Question about joint sponsor

[sudhany]

My husband and I are both students and so not making much of an income. However, we do have assets (more than the required amount) and this is what we used for the I-864 that we submitted along with our application. We didn't receive an RFE, which suggests that our documents are likely okay. However, based on the advice of several people here and of the immigration officer I spoke to at Infopass, we decided to take an affidavit of support from a joint sponsor to our interview -- just in case there are problems. My mother-in-law has agreed to be a joint sponsor and we've decided that we won't submit her affidavit of support unless the interviewing officer finds something wrong with what we already have.

Now, the question is: what documents should we have her send? She will be filling out the I-864 as a joint sponsor, and she is also going to be sending us a letter of employment from her university as well as a recent paystub. My in-laws will also send us a copy of their latest tax return (for 2005).

(i) Should they also send copies of their 2003 and 2004 tax returns?

(ii) Is it sufficient if my MIL sends a copy of her US passport and/or her certificate of naturalization -- or should she send originals? The in-laws are a little nervous about trusting the mail and so on, so I think they would be much happier if they didn't have to send the originals.

(iii) Anything else I'm forgetting?

Many thanks, everyone! And good luck with your own applications.

 

[sudhany]

By the way, just wanted to clarify: my MIL won't be sending those things to the Chicago lockbox. She'll be sending them to us to take to the interview. I know that copies are sufficient for what you mail in. But since this is the interview, I wonder if we should take the originals -- of her US passport etc. (We'll obviously be taking the originals for our own stuff.)