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Hi all,
I am currently in F1 OPT status, married to a USC. We are getting ready to start the process of applying for AOS (i-130 and i-485). One of the hurdles that we have to overcome are the requirements for i-864 affidavit of financial support. I have some general, and some specific questions about this form:
1)We are planning to file around January 15, so that would mean we can use tax/income information from 2018 (W2s), but would that be okay if we haven't filed our taxes for 2018 yet (deadline is April, after all)?
2) Here is the tricky bit - my wife works for hourly wage, not annual salary, so her employer letter won't list a total sum for 2019. Are we supposed to just guesstimate (multiple hourly wage by hours and by weeks) - will that be enough?
3) It gets worse - she makes just under the 125% threshold of $20,750. Let's say she makes $19,500. We can't use my income because I am on OPT and my job contract is for one year only. But I think we can use assets - we have a joint checking account that has about $12k in it, but we only started this account after we got married in August 2018 (no 12 month record). We do have some extra money in separate checking accounts and in total we can show a consistent balance of ~$15k between the two of us over the last year. So that should be enough to cover 3x the gap between the threshold and her income...but I'm worried they might focus on the fact that our joint account doesn't show that over a period of 12 months. Is using assets to fulfill the income requirement a safe strategy? Am I overthinking this, or should we play it safe and also use a joint sponsor? See 4.
4) If we go with the joint sponsor route, her parents have already agreed to help, but the process seems a little confusing. Again, playing it safe, they would both fill out a 864 and a 864A (even though just one of their incomes would be enough, but they file their taxes jointly). To prove their income, we would need copies of their passports, and tax transcripts from last year (bringing me back to point 1 - if they haven't filed their 2018 taxes because it's January, would that be a problem?). One of them is self-employed and does not receive a W2, so how would that person indicate and prove their projected income for 2019?
I would appreciate any input on these questions. It all looked so simple at first, but then the details made it way more complicated.
I guess the main question is - should we not bother with the joint sponsor thing, and simply file the 864 with proof of her $19,5k in W2s from last year, a letter from her employer stating that she works full-time and gets paid $13 per hour, and bank statements from the past 3 months showing joint account balance of $12k + $5k in individual accounts. Would that be a safe strategy?
Thank you in advance for the ideas and advice!
I am currently in F1 OPT status, married to a USC. We are getting ready to start the process of applying for AOS (i-130 and i-485). One of the hurdles that we have to overcome are the requirements for i-864 affidavit of financial support. I have some general, and some specific questions about this form:
1)We are planning to file around January 15, so that would mean we can use tax/income information from 2018 (W2s), but would that be okay if we haven't filed our taxes for 2018 yet (deadline is April, after all)?
2) Here is the tricky bit - my wife works for hourly wage, not annual salary, so her employer letter won't list a total sum for 2019. Are we supposed to just guesstimate (multiple hourly wage by hours and by weeks) - will that be enough?
3) It gets worse - she makes just under the 125% threshold of $20,750. Let's say she makes $19,500. We can't use my income because I am on OPT and my job contract is for one year only. But I think we can use assets - we have a joint checking account that has about $12k in it, but we only started this account after we got married in August 2018 (no 12 month record). We do have some extra money in separate checking accounts and in total we can show a consistent balance of ~$15k between the two of us over the last year. So that should be enough to cover 3x the gap between the threshold and her income...but I'm worried they might focus on the fact that our joint account doesn't show that over a period of 12 months. Is using assets to fulfill the income requirement a safe strategy? Am I overthinking this, or should we play it safe and also use a joint sponsor? See 4.
4) If we go with the joint sponsor route, her parents have already agreed to help, but the process seems a little confusing. Again, playing it safe, they would both fill out a 864 and a 864A (even though just one of their incomes would be enough, but they file their taxes jointly). To prove their income, we would need copies of their passports, and tax transcripts from last year (bringing me back to point 1 - if they haven't filed their 2018 taxes because it's January, would that be a problem?). One of them is self-employed and does not receive a W2, so how would that person indicate and prove their projected income for 2019?
I would appreciate any input on these questions. It all looked so simple at first, but then the details made it way more complicated.
I guess the main question is - should we not bother with the joint sponsor thing, and simply file the 864 with proof of her $19,5k in W2s from last year, a letter from her employer stating that she works full-time and gets paid $13 per hour, and bank statements from the past 3 months showing joint account balance of $12k + $5k in individual accounts. Would that be a safe strategy?
Thank you in advance for the ideas and advice!
