How does the legislation change deeming requirements?
Under previous law, deeming of sponsor’s income applied only to AFDC, food stamps, and SSI. This process applied for 3 years for AFDC and food stamps and for 5 years for SSI. The new law applies deeming requirements to most Federal means-tested programs until citizenship or until the sponsored immigrant has worked or can be credited with 40 qualifying quarters of work. Once the new affidavit of support is in use, States may also choose to apply deeming requirements to their State means-tested public benefit programs.
