What does the part about depositing a bond mean?

The I-134 is .......

1) Proof that your Income is sufficient enough to care for the Beneficiary
2) your way of "guaranteeing" that the Beneficiary does not go on Public assistance after their arrival

The statement about "depositing a bond" means that, if necessary, you would acquire a bond in order to guarantee that the Beneficiary does not go on Welfare, etc. If your income meets the Poverty guidelines or you have a Sponser, this is a non issue for you.

Thanks!

What exactly is a bond? What would make it necessary for me to have to do that - if my income isn't enough?

I'm the fiancee of the immigrant, my salary is nearly $10,000 over 125% of the poverty guideline for my household plus him, so I'm good in that respect. But my work history is cruddy as I just graduated high school in 2003 and, although I've now been working in a full-time job that pays enough for the last month and a half, I'd feel better with a co-sponsor. One of my friends is interested and I'm going to send her a link to the I-134 .pdf file so she can take a look at it. I know she'll be curious as to what this particular section means in regards to her as the co-sponsor, plus I'm curious about what it means to me as the main sponsor anyway.

A "bond" is a debt instrument. You'd only need to do something like that if your income was insufficient. In factm I have never read a post of anyone having to take out a bond for the affadavit of support. They either made enough money or they had a sponser that met the guidelines.

In regard to your friend becoming a sponser, I think her term of "responsibility" would be 3 years. Other VJ'ers can correct me if I am mistaken.

A bond is an agreement by a third party to pay a certain sum of money upon the occurence of certain events. In this case, if the beneficiary would become a "public charge" the conditions of the bond would be triggered and the third party surety or guarantor would be asked to pay. After they are forced to pay, I guaranty they (the bond company) comes after you.

Think of a "bail" bond. Different situation but the underlying premise of the bond are the same. If you do not show up to court, the bail bondsman has to pay the court the agreed upon amount and then "DOG" the bounty hunter come a looking.

Bonds are not free. If you post a bond you pay a fee to the bondsman for that privelege. That is how the bondsman makes his living. Hopefully collecting fees and never being asked to pay.

Okay, so basically if I screw up and my fiance applies for... I dunno... food stamps, for example. Then I as his sponsor would be required to pay for a bond in the amount that the government spent on those food stamps, and if I couldn't then my co-sponsor would need to?

Angilla,

No. Posting a bond means putting up a sum of money in advance. Then later on, if money is needed from you, they don't have to come after you to get it - they have your money already. They deduct the amount pf moeny that you owe from the amount of the bond. Eventually you will get the bond money back, less any amounts that were taken from it.

In many cases, you do not have to put up the bond money yourself. You pay someone a lesser amount and they will put up the bond money for you. Somewhat like buying an insurance policy, the bond company calculates that it will not have to pay out on all of the bonds that it underwrites, only some of them. The fees that it collects from all of the people are adequate to cover what it does have to pay out on some of the bonds with something left over as their profit.

I doubt that bonds are actually used, the cost of doing the accounting and operating the program is too high. Much easier to make the visa applicant find a suitable sponsor than to make an unsuitable sponsor post a bond.

Yodrak

Ooooooooooooooooooohkay. Phew. Thank you!