Hello,

I know that I, the petition, have to fill out an I-134 too, even though I have been unemployed the last 7 months while living with my fiance in the UK. In addition, I will remain unemployed until April as I am heading back to the UK to be with my fiance while we wait.

I have a co-sponsor who makes enough based on the poverty guidelines.

My question is has anyone here been through the process in the same situation. Unemployed but with a co-sponsor. I just want to make sure we will be okay.

From what I've read, I'm assuming we will be fine.

But as we all know, "when you assume you make an a** out of u and me".

I hate that saying.

Thanks in advance!

Why not self sponsor?

You mean for him to sponsor himself?

He can't really afford it. Although he has a graduate job in engineering, it's his first and he isn't paid very well. He has no savings because it all goes towards rent, food, etc.

Should be okay, as long as you express that you are willing to work.

Oh of course, definately. I hate not working. It bores me to tears. Perhaps I'll bring my last few tax returns to show normally I'm working fulltime, all the time. Couldn't hurt.

Yeah, that will be helpful. Really, as long as you have a reasonable excuse for not working lately (hint: being abroad is a reasonable excuse for not working) and a competent co-sponsor, this isn't something to worry about overly much.

Thanks! All I can do is hope.

Ohh. I'm glad you asked about this, i'm in the same situation. Although I wonder, I had a job for most of last year and I was on unemployment because where I was working closed. When I fill out the part about how much I make a year, can I put how much I actually made last year? I haven't had a job yet this year, and that could look kind of worrying putting zero!

HaHa! That's what I thought as I filled mine out...

$0
$0
$0
Unemployed

"Hmmm.... this doesn't look very good, does it?"

Like others have said, we can only work with what we have at the minute. And if that is nothing but a co-sponsor, then so be it. As long as they meet the criteria, it should be fine because it is a legal contract on them to make sure the beneficiary does not end up on public funds (or they will ultimately be responsible for paying.)

The only bit of advice I'd give is to be sure your co-sponsor is totally cool with it. I'm sure you have already talked about that, but do the WHAT IF game...WHAT IF they pull out at the last minute?

what are you going to do for AOS? Will they sponsor him then too?

Please understand I'm not trying to cause upset, but I very much believe in expecting the unexpected & being prepared.

Good luck!

My mother is the co-sponsor and she is without a doubt okay with it. She loves Karl to pieces already, and would never pull out at the last minute.

She's willing to sponsor for AOS as well, but I will also be back to work then too.

Thank you for your concern!!

Oh yeah. My Mom is being the sponsor too. She kind of gave me a dazed look though when I told her all the stuff we had to send in! My parents both love him to bits too. I am hoping to be back to work sometime soon. I haven't had a job since July! The money situation is getting a bit bad. I'm a full-time student... and I was working full-time and if I hadn't lost my job I would have been able to sponsor my fiance by myself, but the place I worked closed down for business . Since i'm young no one seems to want to pay me anywhere near what I was making there, which is sad really because I'm one of the hardest working people I know! I deserve a good job, I hate what our country is coming to! Since July i've applied for about 30 places, got 2 interviews... one offered me 10 hours a week!! What a joke! The other wrote me a letter saying they passed me up, and the reason i'm sure was because I was going to England over Christmas and they had a rule that you had to work Christmas eve, which I saw when I turned in the application to them, but... I hadn't bought my plane ticket yet!

HaHa, sounds like we are in the exact same boat! I was a full-time student as well, until I decided to head back to the UK in a few weeks, but I'll be back at the school game in September, and I can't wait.

Job trouble is no good. Do you use any internet job sites for searching? When we started looking at jobs for Karl when he comes we tried allllllllllllllllllll sorts of sites. Perhaps you need to move to a slightly larger, very awesome city...

No, but if you want any help finding some great sites, I'd be glad to send you some links.

I will hopefully have a job with my old company (a music store) as a manager again. *fingers crossed*

I've tried like career builder and monster.com, problem is where I live it seems most of the jobs in what I used to do (data entry and customer service) are on the other side of town (about 30-40 mins away) which is just too far to drive each way everyday while going to school, and most can't work around my school schedule. It's a bummer. I even stooped as low as applying at like sears, kohls, target, bath and body works, petsmart, best buy... nothing!!! All major retailers. You would think someone who has experience, recommendations, dean's list in college etc, would be able to find a freaking job!

January is a record month for being slow on hiring - esp. in retail (the after Christmas slump). Don't get discouraged yet!!

I agree with Tracy. After Christmas sucks for retail positions. Wait it out, because things always open up.

I use:

www.monster.com
www.careerbuilder.com

One of the following two is linked to one of the above but I can't recall which!

www.flipdog.com
www.hotjobs.com

On a side note, I love Bath & Body Works. Brown Sugar & Fig is the best smell ever.

I like vanilla brown sugar, and exotic coconut. I applied for these places back in Oct-Nov when they should have been hiring for Christmas rush! B&BW is the one who offered me 10 hours a week, I pretty much laughed and said it wasn't worth the gas it would cost me to get there. On a side note, does anyone know on the DS-156 for the part where it asks if you intend to work and put the address and name of the employer... what would you put if you do pending work authorization but don't have an employer?

Most K1ers don't have employment lined up before they arrive due to work authorization issues.

The example form on VJ says to put 'with work authorization - employer unknown' in that space.

http://www.visajourney.com/examples/Form-DS-156.pdf