Form I-864 affidavit of support and in using assets. I wanted to talk with all of you about
this because we know that form I-864 is pretty cumbersome. There's a lot of moving parts and
documents that go along with it and it seems to be the form that intimidates individuals the
most in their immigration journey. I-944, that was giving people a lot of problems
too but now that we've said goodbye to that the I-864 is a pain point for a lot of people.
I want to talk to you about a little brief overview of the I-864
and when you actually would use assets for I-864. I think there's a lot of confusion
that that is something that everybody has to provide. I also want to talk about
the calculation if you have to use assets. For those of you who are
just starting on your immigration journey, the form I-864 affidavit of support is part of the process
because you have to show immigration that you won't become a public charge which means that
you won't need to receive any types of benefits
from the United States. Form I-864 is information from the petitioner
sometimes there's a joint sponsor. I won't get into those
but typically our firm works with couples, it's the US citizen spouse or lawful
permanent resident spouse that would have to provide their financial information for this form.
If the US citizen spouse or the local permanent resident spouse don't
make enough money to be the sole sponsor for the case, you can either get a joint sponsor,
we have separate videos for that, or you could use your assets to supplement your income.
There is another form called I-864P and we have videos about that too.
It's the poverty guidelines and that's the form that you'll start with. Form I-864P. As a US
citizen or lawful permanent resident petitioner, you'll start with that form. You'll
look at your household size and you'll look at how much your current annual income needs to be. If you
do not make that amount, then one of the things you can do is use your assets.
You only need to use your assets if you don't make enough according to form of I-864P. You don't
have to provide assets if you make enough. What I mean by use assets is that
Immigration allows you to use assets, things of value
and assets can only be used if only assets that can be converted into cash within one year and
without considerable hardship or financial loss to the owner may be included. That's
fancy language to say examples of things like a house. That's pretty common if you have a home
that you're buying. Even if you have a mortgage, if you have equity which is the value
of the home minus the mortgage that you're paying. Also 401 (k) retirement plans savings accounts.
Anything that could be converted into cash that can be liquidated. That's an asset.
If you don't make enough, then you could use these assets in your life to make up
the difference. It's not going to be a dollar for dollar difference.
I do well with math but it's not my strong suit so I know that that's
probably a pain point for others as well. This is a judgment-free zone. I want to break it down
for everybody so you can understand exactly how to do the calculation yourself.
If you were to look at the I-864P, you find your household size, you find how much it is that you're supposed to make.
Say that you're two thousand dollars short of
that amount. If you use your assets, they have to be more than two thousand dollars. You can't just
have a savings account with two thousand dollars. That won't be enough to make up the difference
It would have to be five times that amount. That's why I prefaced with if you're not good at math,
it's alright. In general, your assets would have to be five times that
difference. You're looking at having to make up a ten thousand dollar difference. You'd have
to have assets that equal that amount, if that makes sense. But if you are a United States citizen
sponsoring your spouse or child, then the assets only have to be three times. Again, if we're
using that two thousand dollars as an example, you would have to have assets of six thousand dollars.
A savings account, retirement account, equity in your home.
If you have to use assets, that's how you would do that calculation.
The last final tip is the current annual income that you're putting on your form I-864
a lot of people think it's the amount from their prior tax year. That's not necessarily true.
Your current annual income, you'll want to look at your current job
how much you make an hour or salary and what that would equate to for that year. If you
have a new job that maybe you need to have in the prior year and you're making more
your current annual income isn't necessarily going to be what was on your taxes the prior year.
Hopefully that helps to orient all of you in terms of when you need to use assets
and if you need to use assets, what assets you can use, and how to make that calculation.