Friends, are you likely to become a public charge because of your age?
Yeah, you heard me correctly, I said age.
That's what public charge is all about.
I'm going to talk about age, your age or your relatives age in this video.
You don't want to miss it.
Friends, thanks for watching this video.
I'm Latoya McBean-Pompey, I'm an immigration lawyer in New York.
I'm also the creator and founder of Smart Immigration Academy.
Now you guys are awesome, you rock, you rock, you rock!
You've been sharing my stuff with other people and you're making such a big difference in
other people's lives.
And I just want to tell you thank you for what you're doing, I so appreciate you.
Now let's talk about public charge.
I started this video off by asking the question, are you likely to become a public charge because
of your age?
Now that question might've caught some of you off guard.
Because you might be thinking, "What is she talking about?
I thought public charge is about welfare benefits, public benefits.
Why is Latoya talking about my age?"
And so friends, I'm talking about age in this one, because it is one of the five factors
that the government is going to use to size you up and figure out whether you are actually
likely to become a public charge in the future.
Now when there's big policy changes, our government and other governments around the world is
notorious for putting up smoke screens.
They want to put another issue in front of your eyes and in your mind, so that it distracts
you from the biggest deal about this policy change.
And with public charge, the smoke screen has been public welfare, public benefits.
You've heard me talk about it as well of course, because it is part of public charge.
But the biggest deal about public charge, friends, is this public charge test that people
will now have to take, those here in the US and those outside of the US.
So the public charge test is made up primarily of five factors that the adjudicated officer
is going to weigh in his or her mind when they're thinking about approving or denying
your green card application or the visa application overseas, if you're coming through a US embassy.
So with respect to the five factors, just to refresh your memory because I've talked
about this in other videos.
The first is your age, next, your health, then your family size/household size, fourth
is your income/assets and then last it's your education/skills.
I'm going to break down each of those five factors over the next few videos because I
want you to get a big picture, or a full picture, of what that adjudicating officer is going
to be doing when he or she is looking at your green card application or your visa application
overseas.
The first factor that we're going to talk about in this video is your age.
And just want to warn you, the more we talk about public charge and the more information
you get about what this is really about, the angrier you may become.
So I just kind of want to warn you.
I know some of you are already on the edge, you're already angry, you're already frustrated,
but I want you to understand that the more you really learn about what this is, you're
not going to be happy because there's a lot about these changes that's just simply unfair.
For example, age.
No one chooses to be the age that they're at.
If you're 66 today, you didn't choose to be 66.
If you're 15, you did not choose to be 15.
But be in one of those ages can hurt you or be a negative factor now in your green card
process.
Back in the day, as you guys know, you're eligible for a green card based on your family
relationship or your employer petitioned for you and you didn't really have to think about
anything else.
You're eligible because the law says that you're eligible based on you meet in certain
criteria.
Now with public charge, the government has put a lot of discretion into the hands of
the officer that's going to be looking at your file.
That officer will run you through these factors and make the determination whether you are
likely to become a public charge in the future.
Because, you know that a lot of the public benefits that we've been talking about don't
apply to undocumented individuals.
They may apply to some people who had access benefits, maybe fraudulently.
But overall friends, those public benefits, SSI, snap, those benefits are not open to
undocumented individuals.
So, that's not the biggest deal about public charge.
Biggest steal is these factors.
So now let's go right into how age can be either a positive factor or a negative factor.
The question again is, are you likely to become a public charge based on how old you are?
Why is age now important?
Age is important because it's connected with your ability to work.
How old you are is important now, it's connected to your ability to work.
So if you're between the age of 18 and 62, government says you should be working.
So let's break this down.
I did put together a really easy to read one pager table here for you to download.
It's free, download it.
And the question in this is, will your age be a positive factor or a negative factor?
So a positive factor, friends, and this is a spoiler alert, positive factor is you are
currently employed.
If you're authorized to work in the United States, you should be employed, and that's
a positive factor.
If you're outside of the United States, you should also be working.
The first question that the adjudicating officer's is going to ask himself is, "How old are you?
Are you under 18?"
If you're under 18, friends, that's a negative thing, that's a negative factor.
If you're under 18 and it's a negative factor, the next question that the officer will ask
is, "Well, are your parents financially supporting you?"
And they will then look to the parents affidavit of support to determine whether the parent
or parents have enough income to support you.
They will also consider whether you're enrolled in school full-time, and if those other things
line up, then that negative factor can be outweighed by more positive factors in your
file.
Now if you're between 18 and 62, which most people are who are going through the green
card process, the issue is if you're here in the United States, are you authorized to
work and if you are authorized to work, are you working?
It's a negative factor if you're not working.
If you're not working, the next question is, "Well, do you have a job lined up?
Do you have a job offer?"
Another question they'll be asking is, have you worked recently in the past three months,
maybe?
Have you been employed in the past three months?
The next question they may ask themselves, if you're in that bracket, that 18 to 64 and
you're not working is, are you enrolled in school full-time?
That could be a good thing.
Or are you otherwise unable to work for some other reason, whether it's because of your
health or something like that.
That can hurt you in public charge under this new public charge scheme.
So this table walks you through these very questions and download it and check things
off based on your personal circumstances to determine whether your age will be a positive
factor or a negative factor.
If you're over 62, that's a negative thing unfortunately, negative factor.
And so if you're retired or you otherwise cannot work, that's negative.
And so I would say this to you if you have any negative factor in your file, you acknowledge
it.
And this is what I tell Smart Immigration Academy members.
If there is something negative in your file, acknowledge it.
Don't try to hide it or mask it, acknowledge it.
And then you say, "Well, although I may be 64 and I'm not working anymore, I have a very
strong savings account.
I own assets, I have land, or I have inheritance."
Or whatever the case may be, or, "I have degrees, I have a strong education, I'm in good health."
You basically will bolster all of those positive factors and show that those positive factors
outweigh this negative factor, which happens to be your age.
And so that's how I would approach it, friends.
Now on this chart you will see that I talk about what the government considers to be
a heavily weighted negative factor, pertaining to your age.
What is a heavily weighted negative factor?
Well, it looks like this scenario.
You're here in the United States and you're authorized to work, yet you're not working
No current job, plus no recent job, plus no future job lined up.
If you have that combination, that is a very heavily weighted negative factor and that
will really, really hurt your application.
So the best thing that you guys can do if you find yourself in between that 18 and 62
bracket, best thing that you can do is to be working, if you're authorized to work,
or be enrolled in school full-time.
Not-part time online, taking a few classes here and there, yet you're not working and
you're in that age bracket.
No, they're looking at full-time enrollment in school or you're working, or were recently
working.
So those are the things that the government is looking for under age.
So to summarize, friends, age matters with public charge.
It is the first factor on the list of things that the government will look at.
Your age impacts your ability to work and that's what they're looking at when they consider
your age.
So again, download this chart, very easy to read, it's very interactive.
Fill it out and take some of these responses to your lawyer, talk it over with your lawyer
and make sure that you guys have a plan.
If you have a negative factor here pertaining to your age, have a plan to attack it and
to show how your positive factors far outweigh the negative factor in your application.
Friends, I hope this was helpful to you.
Stay tuned for my next video on health, health is the second factor that we're going to tackle
as we consider those five factors under this public charge test.
Thanks so much for watching, I appreciate you.
Share it with others and by the way, tell me below what you think about this topic.
I know it's unfair, it's awful, awful, awful.
I get that, but feel free to put some constructive comments below and I'll see you in the next
one.
Bye-bye.