Immigration Corner | Does my wife and I need a joint bank account?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

I got your email address from The Gleaner. My wife lives in the United States and wants to file for me to get my residency, but someone is telling her that we have to have a joint account before that can happen. My question to you is, is that correct? I am awaiting your reply. Thanks in advance.

AF

Dear AF,

The answer depends on whether you are also in the United States with your spouse, or if you are in your home country.

If a person is in America after entering the country legally, marries an American citizen and the American citizen spouse files for the immigrant to gain US residency (change of status), among the items needed to prove the validity of the marriage is a joint bank account.

In a marital petition for change of status, the couple must present themselves for an interview at US Citizenship and Immigration Services to answer questions about each other and their marriage. The couple also has to show documentary evidence that they are commingling their assets and their debts. One of the common ways that people show they share their money is with a joint bank account. However, sometimes one spouse is unable to qualify to open a bank account. The intending immigrant may not have a social security or tax identification number, or other times, the US citizen has such bad credit history that a bank will not permit them to have an account.

The absence of a joint bank account during an adjustment of status application is problematic, but it does not have to spell the failure of a change of status application.

If you are outside the United States and your wife is in America, a joint bank account is not crucial to your filing. For obvious reasons, foreign countries do not make it easy for someone who does not live in their country to own a bank account. If you are in Jamaica and your wife is in America, it will not be easy for her to open a joint account with you – especially if she is not a Jamaican.

Regardless of where you the beneficiary resides, you will have to prove the validity of the marriage relationship. If you have specific questions, you should consult with a US immigration attorney and not listen to people who think they know the US immigration process because they may have gone through the procedure themselves.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq, is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a diversity and inclusion consultant, mediator, and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com.