Does the public charge apply to people who are trying to remove the conditions on their lawful permanent residents? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States out of our office here in St. Louis, Missouri.
As many of you know, and as we've shot many videos, the Trump administration has greatly restricted or expanded and thereby restricted the definition of public charge.
What do I mean by that? There have always been rules on the books that say that an immigrant could be deemed inadmissible if it seems likely that they are going to become a public charge and in the old days that was solved by filing an affidavit of support.
But now the public charge rule has been greatly expanded. There's a new form called an I944, which is a declaration of self-sufficiency. We've made videos about these forms, but Mohammad wants to know if this is going to impact his ability to get the conditions removed on his green card.
So whenever you have a marriage-based green card and the couple has been married less than two years at the time that the green card is issued, at the end of those two years, the individual is going to have to file an I751 with their spouse and try to get the conditions removed from their green card. That involves filing a form called an I751 and submitting more marital evidence and perhaps having an interview.
So Mohammad wants to know, "I know that the public charge applies to people who want to get an initial green card, but does it apply in an I751 situation?" As things stand right now, it does not, so Muhammad, you should be okay. You're not going to have to worry about the public charge. You've already been deemed admissible in the United States and that's what the public charge ultimately goes to, the ability of someone to be admitted into the United States or to adjust their status in the United States to that of lawful permanent residence.
So Mohammad has already done that and the I751 has not been modified and the situation has not been changed for people seeking to remove conditions on their green card. So public charge rule shouldn't apply to you, Muhammad. You should be fine to get the conditions removed on your green card as long as the other requirements are all met.
If you have questions about I751s or if you have questions about the petition of self-sufficiency, which is called the I944, give us a call (314) 961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. If you like this video, we ask that you share it out on social and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on LinkedIn so that you get updates whenever we make videos just like this one. Thanks a lot. Have a good day.
