Hi, I recently married my spouse who I live with here in the US who has an F1 visa, from what I've read the process is fairly straightforward to get AOS but I have a few wrinkles:
1. I'm currently unemployed since I lost my job late in 2022 and was looking to use assets instead. I've looked into the 3x amount required for the affidavit of support when using assets, and I have far more than that, almost 10x the base amount. I have a new job offer but won't be starting for another month or so.
2. Her F1 visa is expiring soon as she just graduated this month. I understand there is some grace period here but wondering if there's any issues with this.
3. We don't have a huge amount of evidence, just a joint lease, her being the beneficiary on my retirement accounts, and a ton of pictures with each other's families. No joint accounts or anything.
4. We went on a trip abroad two months ago to her home country, so there is that "60 day" or "90 day rule" that some lawyers seem to insist on and I know others say is bogus, but I thought I'd mention it.
I signed up for Simple Citizen just to make it easier for me instead of needing to make the packet myself, but they're adamant that I should get a joint sponsor instead of using assets, since if I use assets there is a "very high likelihood of an RFE". Is this true or a scare tactic? I don't have anyone I'd really be able to ask to be a joint sponsor.
I had a further question, my spouse is eligible to file for OPT which should give her a year of being able to work in a field related to what she studied, would this impact our filing for AOS? Can the two be done concurrently, so at least she can work on OPT while waiting for AOS? She doesn't have an SSN currently, so if we apply for work authorization with the AOS packet and request an SSN through that, but she then gets one independently through her OPT app, would there be some duplication of efforts there and cause some kind of issue?
Thanks!