There are major major changes being proposed to the Affidavit Of Support Form I-864. Some
of those changes are illegal and unlawful. Watch this video, and I'll tell you more.
Hello, everybody. In this video, we'll talk about some of the proposed changes to the
Affidavit of Support, Form I-864. This is the form that is used in Adjustment of Status
for green cards based on marriage and family petitions. Major, major changes proposed and
some of them are unlawful. Before that, if you hear for the first time, make sure you
subscribe to our channel. Click that bell to be notified. We have videos every single
week. In this video, I want to discuss those changes because people are worried and these
are definitely uncertain times. My name is Jacob Sapochnick. I'm an immigration attorney
located in San Diego, California. Our firm focuses on one area of law, that's immigration
and we do this in all 50 states. And I'm always passionate about this area of law and making
those videos so you always know first about what's happening in this huge space. Let's
talk about those proposed changes. So the changes referred to Form I-864, Form I-864A,
Form I-864EZ, and this is the Affidavit of Support, one of the main forms that we use
in green card cases, Adjustment of Status, and also cases that we find that the consulates
abroad. That major change that they’re talking about is they want people, the sponsors, the
US citizen sponsor, to disclose their entire bank’s information. They will know the account
number, they want to know who is a member of the account, or the account holders. They
want to know the routing number. This is an information that is highly sensitive, and
most people are obviously not going to want to disclose that what the law says is that
you have to show to the sponsor is able financially to be a sponsor. And then typically, what
we show is tax returns, we show if they have assets, we show the property or whatever they
have, but they never ever required an actual… to see the bank account and to get the information
of the bank account, not just the statement, but actual account number, routing number,
and who is actually associated with the account. So, that's going to be a huge inconvenience
for a lot of sponsors. And they may not want to even be a sponsor. The second proposed
change is that the government wants to require the sponsors to sign the Affidavit of Support
before, and [inaudible] Republic. Now again, it's a very huge inconvenience. You have to
go take the form, leave your house, find in a [inaudible] Republic, pay for it. Now, both
of these changes are going to create a huge burden for sponsors, and probably quite a
few of them are going to refuse to do it. And I think that's kind of probably the intention
behind it. The intention behind it is probably to deter more people from being sponsors,
and maybe make it more difficult for people to immigrate. The biggest problem with those
proposed changes is that there are unlawful. The actual legislation is not requiring the
USCIS to ask the sponsors for such detailed bank information. All it says is that the
person has to prove that they are sufficient, that their income is sufficient to be able
to actually be a sponsor. So, none of the legislation talks about bank account information,
routing numbers, account numbers. So, this is a proposed rule that is totally wrong.
It's unlawful and we think that it's specifically designed to deter people from basically being
sponsors and if you cannot, if you don't meet the income requirement, remember the whole
idea of Affidavits of Support is that it's designed to help people qualify for a sponsorship.
So, if the sponsor is not going to assign, and the immigrant is not going to qualify,
they're not going to be able to get the green card. So, it's pretty bad. And hopefully,
this proposal is not going to pass. And right now, it's being introduced and we wanted to
report that so you're aware of that. So, this is what it is. Hopefully, it's not going to
happen but we wanted to kind of let you know. Post in the comments below if you have any
questions, and make sure that you subscribe to our channel. We produce videos every single
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encourage people to engage with us in other places as well. So, thank you for watching.
Let me know if you have any other questions, post them in the comment below. And we'll
see you in our next video.