Advanced I-864 Issues (webinar video)

September 1, 2016
Greg McLawsen
For lawyers, Form I-864, Immigration scholarship, Marriage-Based Immigration, Updates
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This post contains video of our August 31, 2016 webinar – Advanced I-864 Issues. Written material for the webinar is available here. The first video below was recorded at the live webinar and covers enforcement of the I-864 via litigation, and the ethics of preparing I-864s for joint sponsors. I ran out of time at the live event before getting to all of the third and final section of the material, which covers complex filing issues. So I recorded the second video below after our live event, to cover the material we didn’t get to. Hope this is helpful! Feel free to jump in with questions in the comment section below.

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Greg McLawsen

Greg is recognized as the leading national authority on enforcement of the Form I-864, Affidavit of Support. Greg represents low-income green card holders in lawsuits to recover support from their sponsors. Practicing family-based immigration law, Greg also focuses on helping married and engaged couples with U.S. immigration.

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What goes into an I-864 Affidavit of Support lawsuit complaint?
I’ve been representing clients in lawsuits to enforce the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support for about a decade at this point. Over that time, I’ve made a lot of changes to the template that we use for federal lawsuit complaints. (A complaint is the initial case document that sets forth the plaintiff’s legal claim…
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Non-citizens needing to enforce the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support are usually in serious need of help. To have a claim under the Affidavit, their income needs to be below 125 percent of the poverty line. That’s about $1,400 per month for a household of one. But a lawsuit can take months or even…
What affirmative defenses are available to Form I-864 sponsors? None.
The Eleventh Circuit has held that the common law defenses of unclean hands, anticipatory breach, and equitable estoppel are unavailable to a sponsor who has signed a USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support. Blevich v. Thomas, 17 F.4th 1048 (11th Cir. 2021). Belevich joins a growing line of cases that stand for the proposition that…
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