A U.S. citizen preparing for her husband’s green card interview told the Immigration Answer Show that she had uploaded a lease as proof they live together. The problem: she owns the four-unit building through her LLC, so the lease ran between her company as landlord and the couple as tenants. Founding attorney Jim Hacking stopped her cold.
mic What the Attorney Says
“This is like Trump suing the IRS where he was both the plaintiff and the defendant.”
A lease you sign with yourself proves nothing about a marriage, because it does not show two people choosing to share a home and money. It also invites the officer to look up the LLC, see the petitioner’s name behind it, and wonder what else in the file was arranged. A lease is supposed to corroborate that a couple lives together. This one corroborates nothing.
Hacking’s warning was that officers are no longer taking the paper at face value.
mic What the Attorney Says
“I have been very surprised at the last three or four green card interviews that I’ve been to at the level of sophistication that the officer has the ability to dig deep into property records.”
He described one interview where the officer already knew a citizen spouse was spending most of his time at a city apartment rather than a country property he owned, and waited to see whether the couple would volunteer it. Any address that does not add up gets that same scrutiny, which is one more way the evidence you submit can be used against you.
Hiding the ownership is the wrong instinct, and it would make things worse. She owns a real four-family that looks like a small apartment building from the street, she had it before her husband moved in, and every tenant has a lease. Presented plainly, that is a strength: the citizen owns the home, the couple lives in one unit, and unrelated tenants rent the others and can confirm it. Walk in able to explain the living situation in plain, confident terms, which is the core of preparing for the adjustment interview.
Adjustment of status under INA § 245(a), or 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a), is discretionary, and Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199 now tells officers to look for reasons to deny. In that climate, a clever-looking document an officer can pick apart does real damage. If the lease is between you and your own company, replace it with the ordinary proof of a shared life: a joint account both spouses use, utilities in both names, mail, and photos. Then be ready to explain the ownership out loud.
Sources
- 8 U.S.C. § 1255 — Adjustment of Status (Cornell LII) open_in_new
- USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199 — Adjustment of Status and Discretion (May 21, 2026) open_in_new
- USCIS — Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status open_in_new
- Immigration Answer Show — episode 1100 (August 2026) open_in_new