GoodJack

Georgia16, there ya go. I quoted the wrong percent of time, my bad. Oh and once again, I never said the wait time went up DUE to trump, i said it went up since he went into office. It’s amazing how people jump to a conclusions. Even if Hilary won and the wait went up I’d be using her victory as a reference to mark a time in life to base my point. 

https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/historic-pt
It's about a 50% longer wait than in 2015. 

Sorry guys, but you’re not gonna get a political left-right side response out of me. I’m neither republican nor democrat......couldn’t care less about any of that. 
‘But to answer y’alls  assumptions of what y’all think I said, I never said trump physically did anything nor signed anything against immigration. I said
“pre trump”....as in a timeline/era. That being said, studies and reports do show that wait times have double since trumps election, hence my “pre trump” statement. Feel however you want about him, it doesn’t change the fact that waiting time has increased drastically. 
So yes I do wish I had done something pre trump (2017 for those sensitive to the word trump). 

Hm, I don't really remember this but I think it was 2 weeks. But make sure to try the online methode first! https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript 

Pages 810 to 820 list out all the positive, negative, heavily weighted positive and heavily weighted negative factors.
 
https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-17142.pdf

Please look at this post that someone put up yesterday. They obtained some stuff from a immigrant group that will help lay out some of the new rule for you. 
 
 

The 125% annual income is more than enough for the majority of the country outside of the high COL areas. Once you start getting in to places like LA, SF, and the NYC then you have to move over to the 250% level unfortunately. I was living in Los Angeles with four kids an a wife at the 350% level and it was still tough due to the high COL. Now where I live in NC you can get by at the 125%. 
 
Also they may use the 125% as a starting point and go from there either with positives or negatives. We have seen it on here before where a couple were denied due to the public charge rule months ago. The petitioner did not make enough and they had to get a cosponsor, but the cosponsor lived several states away. So the CO denied them because of that with the determination that "yes, they had enough income on paper. But if there was any financial trouble could they really depend on the cosponsor since they were states away from them".

Isn't there some statistic that 21 veterans kill themselves every day and there are more dead back home from suicide than the actual war casualties? Very sad situation! 

Isn't there some statistic that 21 veterans kill themselves every day and there are more dead back home from suicide than the actual war casualties? Very sad situation! 

The thing is I dont think there is a problem here. I think this is a narrative being pushed by the anti-immigrant talking heads with no basis in reality. Most immigrants already cant get any welfare for the first years on green card. The ones that can are exempt from the effects of this new rule anyway.

This 250%

I added my wife (and a beater car) and it was about $75 more per month after she did a drivers class.  Otherwise it would have been almost double.

I took us 6 weeks to hear about the interview date when we did it last year in Mexico.  I think you can get the German Police report pretty quickly.  Mary's was about 3 months old.
 
You will get a packet or email from the consulate saying what exactly to bring in, but it is the instructions for a normal spousal visa.   Also take in everything you would have sent to the NVC.   The financial documents etc.
 
Enjoy being some of the last to use DCF!

As frustrating as it is, we can thank our lucky stars that we are from low fraud countries so we know that it is very unlikely that your case will end up in AP for months.. This can not be said for some fellow VJ members that end up in months and months of AP so use this waiting time to think about how fortunate we are and keep them in our thoughts 😉
 
And: congratulations on the approval of course!!

Am not sure how you do that but I know that the changes they are making right now will do nothing on that front. The narrative being pushed by the administration of why they are making these changes is totally false. Immigrants certainly do not come to this country for the "free stuff" and even if they did they have to wait 5 years before they can get some of that "free stuff". The only immigrants who can get and do get the "free stuff" are those exempted already by congress and they are not affected by this new rule anyway.
You don't put air in your back tire to fix low air in your front tire.

The government has to enforce the law and get the reimbursement back from the sponsor You can not apply US standard merits on an immigrant from a developing country and say that person is most likely to become a public charge in the future as he/she does not satisfy those standards. I'm saying this under a truly working government not under an administration who always wants to come up with rules and regulations to reduce legal and low-income immigrants and shift immigrant demography towards their favorite countries.

Make it impossible for green card holders to get public benefits like it was supposed to be originally (where we sign the affidavit that says we cannot or else our sponsor pays), except for specific cases like children, pregnant mothers etc

For me the problem with the 250% level is not just the money but also that the administration has doubled the threshold without going to congress which set the 125% level. More importantly it does nothing to prevent the prospective immigrants from becoming public charges the very thing they are claiming the are making the changes for. In most cases new immigrants do not qualify for and can not get any of the benefits anyway because of the five year bar.

That is correct. That is the start of my problem with this new rule basically it is doubling the the income level of the affidavit of support but it does NOTHING to prevent the immigrant becoming a public charge.

Before this new rule, For most immigrants the public charge bar was overcame with an i-864 completed by your sponsor or joint sponsor. As long they could show they earned over 125% of the poverty level for your household you would get approved. Under the new rules - The i-864 stops being sufficient on its own and the consular/DHS officer must now consider other factors like age, income, health, job skills, job history , credit score and the like.  Each of those factors is assigned a positive/negative rating.
 
So in my thinking a house wife/husband who stays home has a lot of negative factors and almost no positives based on the guidance from the new rule - she has no personal income, no employment history, no job skills, is unemployed blah blah. So with all those negative factors and one positive factor it is hard to see that person getting approved.
I have also seen some interpretations that the applicant(immigrant) must have an income of 125% level as well.

Depends on where you live. 250% of the poverty level for a household of 2 would be just over $40k this year. In Seattle that’s just a fraction above minimum wage. You can’t keep a goldfish on that in Seattle, let alone 2 adults. But in other parts of the country you might be able to live handsomely on that. 
 
Personally, I think they need to tighten up on sponsorship requirements for K-1s, not immigrant visas for people of working age. I have lost count of how many threads I’ve seen here from K-1 couples who either want to expedite the EAD because they’ve run out of money and need another wage coming in, can’t afford AOS, are having to live with parents or other family members because the USC petitioner cannot support both of them on his/her income, wanting to work remotely for a company in their home country because they are so short of money, or find any other loophole to get them out of financial dire straits. This all comes from the I-134 only needing 100% of the poverty level and some laid-back embassies such as London allowing self-sponsorship. 
 
I came here on an IR-1 and my husband was unemployed at the time. We had to use a joint sponsor even though I had a good job waiting for me here. All immigrant visa holders are eligible to work from day one. I was working within 2 weeks of arrival, making $72,000 a year. I’ve been here almost 22 months now and have just got my second raise taking me a little over $80,000 a year before overtime. My husband is now working and earning around half that. And we had to jump through hoops with tax returns etc for the sponsorship of my visa. I’ve always worked. I had a job waiting for me. I came with several thousand in savings. Yet people on less than $20,000 a year with no savings are bringing in fiancés who cannot work for months and then find themselves struggling. I really think there needs to be stricter guidelines re financials for K-1s. I find it incredible here to see people saying they can’t afford a plane ticket for another visit even though it will help their case immensely yet they are planning on adding a non-working adult to the household for many months. We also have to remember that in this fast-paced world we live in, being out of work for 6 months or so can set you back years and cost you many places on the career ladder. I know a girl who arrived on a K-1 with an MSc in a very specialized field. Because she was “out of the game” for so long she couldn’t get a job in her field at all. She ended up working in a car repair shop making coffee for the customers and answering the phone. 
 
 

Unless I’m mistaken the topic is not about joint sponsors but raising the poverty guideline astronomically.
 
If someone makes 125% for their household then they are able to support their relative without the government. They may be eating canned soup instead of steak and so what? You shouldn’t need to be rich to bring a loved one here. You also shouldn’t expect the rest of the country to support your foreign relative via benefits. But that’s why 125% has been the guideline - it shows help from the country won’t be necessary. Raising the guideline is wrong and it’s a very deliberate way of closing the US off to people from less desirable (S***hole according to trump) countries.

If this new guideline goes through, it doesn't take into account USC who married and lived abroad for many years then come back for whatever reason and have 0  or close to 0 reported income for the past few years due to waver of income earned overseas. In my case, I had been living in my husband's country where we married. I had to come home to care for a sick parent and now I'm waiting and waiting, unable to work outside the home because I have a full load caring for my dad. Fortunately, I have assets and rental income that I pay taxes on to put me over 125% but if it was 250%? Yeah, I would have had to choose between helping my dad or staying in Singapore with my husband. My husband does have a job waiting for him here but we can't count that future income since they are not the sponsor. I think USC who have been married abroad for over a set number of years (5?10?) and are returning home should be in a separate category anyway because our situation is quite different. Many countries give breaks to returning citizens, just not the US.

Disagree. We needed a joint sponsor because my husband didn't have the required income in the past. Never were an issue to provide for us (we had 3 kids since). It would have been vastly unfair if I had to live here illegally or not live here at all...

That's easy for someone to say when they can afford it. I can afford having my husband here (pay all of my bills, we live on our own in a nice place, etc) but we still needed a joint sponsor because i am back in school full time and can only work part time at the moment I just barely don't make the threshold. When we applied for his visa we were aware of all that was involved and that is why we have used my dad as a cosponsor. As long as the money is coming from somewhere (and that somewhere not being the US government) I don't understand why you see a problem with it. This has caused absolutely no stress in our relationship because all three of us (husband, myself, and my father) are on board and supportive of each other. My husband and I spent months saving as much as we could before/during our visa application process. If people can find a way to afford it by getting some help for a bit from family or a friend they shouldn't just not be with their loved one. A little harsh don't you think?