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- The Homeland Security recently issued
a new public charge
rule that our customers
have been asking about,
so we wanted to briefly go over this.
A public charge is defined
by the USCIS as a person
who is likely to become
primarily dependent
on the government for subsistence,
as demonstrated by the receipt
of public cash assistance
for income maintenance
or institutionalization
for long term care at government expense.
In other words, a public
charge is a person
who cannot support themselves financially,
and depends on certain welfare benefits.
People who are likely to
become a public charge
are not admissible to the US,
and are not eligible to receive
a permanent resident card.
This has been the rule for so many years.
There are two major factors that concern
our customers about this new rule.
The first major factor is the use
of certain public
benefits by the applicant.
Now any non-immigrant alien who
is intending to adjust that,
that has used any public
benefits in the USA,
they would be denied a visa.
The language of the new
rule specifically mentions
the alien and not the US citizen sponsor.
In this case the public
benefits must have been received
directly by the applicant for
the applicant's own benefit.
The new rule, which goes into
effect on October 15th 2019,
mentions the following
benefits considered.
Any federal, state, local,
tribal cash assistance
for income maintenance.
Supplemental Security Income, or SSI.
Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families, TANF.
Federal, state, or local
cash benefit programs
for income maintenance,
often called General Assistance
in the state context,
but which may exist under other names.
Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, or SNAP,
or formerly called Food Stamps.
Section 8 Housing Assistance
under the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance,
including Moderate Rehabilitation.
Public Housing under Section
9 of the Housing Act of 1937.
Federally funded Medicaid,
with certain exclusions.
So in general, it's fairly
uncommon for a non-immigrant
to receive any of these benefits.
- So the second major factor
related to this new rule
is the property threshold
of the sponsor's income.
The sponsor's required
to meet at least 125%
of the poverty guidelines.
This has been the rule for some time,
and is not changing per se.
But what is changing is that
the Department of State
is setting the bar higher,
explicitly stating that if your income
is below 250% of the poverty guideline,
your case is going to
receive more scrutiny.
That means they're gonna review it,
and they're gonna look at
the supporting documents,
and they wanna ensure that
you meet this guideline.
And just to give you an example
of what 250% of the guideline
is, for a family of four,
you're looking at
approximately $64,374 dollars.
So that's considerably
higher than it was before.
Now this is kind of a gray area
on how they're gonna scrutinize this.
Because as many of you probably know,
income and supporting
documents are very subjective,
meaning it's gonna come down to
the discretion of the
officer reviewing the case.
So you're gonna need to
provide more documents,
they're gonna look at your finances.
And we anticipate that we're gonna see
quite a few more RFEs, that's
Requests for Evidence letters.
We also anticipate we're
probably gonna see more denials.
So there's gonna be a lot
more information on this
to come after the rule goes into effect,
but what we can recommend
right now is to submit
your application or your
petition as soon as possible.
If you'd like to get started immediately,
give us a call and we'll
help you out with this.
Because we do expect this
to have a major impact.
- Okay, next question is
from Michael and Heidi.
Do the new October 15 income rules of 250%
apply at the time of filing
the affidavit of support,
or at the time of filing of the 130?
I have a pending CR1
130 waiting for an OA-2.
So the new rule will take
effect on October 15,
and that would be all petitions
that will be filed at October 15 onwards,
so if you have already pending a CR1,
it doesn't affect your petition,
because it doesn't have
a retroactive effect.
It will only affect petitions
filed on October 1 onwards.
- And the other concern here is,
or the question that we
may not know about yet,
is whether or not this is going to affect
the affidavit of support filed
with the consulate that's overseas.
Right now what we're looking at
is adjustment of status
packages filed with the USCIS.
It's unclear at this moment
how this is going to impact
the I-130s, and I-45s, or the I-64s,
which is the affidavit of support
filed with the National Visa Center,
which in turns sends
it over to the embassy.
But for your case, you should be fine,
you've already filed, and
you're well ahead of the game.
But as I stated earlier,
for anyone else out there,
you really should apply
as soon as possible,
because once this goes into affect,
we anticipate quite a few more RFEs,
Requests For Evidence, as well as denials.
And we're not sure if
they're gonna request
that you get a joint sponsor,
or we're not exactly sure if
you can use assets, you know,
so there's a lot of unanswered questions
regarding this new rule that
goes in effect in October.
- Will the K1 visa income requirements
going up in October 15,
or is it just adjustment of status 250%?
Are you able to get a co-sponsor
once in the United States?
Oh, another 250% question.
The income requirements.
- Yeah, just to let
everyone know out there.
The income requirements
are not going up, okay?
If you'll look at the
HHS Poverty Guidelines,
the income requirements
have stayed the same.
Okay, the only thing that
came out with the new rule
from the US Department of State,
is stating that they
are looking at incomes
in between 125% and 250%.
Those are the ones they're
gonna scrutinize more.
Okay, so if your income is over 250%,
say it's over $65,000.
You're gonna fly through
with no issues, okay?
But if you're below that 250% level,
they're gonna scrutinize it more.
So they're gonna look for more evidence.
They're gonna look at several factors.
They're gonna look at your age,
your health, your employment, okay.
Whether you're retired.
Whether you're receiving,
you know, Social Security.
They look at a lot of different factors.
The USCIS actually has
a document out there
that lists all the
factors that they look at.
And they take all this into consideration,
and they just want to
ensure that the beneficiary
is not gonna collect
means-tested benefits, okay?
Food stamps, welfare, things like that.
But if you are below
that 250% income level,
in some countries, at some embassies,
you may use a joint sponsor
to meet these income requirements.
But if you're from the
Philippines, not so much.
They do not accept joint
sponsors for the K1 fiance visa.
They do for the spousal visa,
but not for the fiance visa.
So again, we don't have all
the answers on this new rule yet.
There's a lot more information
that's gonna come out,
especially once we start
receiving RFEs and denials.
Because usually in those RFE letters,
the Requests For Evidence letters,
they'll tell you exactly
what they're looking for.
They'll tell you you need a joint sponsor.
Or we need to see your IRS tax transcript,
from the previous year
or the last three years.
So what we expect, or anticipate,
is that they're gonna be looking for more.
So I can tell you usually,
to prove your income,
they wanna see your
last year's tax returns,
and they wanna see your W-2s.
And we also recommend providing three
to six months of your pay statements.
If you're a business owner
or independent contractor,
a lot of times you're gonna want
to provide six months of bank statements,
including all your tax schedules.
So again, with this 250% rule,
there's a lot more to come on that,
but right now just know that
the income requirements have not gone up,
it's just this is giving
them some more leeway
I think to scrutinize
petitions more, so yeah.
More to come.
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