RFE for I-864, not sure what the problem is

[hedgemaze 49]

My wife and I recently filed her AOS package, and today we received an RFE for the I-864s we submitted. Can anyone have a look at it and let us know what they think we may have been missing?

 

We submitted two I-864s, one from me (the USC spouse/primary sponsor), and one from my aunt (the joint sponsor). I have been disabled since childhood, have no income (before getting married I received SSDI; I am no longer qualified for SSDI since marrying), and have never filed tax returns as I have never earned enough taxable income to be required to. My aunt is retired and makes well over the 125% federal poverty guideline (in pension, etc.) to be a sponsor. For my I-864, I submitted the form, my US birth certificate, a letter explaining why I am not required to file taxes, and the SSA-1099s from 2019, 2020, and 2021 showing my SSDI income. For my aunt, she submitted the form, her US birth certificate, and her 2021 tax return transcript.

 

Some ideas we have about what the problems might be:

1. My wife and I reviewed the scanned documents that USCIS have in her My USCIS account, and although we carefully assembled the packet with cover letters for each form and duplicates of the documents required for each of the I-485, I-864, I-765, and I-131, we see that USCIS have some documents uploaded under the wrong form: among them are my birth certificate and my aunt's, which are uploaded instead as employment authorization evidence. Is it possible they need those sent again?
2. Do they need my aunt's full form tax return? We thought the tax return transcript would be acceptable/preferred. Should we send the last three years too? Should we include assets as well (they shouldn't be needed to reach the $ guideline; her income should be enough) or some other evidence?
3. I have no idea what else I can send for my evidence as I obviously have never qualified financially as a sponsor, which is the point of having my aunt as the joint sponsor. On my I-864, I listed my "current individual annual income" as the amount I received from SSDI from January this year until marrying and losing SSDI. Should I have put the figure for 2021 instead?
4. I'm aware household size is a common mistake; however we did not miscalculate and count my wife twice as some people have done. My aunt and I each sent an I-864 with a household size of two (my aunt and my wife; me and my wife). Does USCIS instead want a household size of three (my aunt, my wife, and me)? My aunt does not live with us but does live in a different apartment in the same apartment building, so I'm unsure if USCIS thinks we are a single household, or if we should be considering ourselves a single household for this form.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. We have until September 8 to respond, but we want to make sure we do this right.

[Crazy Cat 41,856]

Did you send evidence of your Aunt's CURRENT income?  

[hedgemaze 49]

1 minute ago, Crazy Cat said:

Did you send evidence of your Aunt's CURRENT income?  

What evidence would that be? She's retired, so I don't know what else to send.

[Crazy Cat 41,856]

Just now, hedgemaze said:

What evidence would that be? She's retired, so I don't know what else to send.

Her retirement income comes from somewhere......Social Security benefit letter, etc?

[K1visaHopeful 2,814]

I'm too tired to comment tonight however I would just like to say, out of the many, many, MANY I864 RFE threads that come through each week, this is probably THE most WELL EXPLAINED, and FULLY DETAILED thread of this topic I've seen in a LONG time. 

I'm sure others will be able to help you easily because of that. 

Good luck!

[Mike E 11,739]

15 hours ago, hedgemaze said:

On my I-864, I listed my "current individual annual income" as the amount I received from SSDI from January this year until marrying and losing SSDI.

Your current income is zero because your SSDI ended.  
 

It also seems like you misunderstood how to indicate your joint sponsor’s current income.  
 

Income is current if one is currently receiving it (exception is for seasonal income which doesn’t apply here and so no need to cloud the issue).  The amount of current income for a pensioner would be:

 

amount of each payment times number of payments per year. 
 

If the amount of each payment is variable then it gets more o challenging  to file I-864.  
 

Note that you have just one opportunity to respond to an I-864 RFE and after that if USCIS rejects the RFE the I-485 is denied.  The would be immigrant then has a deadline to leave the USA or file a new I-485.  You might consider hiring a professional to fill out new I-864s for you and your joint sponsor.
 

You have to weigh the cost of professional versus the cost of a new  I-485 and the opportunity cost for your spouse who presumably is not disabled and would be able to work. 
 

As a rant, I think I-864 is by far  the most stupidly (by USCIS not sponsors) written form USCIS has.  It is actually possible to carve out a separate practice of law around I-864. 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Mike E

[hedgemaze 49]

My apologies for not responding to this sooner (my wife and I have been very busy lately), but thank you to those who replied and tried to help us. We're getting ready to send this back in, and we want to check that what we have seems right.

 

Combing over our application again, we found that we did submit expired I-864 forms, so that might be the only problem for all I know, but we're going to be as thorough as we can, of course, to make sure every potential issue is covered to USCIS's satisfaction.

 

We're going to include:

1. Copy of the RFE letter
2. New, correct I-864 forms for me and my joint sponsor aunt
3. Proof of citizenship in the forms of US birth certificates for me and my aunt
4. Statement describing why I was not required to file taxes in 2021
5. Copies of my SSA-1099 forms for 2019, 2020, and 2021 supporting that my income was below the tax requirement
6. Current Social Security Benefit Verification Letter showing that my benefits were terminated when I got married and supporting that my current income is $0
7. Copies of my aunt's Tax Return Transcript for 2019, 2020, and 2021 (all showing income well over the guideline)
8. Copies of her Social Security Retirement SSA-1099 and 1099-R pension income statements for 2021
9. Current Social Security Benefit Verification Letter showing my aunt's monthly benefit in 2022, also showing her monthly benefit for 2021 and how many years she's been receiving retirement (the shown retirement income alone is more than the 125% poverty guideline for 2 people)

Some questions:

1. Do we need to include my aunt's full tax returns? The tax transcripts seem like they should be as good or better evidence, and the RFE seems to mention both as acceptable.
2. Do we need further proof of my aunt's current income beyond her Social Security award letter and 2021 evidence, like something ongoing from her pensions? The RFE doesn't ask for this.
3. The figure I put for her current income is her Total Income for the 2021 tax year (as described on page 2 of the I-864 instructions and RFE). I believe this is right, but should it be something else?
4. Household size should be 2 for both I-864 forms, right? (My wife and me, who live together; and my aunt as the joint sponsor and my wife)
5. My current income should be $0, right? (I earned some SSDI from January-March, but I am no longer eligible)

Is there anything else we're not thinking of? We really want to make sure we've dotted all our "I"s and crossed all our "T"s here.

 

Thank you all again for any help you can and have provided.

[K1visaHopeful 2,814]

Looks good but the only issue I can see that may come into play is the age of your aunt.

Will she be around (ie. Her income) in 10 years as that is the longest she will be required to financially sponsor?

If not,  finding a new JS may be required.