greg@pugetsoundlegal.net

India Pt. 7 – The best eats of the trip

Travel is just eating in a place we’ve never been. ~Jim Gaffigan There are reasons to travel that have nothing to do with food. Or so I am told. There's no easier way to intimately connect with a new place…

Working remotely – 4 top resources for lawyers

Later this morning I'm heading over to Seattle to talk to the folks at the Military Spouse J.D. Network about technology tools for working remotely. Pleased to be sharing the podium with co-presenters Bill Hayden and Forrest Carlson. Since email…

India Pt. 6 – Don’t be an Indian cell phone bureaucrat

India, bless its heart, is a country that really does bureaucracy. Purchasing a train ticket can engender a psychotic breakdown. Stand in one mosh-pit line to identify the reservation you want, then another to secure the purchase. God help you if your…

India Pt. 5 – Greatest foodie travel hack ever

Forgive me, since this has nothing to do with anything that's helpful to anyone professionally. But it may change your life when you travel. It may be that the rest of the traveling world has known about this since time…

India Pt. 3 – Communicating with the team

This week Jules and I are holing up in the storied and fascinating city of Kolkata. The ex-seat of the British raj, this steamy metropolis with its crumbling colonialism channels Myanmar's Yangoon more so than it's larger Indian sister city,…

India, Pt. 2 – How to pack your life

They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." -Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried "How much does your life weigh? . . . You start with the…

India, Pt. 1 – In which I violate the greatest stigma for professionals

Hard to know which was the last straw. But one of the straws was Christmas 2012, which Jules and I spent refinishing our kitchen floor. Earlier that year we'd bought our first house - a great place - in the…

Lessons from a Legal Tech Startup: One Month as a “Lawyer in Residence” at Clio

This February, I headed up to Vancouver, B.C. to have a kid and spend some time as a “lawyer in residence” at the legal technology startup Clio. Regarding objective number one: my wife is a psychologist who practices part-time in B.C., and…

Inside SeaTac airport; behinds the scene Customs and Border Protection

I was lucky to join a behind-the-scene’s tour of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operation at SeaTac International Airport. (The tour was organized for local members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association). We spent about two hours going through the…

Free and low cost technology for starting a law firm

These materials outline some basic ideas for how free and low-cost technology can help you manage the day-to-day operations of your law practice. [1] The tools described here are appropriate for the technology phobic and computer-impaired. These are tools to…

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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…
What is a joint sponsor’s liability under the Form I-864, Affidavit of Support?
A joint sponsor (also called co-sponsor) has the same liability under an Affidavit of Support as the primary sponsor. By signing the USCIS Form I-864, the joint sponsor agrees to “joint and several” liability on the contract. The sponsored immigrant can sue the joint sponsor for financial support in state or federal court. A joint…
Can you enforce the Form I-864 Affidavit of Support in a divorce case?
Yes – in most states the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support can be enforced in a divorce case. A family law court has the authority to enforce the I-864 either (1) as a breach of contract claim or (2) through spousal maintenance (also called alimony). But as discussed below, divorce court is not necessarily…
USCIS Form I-864 enforcement in divorce court – another cautionary tale (Marriage of Bychina)
It is a theme that I have written about many times on this blog and elsewhere. Yes, the Affidavit of Support can theoretically be enforced in family law proceedings. But in practice, beneficiaries frequently encounter problems in that forum. Here is another example. Marriage of Bychina was a family law case in Illinois. See No.…
How do you calculate damages under the I-864, Affidavit of Support
In an important ruling for one of our I-864 enforcement clients, a Court ruled today that damages under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support are determined based on taxable income. In Flores v. Flores, the Western District of Washington ruled that the term “income” is governed by the definition contained at 8 C.F.R. §…
How do you settle a claim under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support?
As I explain elsewhere on this blog, almost all claims under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support result in settlement. To get an idea of how long that process takes, read this post. Having settled many of these claims, here is an overview of how we generally approach settlement. What goes into an Affidavit…
Can you enforce the Form I-864 Affidavit of Support with a preliminary injunction?
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…
The federal right to immigration “alimony” under the Form I-864, Affidavit of Support
A version of this article first appeared in the Side Bar journal for the Litigation Section of the Federal Bar Association (Spring 2021). If you are like most federal litigators – this author included – you would never enter divorce court unless your name was on the case caption. The vitriol, the sabotage, the meanness.…
How long does the I-864 support last?
A sponsor's obligation under the Form I-864 lasts indefinitely. It terminates only upon one of five Terminating Events, including when the green card holder has 40 quarters of work or becomes a U.S. citizen. It *does not* terminate automatically after ten years, even though lawyers mistakenly