Transcript of the above video:

In this video as the title suggests, we are going to be discussing the form I-864P specifically within in the context of the affidavit of support. For more information specifically on the I-864 or I-134 affidavits of support, specifically within the context of things like the fiancée visa or the marriage visa back to the United States, I suggest checking out the other videos on this channel as they specifically discuss those issues rather at length.

What are we talking about with respect to the I-864P? Well the form is essentially a yearly updated form which designates the federal poverty guidelines and the various ratios and percentages associated therewith.  Why is this important? Well pursuant to the regulations pertaining to I-864s and I-134s and specific to financial support, an affidavit of support with respect to basically swearing out an affidavit with respect to the ability to support a fiancée their spouse in the United States. The regulations have to designate a threshold under which a sponsor can go ahead and sponsor an immigrant into the United States, or a non-immigrant in the case of the K-1, a non- immigrant with immigrant intent. So, to get on track here specifically, what are we talking about? So specifically what we are talking about is you have got to meet a certain income requirement in order to get a foreign spouse or fiancée into the United States. The I-864P is somewhat beneficial in calculating those income requirements. Generally speaking for those in the 48 contiguous United States, it is required that a petitioner be able to show 125% of the poverty guidelines as adjusted for inflation. Those in Alaska and Hawaii are slightly different; the numbers are a little bit different there. With respect to those who are in the armed services at the time they are petitioning for their spouse or fiancée to go to the United States, generally speaking those individuals only need to show 100% of the federal poverty guidelines in basic income in order to sponsor a foreign fiancée or spouse.

A couple of other things to keep in mind with respect to sponsoring a foreign fiancée or spouse is, let’s say that there is a shortfall in income with respect to a petitioner being able to act as a sponsor I should say, there are some ways to  get over this. One way is to use assets to offset a shortfall in income and there is also the joint sponsor. Joint sponsors can go ahead and act as a way of filling the hole, not filling the hole but they need to be able to sponsor the immigrant directly. The other thing is with respect to assets. If one can show five times the difference, five times the shortfall in income in actual assets, this is stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, cash in the bank etc. or just cash, then it may be possible to go ahead and still overcome the income threshold requirement inherent in the I-864. The I-864P is a nice little reference tool though. It’s interesting. It’s a minute every year to again sort of adjust for inflation. I guess theoretically deflation as it were maybe, though for all intents and purposes, adjust for inflation, and basically it’s a nice little tool with respect to the other affidavits and it can be used to assist those who are looking to sponsor a spouse or fiancée coming to the United States.