There are a number of considerations as to who can submit an affidavit of support. The first requirement is that it has to be a person. A company or a ch-rch or m-ssion organization cannot submit an Affidavit of Support.
On the other hand, anybody can submit an Affidavit of Support. It doesn’t have to be a close relative. It can be a friend. However, I will add this. Lately, they have been taking into consideration the motivation that the sponsor has to support the immigrant. They are looking for blood or relationship ties that will motivate the sponsor to carry through with his promise to provide the support.
In order to submit an Affidavit of Support, however, the sponsor also needs to be a U.S. citizen or a U.S. lawful permanent resident. The sponsor also needs to be “domiciled” in the U.S. That means that he has to actually be living there (or intends to be living there). There are some exceptions to this rule, such as a missionary temporarily stationed abroad. But I have heard of at least one case where a U.S. spouse was told to go live in the US before they would allow her to be a sponsor. But I think that a carefully prepared case presentation will usually resolve this issue.
The Sponsor also generally needs to have sufficient U.S. income to equal 125% of the poverty level for his household and the immigrant. If his income is insufficient, sometimes he can make up the difference using his assets — but you usually need quite a bit of assets to successfully do this. I will talk about doing this in a later posting.
The Sponsor also needs to have filed US taxes for the past three years. If he has not, then he has to provide a reasonable explanation for why he has not filed — such as insufficient income. However, of course, if he has had insufficient income in the past three years, that will probably disqualify him from being a sponsor.
I hope this is interesting and helpful. Remember that this is not legal advice. It is just a summary of certain aspects of immigration law which may or may not apply to your situation. I encourage you to consult an attorney if you think any of this may apply to your situation.
Gunnar Armstrong