Immigration Services has proposed a rule that will reduce the ability of low-income Americans to sponsor family members trying to immigrate to the US.

You can post a comment until 11/2/2020 at this link

Read on to learn about the proposal

https://beta.regulations.gov/document/USCIS-2019-0023-0001

2/13 READ THIS DISCLAIMER

I am not a lawyer

This is not legal advice

If this rule applies to you, talk to a lawyer

I'm just a non-lawyer who is giving my personal opinion on this rule

3/13 Under current rules, US Citizens can sponsor family members from other countries who want to immigrate to the US. Sponsorship speeds up the immigration process for those family members looking to come to the US

4/13 Currently, the sponsor must have an income at 125% of the poverty level and agree to repay the gov for any benefits (Medicaid, unemployment, etc.) that the immigrating family member receives. This existing rule already creates obstacles for low-income sponsors.

5/13 PROPOSED CHANGES: The proposal makes it even harder for low-income family members to become sponsors by adding more identification and proof of income requirements such as:

6/13
Requiring a sponsor to submit 3 years of tax returns, credit reports, and bank account info
Requiring an additional sponsor (basically a co-signer) if the first sponsor has received any government benefits in the past 3 years

7/13
Limiting who in the household can pool their income to allow a sponsor to meet the income requirements
Making it easier for agencies to share a sponsor’s information with one another so they can more easily seek repayment of benefits

8/13 MY COMMENTS: Here is a link to my full comment
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kzGA9xoAR4Irg6POu4OfmdWc4d8q5RbT9U6_K4-LvH4/edit

This thread has a summary of my thoughts

You can write your own comment, copy and paste anything here, or copy and paste my full comment. Comments in your own words will be more impactful (8/13)

9/13 The results of the cost-benefits analysis clearly weigh against this rule. The proposal devotes 10 pages to calculating the net annual costs to be $240 MILLION DOLLARS. Meanwhile, DHS could only think of 3 paragraphs worth of benefits in section 5(H).

10/13 The rule places the personal information of sponsors at risk by allowing it to be transferred across agencies more freely. That private information is better protected by the previous version of the rule which required a subpoena before allowing a transfer of information.

11/13 DHS does not provide any data or studies to support the need for this proposal. Does the government currently struggle to get sponsors to repay benefits? Will these new requirements fix that? We don’t know. We do know that the rules would cost an additional $240 MM.

12/13 The rule is irrational and is arbitrary and capricious because the agency provides no data or rationale to support it, aside from its clear desire to further limit immigration. That is a terrible reason to create such a burdensome rule.

13/13 The 14th amendment protects liberty interests, which include a right to make decisions about marriage and the family. This proposal places an unconstitutionally high burden on that right by restricting the ability of low-income Americans to make family-related decisions.