me financial hardship. Would that mess me up when i go to my interview for the GC?

I can't say for 100%, but I'm sure that you wouldn't get the expedite approved on that basis. Since, you will prove to them with your I-864 that you're able to support him, you wouldn't be able to claim financial hardship, it just doesn't make any sense. I can see that request getting denied personally.

It seems they're very strict on expediting the EAD and the reasons why, so if that works, you'd be very lucky.

Someone else may be able to offer a more concrete line of information though. Good luck with it anyway.

[pantherwindy]

Good morning,

I am confused on something and can use some clarification.

If as a US Citizen, i am filing for my husband (I-130, I-485 and I-765) and stating that i make enough money to be financially responsible for him. How can i expedite the EAD on the grounds that him not working is causing me financial hardship. Would that mess me up when i go to my interview for the GC?

First your husband needs a job offer to prove that without working permit he will loss the job opportunity and causes financial loss to your family. Then you guys need to call uscis level 2 to ask for expedite. They will ask you to fax the financial prove. After that, you should call the congressman in your district to watch your case. It could torture you 1-3 months to get it done. I won't do that if I don't have a job offer

[Tezza]

First your husband needs a job offer to prove that without working permit he will loss the job opportunity and causes financial loss to your family. Then you guys need to call uscis level 2 to ask for expedite. They will ask you to fax the financial prove. After that, you should call the congressman in your district to watch your case. It could torture you 1-3 months to get it done. I won't do that if I don't have a job offer

It seems they're getting tougher on the reasoning for expediting the EADs. Having a simple job offer doesn't seem to cut it right now based on comments from others on the forum. And how can you say that without his job it will cause financial loss to the family, when this person is the I-864 sponsor. It may hurt them to claim this considering they're supposed to have the ability to be financially responsible for the beneficiary. It's very risky in my opinion.

By all means, have a go at doing what pantherwindy recommended but my two cents, if it was me, I wouldn't do that. But each to their own of course. Hopefully others can give their input and we can gather a general consensus on the idea.

[ember]

Expedite?

Good morning,

I am confused on something and can use some clarification.

If as a US Citizen, i am filing for my husband (I-130, I-485 and I-765) and stating that i make enough money to be financially responsible for him. How can i expedite the EAD on the grounds that him not working is causing me financial hardship. Would that mess me up when i go to my interview for the GC?

So we recently did a request to expedite that was approved (I'm USC, filing for my non-USC spouse) and we ended up getting it in under 3 months total. BUT our situation was a bit different than yours, I imagine.

I was finishing grad school & he was OPT, so he was the one working and making money. His OPT was set to expire this month & we filed in Feb, thinking that 105 days would be enough for the EAD, but very quickly realized that the process had gotten so bogged down we were looking at something like 5 months. We used his income on the I-864 as the intending immigrant spouse. So in April, after he got his second warning email that he would have to be terminated when his OPT expired without new docs, we put in our request. Basically we called and asked for them to expedite on the basis of personal financial hardship. When they asked for evidence, we sent them the email, an official signed letter from HR, a letter from his boss about how important he is to the team, and I wrote a cover letter that explained that our family needs his income, because he supports himself & his family here.

NOW. We did this *because* we used his income, rather than mine (we didn't do joint sponsor - we can if they ask but technically they should not, even though they often do, I know), so it's not really the same risk, since they're aware of my paltry summer salaries which don't meet the 125% requirement.

All in all it was effective and we had EAD in hand 05/11 (Filing date is 2/20). Like others have said, you have to weigh the risk. If you can get a joint sponsor, I personally think that it's an okay risk to take. They would not deny you, but it could slow you down, you might get RFE'd, etc. So it depends on how urgent it is that your spouse work. And honestly if they ask about it, I would point out that the sponsor requirements are, realistically, poverty level (125% of the federal level, but in real-life terms, that level is lower) and that you can have financial hardship while being above that level. Especially if your lifestyle makes a sudden financial change very challenging to adapt to (i.e. if you & your spouse are both making 50K/year, you are WELL above the 125% but losing half your household income would still be a HUGE financial loss).

Since they are getting stricter with expedite requests for EADs, if you choose to request one I recommend focusing on the financial hardship to the *family* (doesn't matter if you have kids, pets, a bonsai plant, or none of the above - a family of two is still a family!!) and emphasize that your spouse will be terminated, that his employer needs him, and that losing his income would cause financial hardship to you & to your family, in addition to him.

At least, it worked for me. Maybe - who knows, could have also been nothing we did and we just got put into the right pile that day!

Either way, good luck!

[Shae]

thank you for all of the feedback. I wasn't talking about my case specifically.......we are still waiting.

I see alot of people are expediting their EAD due to financial loss in the family, so i was asking if we are sponsoring that person, will that mess up things at the interview if we