Adjustment of status, Joint Sponsor issues, 2nd RFE, 1 very SAD person

[hellothere408 0]

Hello all,

First post on this site so we shall see how this goes...

Here is the gist:

I'm currently attending last year of grad school (healthcare-related program) with F-1 visa, which is where i met my now-husband (a USC). He graduated this past summer and is now practicing. We hired a lawyer and sent in all the paperwork for Adjustment of Status along with other docs (i.e. EAD application, etc.) on 8/13/15. My hope was to get the EAD by the 90-day est. processing time so I could start looking for work. Everything was fine and dandy until...

We received our 1st RFE on Sept/15 - reason being that his income did not meet 125% of poverty guideline (which, i guess, we kind of expected since his past tax records reflect what he has made as intern while in school, although we did send in job offer letter and expected pay rate of >100K/yr with the original application packet)

Anyway, they gave us 2 choices:

1. Show assets (bank statement or bank letter averaged over 12 months)

2. Joint sponsor

We both agreed that if we can go off of our assets alone then we don't want to burden anyone to be our joint sponsor (financial disclosures and sponsoring are a tricky sticky situation). Thus, with counsel of our lawyer, we submitted a bank letter showing ~45K, which was greater than 3x the difference of poverty guideline. However, we recently closed our respective bank accounts to have a joint account so the letter reflected the balance without 12-month record. In response to the RFE, we included bank letter showing sufficient assets + his employment verification letter this time and not job offer letter

Lo and behold, 2nd RFE received on Oct/15 (gasp!) - this caught me off guard since i was under the impression Immigration folks got what they wanted

This time, they straight out took away the asset option want want a joint sponsor -- my WORST fear since I hate relying on people for these things.

So here's the problem: I wrote this lengthy email explaining and ensuring to the joint sponsor that I will not rely on them financially after they agreed to help but wanted more info. My fam member read it and said they couldn't help since not comfortable with it if spouse knows. I asked another fam member, says she'll do it but doesn't want spouse to find out and is taking an extraordinarily long time to give me a definite answer. I recently received a job offer, but i think they were under the impression that I wasn't an F-1 (I have a month to reply to the job offer, which I'm sure they would require paperwork for employment) --> I was hoping that I would have my EAD by now, but in the RFE it says everything is halted (i assume EAD is included ??)

So in the event the joint sponsor doesn't work out since we have absolutely no one else to ask... my husband was recently promoted to manager position (= even more $$) and he's been working for ~3ish months now; our bank account is now ~80K (gifts from family). I understand they really want a joint but can I send in additional proofs for assets now that we have more money, more established job and everything? My lawyer says if there is no joint this time, our case may get denied and we'd have to start over from square one.

Is it right of me to assume that the EAD will not be approved once these RFEs are worked out?

Thank you and any response is appreciated.

Edited November 9, 2015 by hellothere408

[Hypnos 6,578]

RFE's on your I-485/I-864 will pause your I-131 and/or I-765 applications, that's correct.

[Anh map 2,098]

Submit recent paystubs showing the increase in earning along with an updated employer letter.

Recent cash coming into an account often isn't accepted. If you gave them some documented history of the money (older accounts in joint names and/or individual accounts ) say a couple of years of bank statements that might help as fas as the assets go.

Job offers don't carry a lot of weight.

Joint sponsors just need to read the contract where it spells out exactly what they are liable for. And that liability is only after they would unsuccessfully try to collect from the primary sponsor (petitioning spouse). Their exposure is limited. They aren't on the hook for rent, credit cards, etc.