Working Immigrants

I have posted about the toughened Public Charge rule of the Trump Administration, which went into effect in February but has been to some degree suspended during the pandemic. I asked Prem Kumar of Visa Tutor to describe how he sees its impact.

Public Charge is an immigration law provision which requires an immigrant or green card applicant to be self-sufficient or have a sponsoring family member or organization. The goal is to only grant a visa or green card to those applicants who are not likely to fall upon government financial assistance in the future.

Public charge laws apply to all immigrant visas, some non-immigrant visas, and nearly half a million green card applicants, with certain exemptions. Historically, it accounts for 25% of visa denials, where officers believe the immigrant does not have adequate sponsorship in the US, or a high “likelihood of becoming a public charge”.

To put the new version of the Rule in context, In just a single year, about 25% of U.S.-born citizens receive a benefit included in the final rule’s public charge definition. Over the 1997-2017 period, some 41% to 48% received one of the benefits included in the Rule’s new public charge definition.

State Department consular officers abroad and USCIS officers ask about:

Income The applicant or sponsor is compared to the Federal Poverty Guidelines. They must be the minimum 125% income level, however, officers are allowed to require up to 250%.

Health insurance  Although it’s not an automatic disqualification not to be covered, the language in the “Final Rule” makes it clear that it is a “heavily weighted negative factor” in the assessment.

History of Means-tested benefits  the U.S. can reject any applicant who has used means-tested benefits such as SNAP, TANF, some Medicaid, or other cash assistance. It even allows officers to determine if the applicant is “more likely than not” to require such benefits.

Disclosure of background information The officer is required to ask for financial status such as loans, unpaid debts, assets, even child support, and so on.

Roughly 40,000 persons each year are awarded a visa (“K”) to come to the U.S. and marry a U.S. citizen.K visas are only available to partners of US citizens, not permanent residents.

This process best serves international love birds who prefer not to go through the hassle of a marriage overseas. Marriage in different parts of the world can be long, expensive, or burdensome especially when dealing with local authorities. In addition, families of US petitioners find it inconvenient to travel to distant parts of the world to attend weddings.

One such example is in Morocco, where local authorities require numerous paperwork, a residency period for Americans, and often a bribe to “process” the marriage paperwork.

For those in the LGBT community the K visa may be the only way to marry. Outside of western Europe and the Commonwealth countries, same sex marriage is almost everywhere illegal.

What is needed for the overseas party to get a K visa, which gives the person 90 days in the U.S. to marry, after which the now married foreigner has access to permanent residency or citizenship? The foreign partner must produce documentation, get a medical exam, police / background clearance, among much more before attending an in-person visa interview at a U.S. consulate.

What does Citizenship and Immigration Service do to review of the intended marriage is a sham that will be shortly followed by divorce? Following marriage, the couple is given a conditional period of 2 years in which the USCIS evaluates to see if the marriage was bona fide or a sham meant for immigration benefits only.

The timeline from start to finish, including the consular interview, takes an average of 5-10 months.

For a more complete description of the process go here.

How do spouses, children and fiances get into the United States? I asked Prem Kumar, who runs Visa Tutor, to describe what happens. Here we talk about the process for spouses and children. In the next installment, we discuss fiances.

Anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 visas are issued every year to spouses of U.S. citizens and their children. The U.S. sponsor petitions his or her family and provides necessary documentation before the foreign spouse and children attend an interview.

The approval rate for these visas (CR1/IR1 and CR2/IR2) is very high, about 90%. But the entire process can take up to two years to complete.

The person in the United States needs to be either an American citizen or a permanent resident. Proof of marriage is required. Both the U.S. and foreign spouse cannot have a disqualifying criminal record.

Further, there has to be evidence that the spouse and children will not be a financial burden on government assistance – the public charge rule. The most common problem is that petitioners don’t meet minimum income requirements or aren’t able to provide enough assets to qualify.

The foreign spouse and any accompanying children attend an in-person interview. They present documentation to prove eligibility and answer any questions an immigration official may have regarding the relationship. Common questions include: “When did you marry? How? Where? Where does your spouse work?”

For a more complete description, go here.