Initial Green Card Interview

[icee 0]

Hi Guys,

Tomorrow we have our initial green card interview and we just received our co-sponsors' (both husband and wife) tax returns for 2010 along with their work letters. We've seem to have run into a bit of a problem with that though, as this past year they didn't quite make enough money to be co-sponsors (though they did before) and both of their work letters don't have all the required information in them (weekly, monthly and yearly pay information). The one work letter at least states their hourly wage, as the other just states how valuable they are to the company (though due to lake of work right now has been laid off until middle of March). We're not sure how to handle this and so any advise or help would be greatly appreciated!

Edited February 21, 2011 by icee

[fjb1122 2]

hi, how many household members did you include in your affidavit of support for the primary sponsor, which i presume is the USC spouse? and how much is the annual income that he/she is receiving?

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Taxes aren't due yet this year so I wouldn't even bother submitting them.

[icee 0]

hi, how many household members did you include in your affidavit of support for the primary sponsor, which i presume is the USC spouse? and how much is the annual income that he/she is receiving?

For primary sponsor 1 and the annual income currently is around $14,000.

Edited February 21, 2011 by icee

[icee 0]

I meant to say 2 household members (both husband and wife)

Edited February 21, 2011 by icee

[icee 0]

In case I wasn't too clear, for the primary sponsor, we put down 2 household members and the income that they currently now make is around $14,000 but at the time of filing the papers, they were only making between $11,000 and $12,000.

[ceadsearc 516]

What was on the information you filed with your paperwork? It looks from your timeline like you filed back in 2010, so you must have submitted 2009 tax returns with your work at the time, correct? Were they making enough at that point?

[icee 0]

What was on the information you filed with your paperwork? It looks from your timeline like you filed back in 2010, so you must have submitted 2009 tax returns with your work at the time, correct? Were they making enough at that point?

hi there,

correct, we submitted our co-sponsor's tax returns together with his affidavit of support when we were filing our AOS papers back in 2010 October. Back then we didn't have his and his wife's pay stubs and work letters from their work, and so this time we are bringing something as a replacement for his pay-stubs and plus his wife's pay stubs together with their work letters. They gave us their W2 with their tax returns for 2010, and it shows they made less than what they made for the last year (I mean for 2009)... We are thinking not to bring their W2 and tax returns that we got just recently as in the interview letter it says submit them unless you have already submitted and we'd just tell them that we submitted them back in 2010, what do you think guys, will that work ok?

thanks

[doctorbeat 6]

I have to admit I am a bit confused about your situation, but if I understand correctly, this may help:

Apparently, your affidavit is valid indefinitely from the date it was produced, and they're not allowed to ask for an updated one if the reason is only passage of time.

A more learned memberay want to expand on this, but I think if you can come up with evidence to back up your original affidavit, they will go by the information contained in it.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I have to admit I am a bit confused about your situation, but if I understand correctly, this may help:

Apparently, your affidavit is valid indefinitely from the date it was produced, and they're not allowed to ask for an updated one if the reason is only passage of time.

A more learned memberay want to expand on this, but I think if you can come up with evidence to back up your original affidavit, they will go by the information contained in it.

There is a requirement that the affidavit of support be sufficient both at the time it's filed and the time it's adjudicated. However, secton 20.5(e) of the Adjudicators Field Manual states that the IO is generally supposed to presume that an affidavit is sufficient at the time it's adjudicated if it was sufficient at the time it was originally submitted, based on the annual income of the sponsor for the year in which the affidavit was submitted. An exception is if more than one year has passed between the time the affidavit was submitted and the time it's adjudicated. In that event, according to 8 CFR 213a.2, the IO can ask for new evidence to demonstrate that the affidavit is still sufficient.

Once the immigrant benefit has been granted then the affidavit becomes binding, and USCIS cannot ask the sponsor to submit additional evidence or another affidavit of support.

[ceadsearc 516]

FWIW, we were not asked during our interview to produce more about our financial means or provide an update. I don't think you need to bring new W-2s if you sent last years with your packet. However, I think you will need to bring anything you didn't include in those regards - our IO did check through our packet on the spot to make sure we had a letter from my employer, etc.

[icee 0]

hi there,

correct, we submitted our co-sponsor's tax returns together with his affidavit of support when we were filing our AOS papers back in 2010 October. Back then we didn't have his and his wife's pay stubs and work letters from their work, and so this time we are bringing something as a replacement for his pay-stubs and plus his wife's pay stubs together with their work letters. They gave us their W2 with their tax returns for 2010, and it shows they made less than what they made for the last year (I mean for 2009)... We are thinking not to bring their W2 and tax returns that we got just recently as in the interview letter it says submit them unless you have already submitted and we'd just tell them that we submitted them back in 2010, what do you think guys, will that work ok?

thanks

anyway guys,

we are back from Pittsburgh where we had our interview. I am getting my green card in two weeks. The officer just wanted to see our apartment rent lease and our wedding photos. None of the affidavit of support... He was super nice and just wanted to know how we met and developed our relationship and all that. On top of that we came about 45 minutes late for our interview because of the weather and traffic, but they still accepted us and the guy that does security check up on the 1st floor said it's ok, everyone was late.. It was such a relief after all that terrible trip.

Cheer up all of you who are in the process of getting their status adjusted, things will go well, you just need to know what papers you need to turn in and in timely manner.

A