FIANCEE VISA

If you are a U.S. citizen engaged to a foreign citizen and you are considering marriage, the K-1 visa is likely your best choice for bringing your fiancee to the U.S. to live permanently with you (in fact, it was created exactly for persons in your situation).

The K1 Visa allows you to invite your fiancee to America for a period of 90 days, during which time your fiancee must either marry you or return to her home country.

No extensions of the time period are permitted. You and your fiancee are not required to marry if things don’t work out according to your expectations. If you do not marry your fiancee, you will not be precluded from making a future Fiancee Visa application.

Permanent residents of the United States are not eligible to file for a K-1 visa.

CRITERIA FOR APPROVAL

In order to qualify for a Fiancee Visa, you must meet the following main requirements:

• You are a U.S. citizen
• You have met your fiancee within the previous two years
• You and your fiancee are both legally free to marry
• You and your fiancee both have a serious intention to marry within 90 days of your fiancee’s arrival in America.

Meeting Requirement: Exceptions

There is a provision in the law that may exempt the petitioner from the meeting requirement "if it is established that compliance would result in extreme hardship to the petitioner or that compliance would violate strict and long-established customs of the K-1 beneficiary's foreign culture or social practice, as where marriages are traditionally arranged by the parents of the contracting parties and the prospective bride and groom are prohibited from meeting subsequent to the arrangement and prior to the wedding day." INA § 214.2(k)(2). Unfortunately, such waivers are very rarely granted by the USCIS. The "extreme hardship" exception has been interpreted by the USCIS to mean something very close to "impossible". It generally is available only to people who are so disabled that they can't fly at all. As for the second grounds for a waiver, very few people qualify for this exception, and those that do often have a difficult time proving it to the government's satisfaction.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Phase

To begin the Fiancee Visa process, the petitioner must first submit an application to the USCIS. The petitioner and fiancee will need to file numerous forms and documents with the USCIS in order to prove that the petitioner and fiancee qualify for the K1 Fiancee Visa. The waiting time for the USCIS to approve a K1 visa can be anywhere from two weeks to seven months, depending on the backlog of similar cases pending approval in the USCIS Regional Center. The case can be further delayed by an error in the petition, which typically doubles the normal waiting time for visa approval. An error in the petition will cause the USCIS to send the petitioner a Request for Additional Evidence ("RFE").

U.S. Embassy / Consulate Phase

Once approval has been received, the case is transferred to the Department of State's National Visa Center where a background check is begun on the fiancee. The NVC then forwards the case file to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate having jurisdiction over the fiancee's petition. Once the documents have been received by the Embassy, and the State Department’s background check on the fiancee has been concluded, the fiancee will be instructed to undergo a medical examination at a designated local clinic, and to appear at the U.S. Embassy for presentation of several new forms and numerous supporting documents and to undergo an interview with an Embassy Consular Official. If the paperwork is all correct, and there are no problems in the interview, the visa will be issued on the same day as the interview or, in some embassies, in the week following the interview. The fiancee is then free to travel immediately and directly to the United States.

.

Information Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service