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Action Alert: Oppose Restrictions on Family Visas!

Posted on Oct 31 2020

The Department of Homeland Security published proposed changes to the affidavit of support regulations on Oct. 2, 2020. These changes would greatly increase the paperwork and expense in applying for a family visa.

Among the proposed changes  are requirements that family members sponsors provide:

• Credit history and credit scores;
• Specific bank account information;
• Three years of tax transcripts instead of just one year’s tax return;
• List all public benefits received by a sponsor for preceding three years;

In addition, the new regulation would exclude the income of household members except for the sponsor and the sponsor’s spouse. That would mean that in households with extended families, fewer incomes would count and the larger number of people would make the family fall below the income threshold for sponsorship.

The deadline for commenting on these changes is Monday, November 2 at midnight. You can make a comment by going to this page, clicking on the “Comment” button beneath the title of the proposed rule, and entering your comment.

The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota has submitted a comment on this regulation. You can find a PDF of that comment here.

Your comment can be long or short. You can give examples of what you think is wrong with the rule. You can say how important you think asylum is for people fleeing persecution and violence. You can focus on a specific part of the proposed rule or on the rule as a whole.

The Administrative Procedure Act requires the government to give the public a chance to comment on proposed rules. Comments become part of the public record. They are available for anyone to read. After the comment period closes, the government agency that proposed the rule must read all of the comments. They must consider comments when drafting the final version of the rule. If a very large number of people comment, it will take longer for the final rule to be published and take effect. The agency may make amendments to the rule after considering the comments.

If you want to comment, but do not want your name to appear, you can enter your name as “anonymous anonymous.”

The comment period for this rule ends on Monday, November 2 at midnight. You can make a comment by going to this page, clicking on the “Comment” button beneath the title of the proposed rule, and entering your comment.

Some suggestions for comments:

• Credit history and credit scores are unnecessary to show the sponsor’s ability to satisfy the statutory financial requirements;
• Requiring specific bank account information is unjustified and will cause many potential joint sponsors to refuse to participate;
• Requiring submission of three years of tax returns instead of just one would be overly burdensome.
• There is no statutory basis for excluding the income of sponsors’ household members, and doing so would require them to find joint sponsors and make immigration more difficult; and
• A sponsor’s receipt of a public benefit up to three years ago is not reflective of their ability to satisfy the statutory financial requirements and should not disqualify them from being a sponsor.