PLEASE HELP I751/N400 MESS

[Sia2019 2]

Hello everyone ,

Please try not to judge me for being so naive for a long time. I am really stressed out and nervous for the mistakes I made as  I was new to US and trusted my DH to take care of my paperwork and immigration which he was terrible in. I didn't have anyone else here so I took whatever he said as it is.

Long story short - came to US with fiance visa, married a US husband in 2014, got first conditional GC  with no interview in 2016. So neither I nor him knew that we have to lift the conditions of  my 2 year GC until like 9  months prior to expiration. In addition to that we pretty much didn't have anything together since he defaulted on his private student loans. Banks were not fair to him, overcharged and didnt work with him when he was unemployed and ruined his credit and he later on explained to me that it's not a biggie and after 7 years it will go away( me coming from a country where there are no student loans and a credit score just blindly believed him). We lived with my father in law so not even bills or a lease together.

When I found out his student loan creditors can come after us it was too late , his loans were sent to collections , ballooned and resold couple times and no payment arrangments would work.

Fast forward end of 2018 I applied for citizenship since ROC was taking so long and it will take until like mid 2020 for the combo i751 /N400 interview letter to come.

For me its a very unhealthy and stressful life (he takes it way more easier) where we try not to have anything under both of our names( even though it's his debt made prior to our marriage but we live in a community property state so even half of my wages can be taken) and not have more than 2000$ in the bank account although no one yet sued him for 5 years and the statute of limitations is 6 years in our state.

I know it will raise a lot of questions at the interview and  IO  might question my good moral since we live a life like that or question if our marriage is real cause we dont have much together but taxes, bills, photos, trips.  To my defence I was never late in any of bills or dues in my life and I am the opposite of my husband and wish he had told me before the marriage when we had enough funds to take care of his student loans instead of going to an expensive Eurotrip for the Honeymoon but he didn't so here I am, can't sleep and very frustrated with him and myself😔

 

I would appreciate any thoughts or if anyone else heard of a messy situation like this.

What was the outcome if any  and what would you suggest me to do?

Edited April 15, 2019 by Sia2019

[Ash.1101 1,755]

55 minutes ago, Sia2019 said:

Hello everyone ,

Please try not to judge me for being so naive for a long time. I am really stressed out and nervous for the mistakes I made as  I was new to US and trusted my DH to take care of my paperwork and immigration which he was terrible in. I didn't have anyone else here so I took whatever he said as it is.

Long story short - came to US with fiance visa, married a US husband in 2014, got first conditional GC  with no interview in 2016. So neither I nor him knew that we have to lift the conditions of  my 2 year GC until like 9  months prior to expiration. In addition to that we pretty much didn't have anything together since he defaulted on his private student loans. Banks were not fair to him, overcharged and didnt work with him when he was unemployed and ruined his credit and he later on explained to me that it's not a biggie and after 7 years it will go away( me coming from a country where there are no student loans and a credit score just blindly believed him). We lived with my father in law so not even bills or a lease together.

When I found out his student loan creditors can come after us it was too late , his loans were sent to collections , ballooned and resold couple times and no payment arrangments would work.

Fast forward end of 2018 I applied for citizenship since ROC was taking so long and it will take until like mid 2020 for the combo i751 /N400 interview letter to come.

For me its a very unhealthy and stressful life (he takes it way more easier) where we try not to have anything under both of our names( even though it's his debt made prior to our marriage but we live in a community property state so even half of my wages can be taken) and not have more than 2000$ in the bank account although no one yet sued him for 5 years and the statute of limitations is 6 years in our state.

I know it will raise a lot of questions at the interview and  IO  might question my good moral since we live a life like that or question if our marriage is real cause we dont have much together but taxes, bills, photos, trips.  To my defence I was never late in any of bills or dues in my life and I am the opposite of my husband and wish he had told me before the marriage when we had enough funds to take care of his student loans instead of going to an expensive Eurotrip for the Honeymoon but he didn't so here I am, can't sleep and very frustrated with him and myself😔

 

I would appreciate any thoughts or if anyone else heard of a messy situation like this.

What was the outcome if any  and what would you suggest me to do?

Are ya'll on food stamps or government aid? The 2000$ is something that exists when you are on some form of government aid, like SSI, SSDI, food stamps, welfare.

Just curious as that's the only thing I've ever seen that would cause you to not want to go over 2000$, it's a specific number.

With that said, all you can show is what you have. His credit should not bring yours down, my husband and I have two auto loans, my credit was actually worse prior to those loans. When we applied for our first autoloan, his credit was about 720, and mine was 500 or less, this was in 2016. Right now, after two car loans and a credit card, my husbands credit is about 700 and mine is at 620.

None of my past debts have affected his credit, nor do they show up on his credit report unless HIS name is on the credit/loan as well. I leaned this too from my prior marriage where while we had multiple cards and were in debt, only one of the cards popped for my exhusband on the credit report, and that was the one his name was on. 

While it is common belief that you inherit someones credit when you marry them, that's only true if you put your name on the loans as well. 

[Sia2019 2]

3 minutes ago, Ash.1101 said:

Are ya'll on food stamps or government aid? The 2000$ is something that exists when you are on some form of government aid, like SSI, SSDI, food stamps, welfare.

Just curious as that's the only thing I've ever seen that would cause you to not want to go over 2000$, it's a specific number.

With that said, all you can show is what you have. His credit should not bring yours down, my husband and I have two auto loans, my credit was actually worse prior to those loans. When we applied for our first autoloan, his credit was about 720, and mine was 500 or less, this was in 2016. Right now, after two car loans and a credit card, my husbands credit is about 700 and mine is at 620.

None of my past debts have affected his credit, nor do they show up on his credit report unless HIS name is on the credit/loan as well. I leaned this too from my prior marriage where while we had multiple cards and were in debt, only one of the cards popped for my exhusband on the credit report, and that was the one his name was on. 

While it is common belief that you inherit someones credit when you marry them, that's only true if you put your name on the loans as well. 

Thank you for the reply. Just want to explain better: my credit score is 750+  Ibuilt it from scratch my father in law added me on his cc and I openned another secured one myself and built my score throughout 2 years. We are not on food stamps or gov. aid but his creditors can sue us and get our bank account levied since we live in NV which is a community property state and the only exemption is 2000$ that they can't touch so we keep our account low and can't own anything together or a lien can be placed on anything we own.

[Ash.1101 1,755]

33 minutes ago, Sia2019 said:

Thank you for the reply. Just want to explain better: my credit score is 750+  Ibuilt it from scratch my father in law added me on his cc and I openned another secured one myself and built my score throughout 2 years. We are not on food stamps or gov. aid but his creditors can sue us and get our bank account levied since we live in NV which is a community property state and the only exemption is 2000$ that they can't touch so we keep our account low and can't own anything together or a lien can be placed on anything we own.

Ah I see!

 

i guess a good question would be, what DO yall have in both of your names?

[Sia2019 2]

19 minutes ago, Ash.1101 said:

Ah I see!

 

i guess a good question would be, what DO yall have in both of your names?

We have  4 years of taxes together,  utility bills together but we didnt have it from the start since we moved around a lot, joint bank account which we keep low , health insurance on and off when he was unemployed , car insurance,  cell phone plan together , pictures , trips, affidavits , we are going to buy a car together before that were driving my father in laws cars .  We dont have everything that most couples have here and are trying to get by without loosing my sanity. My fear is that IO will not believe that we are in this mess with lacking evidence and when I would bring up my  husband's debt as a reason it wouldn't look good 

Edited April 15, 2019 by Sia2019

[Ash.1101 1,755]

1 hour ago, Sia2019 said:

We have  4 years of taxes together,  utility bills together but we didnt have it from the start since we moved around a lot, joint bank account which we keep low , health insurance on and off when he was unemployed , car insurance,  cell phone plan together , pictures , trips, affidavits , we are going to buy a car together before that were driving my father in laws cars .  We dont have everything that most couples have here and are trying to get by without loosing my sanity. My fear is that IO will not believe that we are in this mess with lacking evidence and when I would bring up my  husband's debt as a reason it wouldn't look good 

Your husbands debt doesn’t matter to them, you have enough evidence to get by with an interview. There are people who get approved who refuse to have joint bank accounts. 

 

You dont have to mention your husbands debt, because in all honesty if you have tax returns, joint bank account, health insurance at times and a future car loan, that should be enough to cover the financial side of things.

 

You also don’t need to give more information willingly. They don’t need to know about the debt. You don’t have to go into this big explanation about his debt being why you aren’t on more things together, because you can just say you have a credit card in your own name because your credit rating is better. That’s it, leave it at that.

 

You can have your father in law draft a lease that y’all sign and/or just have a written affidavit from your father in law that y’all live there and how long y’all have lived there.

 

The interview is simply to decide if your marriage is real, they’re not interested in your financial life other than if you share the burden of finances together, which you do. 

 

Almost all ROCs get approved and some have less evidence than you. 

 

 

[Going through 5,668]

 

1 hour ago, Sia2019 said:

We have  4 years of taxes together,  utility bills together but we didnt have it from the start since we moved around a lot, joint bank account which we keep low , health insurance on and off when he was unemployed , car insurance,  cell phone plan together , pictures , trips, affidavits , we are going to buy a car together before that were driving my father in laws cars .  We dont have everything that most couples have here and are trying to get by without loosing my sanity. My fear is that IO will not believe that we are in this mess with lacking evidence and when I would bring up my  husband's debt as a reason it wouldn't look good 

 

There's no need to bring up your husband's debt at the interview.  People fall in debt all the time.  As mentioned,  his debt/credit score will not affect your i-751 or N400.

 

You already have a lot more evidence of co-mingling finances than you realize.  Joint bills, joint taxes, joint bank account, joint health insurance/car insurance are all strong pieces of evidence in the eyes of USCIS.   If asked, the "on and off" part can be explained by his employment history.

 

In terms of where you're living,  you can get his dad to write an affidavit stating that you are living under his roof as a married couple, and if you pay anything towards bills, etc. in the marital home if you feel you need to bring something more to the interview.

[Boiler 43,429]

I agree you have much more than many people who have no issue removing conditions.

[Sia2019 2]

35 minutes ago, Ash.1101 said:

Your husbands debt doesn’t matter to them, you have enough evidence to get by with an interview. There are people who get approved who refuse to have joint bank accounts. 

 

You dont have to mention your husbands debt, because in all honesty if you have tax returns, joint bank account, health insurance at times and a future car loan, that should be enough to cover the financial side of things.

 

You also don’t need to give more information willingly. They don’t need to know about the debt. You don’t have to go into this big explanation about his debt being why you aren’t on more things together, because you can just say you have a credit card in your own name because your credit rating is better. That’s it, leave it at that.

 

You can have your father in law draft a lease that y’all sign and/or just have a written affidavit from your father in law that y’all live there and how long y’all have lived there.

 

The interview is simply to decide if your marriage is real, they’re not interested in your financial life other than if you share the burden of finances together, which you do. 

 

Almost all ROCs get approved and some have less evidence than you. 

 

 

Thank you for your post , really appreciate it. I am stressed out because I see other couples living a normal life where they can provide all the documents needed and we were pretty much running from his creditors these last 4-5 years risking my immigration status by not adding nothing else into both of our names. The issue also is that bank account , insurance and  bills we added 9 months prior  to ROC and didn't have anything together before that , so there is a huge gap of no financial evidence at all.

[Ash.1101 1,755]

8 minutes ago, Sia2019 said:

Thank you for your post , really appreciate it. I am stressed out because I see other couples living a normal life where they can provide all the documents needed and we were pretty much running from his creditors these last 4-5 years risking my immigration status by not adding nothing else into both of our names. The issue also is that bank account , insurance and  bills we added 9 months prior  to ROC and didn't have anything together before that , so there is a huge gap of no financial evidence at all.

So if the IO asks why you didn't have anything prior to nine months, you just need to be able to answer why. If the answer was because that ya'll were too busy moving and didn't think of it, that's okay. I wouldn't necessarily answer "Because we didn't know it was required for ROC", but maybe something along the lines of what you did before, how you paid for things like "Well we didn't really think about it, I just used his cards and we paid the bills out of this one account". 

You want to be honest without giving out too much information. The only BAD reason would be "Because we weren't planning on staying married, but then we found out that there was ROC so we just winged it from there". LOL

You do have a fair amount of financial information, not everyone gets the live the good life of owning a house and multiple cars with credit lines all over the place. People have gotten by with just tax returns, one bank account, and some pics and affidavits. One guy recently was approved who swore they were going to get an RFE because they only sent like 5 things of evidence.

[Going through 5,668]

4 minutes ago, Sia2019 said:

The issue also is that bank account , insurance and  bills we added 9 months prior  to ROC and didn't have anything together before that , so there is a huge gap of no financial evidence at all.

You have the tax returns which helps fill that gap.  You have the explanation of his lack of employment at times which helps explain certain gaps (if asked about it, doubtful you'll be asked).

 

It's understandable that you're stressed out about this...every step of the immigration process is stressful...but really I think you'll be fine based on what you've said so far, and based on the evidence you have.

 

During the i-751 I had no lease, no joint bank account, no shared car insurance, no proof of trips together---only 2 utility bills shared, affidavits, and tax returns.  You have a lot more evidence than I did at the time I was going through my ROC if that makes you feel better.

 

 

[Sia2019 2]

7 minutes ago, Ash.1101 said:

So if the IO asks why you didn't have anything prior to nine months, you just need to be able to answer why. If the answer was because that ya'll were too busy moving and didn't think of it, that's okay. I wouldn't necessarily answer "Because we didn't know it was required for ROC", but maybe something along the lines of what you did before, how you paid for things like "Well we didn't really think about it, I just used his cards and we paid the bills out of this one account". 

You want to be honest without giving out too much information. The only BAD reason would be "Because we weren't planning on staying married, but then we found out that there was ROC so we just winged it from there". LOL

You do have a fair amount of financial information, not everyone gets the live the good life of owning a house and multiple cars with credit lines all over the place. People have gotten by with just tax returns, one bank account, and some pics and affidavits. One guy recently was approved who swore they were going to get an RFE because they only sent like 5 things of 

Lol I know what you mean not to give extra info . I  just feel like there will be 1000s of questions asked" why we don't have this or that and why we moved so many times, why we were keeping so low our bank account " and since I dont want to lie I will just burst about his debts and stuff😤

 

[Ash.1101 1,755]

1 minute ago, Sia2019 said:

Lol I know what you mean not to give extra info . I  just feel like there will be 1000s of questions asked" why we don't have this or that and why we moved so many times, why we were keeping so low our bank account " and since I dont want to lie I will just burst about his debts and stuff😤

 

Realistically they shouldn't ask most of that. As long as long as you have proof you moved multiple times, and they won't ask about the low bank account. Most people don't have 2$ just sitting in their account for fun anyways. We make 60k a year, but if you look at our end balance you'd never know it LOL

[Going through 5,668]

8 minutes ago, Sia2019 said:

I  just feel like there will be 1000s of questions asked" why we don't have this or that and why we moved so many times, why we were keeping so low our bank account "

A good portion of your interview will be spent sitting silently watching the IO staple, hole-punch, and type things into their computer.

The IO is not going to focus on how much money is in your bank account---their concern is the totality of evidence presented showing a bonafide marriage.   

[Cathi 5,609]

4 hours ago, Ash.1101 said:

Are ya'll on food stamps or government aid? The 2000$ is something that exists when you are on some form of government aid, like SSI, SSDI, food stamps, welfare.

Just curious as that's the only thing I've ever seen that would cause you to not want to go over 2000$, it's a specific number.

With that said, all you can show is what you have. His credit should not bring yours down, my husband and I have two auto loans, my credit was actually worse prior to those loans. When we applied for our first autoloan, his credit was about 720, and mine was 500 or less, this was in 2016. Right now, after two car loans and a credit card, my husbands credit is about 700 and mine is at 620.

None of my past debts have affected his credit, nor do they show up on his credit report unless HIS name is on the credit/loan as well. I leaned this too from my prior marriage where while we had multiple cards and were in debt, only one of the cards popped for my exhusband on the credit report, and that was the one his name was on. 

While it is common belief that you inherit someones credit when you marry them, that's only true if you put your name on the loans as well. 

There is no limit to the amount of money you can have in an account when you're on SSDI(disability). SSDI is not a means tested benefit (welfare). The amount you get is based upon how much you contributed out of your own tax money when you worked.