Hello everyone! My husband and I are new to your site. Thank you for loads of useful info. Anyway, I am a US citizen, and my husband is British. I moved to the UK 2 years ago and then married, but now my husband wants to move to California (where I am from) in 3 years. When I moved here (UK) he had to provide all sorts of proof that he could support me before I could get my entry fiance visa. I understand that the INS will ask the same thing of me when we go back to the USA. But how can either one of us prove that we have the funds for support in the US since we have both been living and working in Britain? Will there be a minimum bank balance required before we can go back? So many questions....it's a good thing we have 3 years to get them all sorted! Thank you for any answers or suggestions.
Can't you sort out all the paperwork in UK via the Embassy so your hubby can walk off the plane and start looking for a job?
Before I came over, my wife was a student and unable to prove she could support me so her parents filled out the paperwork and I have copies, they had to file the last years tax return with documents shwoing how much they were worth.
Otherwise, the easiest way might be, like you said, either to save up a large sum of money or, even better I'd guess would be to go over before him and get a job so you can show that you are earning and the job is stable enough so you can support him.
It basically comes down to convincing them that he's not going to claim welfare or be any other burden on the state.
If you will have been married three years by the time you move here, won't you have bypassed the financial requirement aspect?
Thank you all for the input. Monster, I thought that the financials were set in stone, no matter how long we have been married. I am going to the Embassy in person in the next few weeks to get some answers-(hopefully). I also know NOW that I needed to be filing taxes for the last 2 years while here in the UK...ooops. I thought that since I was paying taxes here, I wouldn't have to be paying taxes in the USA TOO. Gulp evil My 13 year old stepson may be coming over with us as well, and I'll need to inquire about his schooling situation. If he's taken and passed his GCSE's at 16 and can legally be out of school in the UK can he be considered to have 'graduated' in the States as well?
After hearing about the financial side of things, and how that may set us back from going 'home', I had a major case of the blues for the rest of the day yesterday. Perhaps a trip to Kew gardens will cheer meup! Thanks again for your input.
Shoosie
What did you think of Bracknell? It probably has a few more roundabouts than Sacramento wink
I used to live/work there and still get the Great Hollands experience when I stay with my sister grin
I hope you have been filing tax returns in the US even though you hadn't been earning anything.
I have a colleague (US citizen) who came back to the states after five years in Finland who hadn't filed any tax returns in that time. He had been declared bankrupt (or something similar) and his brother had to sign papers promising to financially support his Finnish wife...
Just something to bear in mind.
Hi Shoosies
My Wife is American and I am British and we were in the same position, we married in Oregon, came back to the UK, but then I wanted to try and get US residency straight away.
We had a consultancy session with a visa attorney (well worth the money!) and she informed us that, since neither of us were obviously working in the US and earning dollars, we either needed about 80K US Dollars in the bank, or a joint sponsor.
The joint sponsor had to earn more than the set amount on the 'poverty level'. Basically, as part of the resident forms, the Embassy send you a sheet showing how much the poverty line is for a family of 2/3/4/5/6 etc., and you or your joint sponsor needs to have earned above that for the last 3 years.
We went for the joint sponsor option, and my in-laws acted as that for us. My wife was my first sponsor (I also needed copies of her tax returns for the last 3 years) and my in-lawas were the joint sponsors. I also needed to have copies of my in-laws tax returns, W-2 forms, passports and they had to fill out an Affidavit of Support form.
It sounds long and complicated, but it isn't too bad, it just gets confusing when your in-laws are self-employed like mine!
Good luck. It's worth the hassle.
Gary
Sorry -I don't know anything about it really, I was just trying to apply some common sense to the few bits I did know -you'd think I'd know better having lived here a couple of years! roll lol
...but I do know that you should have been filing taxes and you probably need to sort that out first.
You need to provide an "Affidavit of Support" as part of your visa paperwork. This is a legal contract between you (US citizen sponsor) and the US government that you will support the visa beneficiary (your husband) that he will never become a public charge in the US.
They need to see evidence of your financial situation. First of all, you must have filed the past 3 years US taxes. The only exception to this rule is if you did not earn enough to justify a tax return.
Now, you have to look at your earning over the past 3 years. Since you have been living in the same household as your husband for at least 6 months, his income can be included also. To make this fly with income alone, this needs to add up to at least 125% of the federal poverty level for your household size. We aren't talking about big numbers here - $19k for a family of 3.
If you haven't earned enough, you can apply your assets. To use assets, they need to be 5x the income requirement - so just under $100k. You can use estimated profit from selling your house for this, as well as money in bank, stocks etc. And you can use a combination of income and assets.
If you still can't manage on this, your next option is to find a US citizen resident in the US who will sponsor you. Their income requirement is higher because it has to cover their household size in addition to yours.
A lot of people will arrange for a joint sponsor, to be used only if the embassy doesn't go along with your own income/assets. It's quite a burden to be a sponsor as they really could end up being forced to support you if everything goes pear-shaped.
You don't need to worry about your income not being generated in the US. If you are filing the petition in London, they know that you live in the UK and don't expect you to have US-sourced income.
The other thing you need to show for the Affidavit is evidence of how you are going to support yourselves in the US. If you have jobs to go to, this is great. If not, if you have good resumés will make them happy too. If you are manual (or perhaps even IT workers in the current climate) workers with minimal assets, they are going to be a bit more worried, and may insist that you have a joint sponsor.
There's excellent info about the Affidavit of support on the immigrant visa pages of http//www.usembassy.org/ . The FAQ is good reading and should allay some of your concerns.