PeterMcS

About the amount of assets needed if there's insufficient income, for purposes of citing the law/regulations in my cover letter to a I-290B: we're married, so the relevant standard is 3x the income deficiency? She came in on a K-1, so before we were married it would have been 5x? We have far more than either: I just want to make sure I cite the right regulation.

I believe the "reopen" option is for submitting additional evidence, and the "reconsider" option is for error. We're thinking of checking both options. Thanks! We'll take a look.

My wife's I-485 application was denied because of my I-864, Affidavit of Support. We filed it over a year ago and they sent us an RFE (covered in this previous post by me) saying "we could not determine that the petitioning sponsor on Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, is qualified." They requested we get a joint sponsor or submit evidence of assets. I thought maybe it was an autogenerated letter, based on my low reported income, as I'd already presented evidence of assets on my I-864. We saw online that their scans of our evidence were incomplete, uploaded the missing parts, and replied that we'd already presented evidence of assets and added the pieces they were missing. The other day, we got notice that her I-485 was denied because the RFE had requested a joint sponsor or evidence of assets and we hadn't presented it. I had been worried that my non-standard assets (about ~$1 million in crypto) would be an issue, either because they wouldn't understand it or because the previous administration was very anti-crypto (e.g. debanking crypto customers because of regulatory pressure). Of course it could just be common incompetence. My wife will lose her employment authorization within a couple of weeks "unless you submit, within 18 days, proof that your Form I-485 remains pending." She cried over that, and we've been stressed about this. They say there's an I-290B form that we can submit to reopen (with additional evidence) and/or reconsider (if they made an error) the case. I don't know if submitting that's enough to keep her work permit, but I hope so. The additional evidence could be the $300K more in assets we have (in a regular investment account, not crypto). The error would be they missed the evidence of assets originally submitted. I just wrote our congressman earlier tonight, and we plan to submit the I-290B later this week. Does anyone have experience or suggestions on how to deal with this?

There's an IRA, self-directed and invested in crypto. I think it's most likely we received an autogenerated RFE etter: someone keys in data from the form, the software sees taxable income below a certain level, and it sends the letter. There were no comments about our specific situation in the RFE, and it's hard to imagine someone who read the evidence of income and assets we presented sending a letter like that. I do want to be sure of the outcome, however.

I believe I've read about people successfully using offer letters on these things, so I don't know if 6 months of previous employment is necessary. Also, I'm not employed. The assets should be more than enough, though.

There was a potential joint sponsor, but we didn't pursue it at that time.

It was dollars first, then in a crypto exchange. There are records. I think I demonstrated how much and where it came from pretty well. Of course, most people have a limited understanding of cryptocurrency.

No, my assets are almost entirely cryptocurrency.

We recently submitted an I-485 for my new wife (she came over on a K-1) and we received a Request for Evidence regarding the I-864 we filed with it. The request didn't give any details on what the problem was; it just said: "Based on the documents submitted, we could not determine that the petitioning sponsor on Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, is qualified." Is it possible to talk to these people to determine what the problem is? I anticipated potential problems with the Affidavit of Support: I posted here before my then-fiancee's Embassy interview. They didn't even ask to see the Affidavit of Support at that time (that's standard at the Manila embassy), but now they've questioned it. My concern was that my income and assets were non-standard: the income is mostly family money which isn't taxable income for me, and the assets are entirely cryptocurrency. My taxable income for last year doesn't exceed the federal poverty level (though my real income did, and I reported that to them and explained it), but my assets are far more than enough to make up for it (~$1 million). Maybe it's just a sloppy government employee who didn't bother to look beyond my tax return (I believe I did include good evidence of my assets). Any advice on how to proceed here? I could just reiterate that I have plenty of assets, assuming they overlooked my detailed evidence at first (or I could get any job or a joint sponsor to be safe), but I wish I could talk with them and see what's up.

From another site (not sure if I can link here): "Form I-485 will go up 18% for the standalone application (to $1,440). Two formerly free forms within the adjustment of status process (Employment Authorization Document and Advance Parole Travel Document), will now cost an additional $650 and $630, respectively."

The price increases will happen for applications postmarked on or after April 1.

My fiancee entered America on her K-1, got a social security card in her maiden name, and we got married yesterday. She intends to take on my last name. Can we go to the Social Security office and change her name immediately? I'm confused by the advice I've seen here, e.g. some people seeming to say we should wait to change her name on the I-485 and I-765 (then they'd send her a new SS card with the new name on it) and others seem to say we should change it after we're married. If there's no problem with changing her name now, I'd prefer not to wait: I'd like to start putting her married name on credit cards, add her to my bank account, etc. (then use her new name on the immigration forms later). If someone could clear up my confusion, I'd appreciate it.

And when you get married, are you supposed to update your name to the new one then? I've read the recommendation here is to change your name with the I-485 and I-765 (then they send you a new SS card with the new name on it). My question is should we also do it before that with the marriage license?

What date does this happen? It looks from this like it's February 26?

Isn't it easier to do it after marriage, so you don't have to change the name with the SSA again after you get married and change your name?