Fiance Visas

Are you currently a citizen of the United States who is looking into options for your foreign fiancée to join you for marriage? At the Law Office of Laurie Y. Wu, LLC, we are able to handle any immigration-related matter related to K-1 fiancée visas. A K-1 visa allows you to bring your fiancée to the United States for a period of 90 days in order to get married. Once you have been married, your spouse is able to apply for adjustment of status to obtain legal permanent resident status. During this happy time in your life, we would be honored to provide legal guidance.

Request an appointment by contacting us online or calling 1 (732) 387-3668.

Every person seeking a K-1 fiancée visa must abide by certain requirements before filing an I-129F petition with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Once USCIS approves the petition, the case is forwarded to the National Visa Center for background checks on the foreign fiancée and then to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate of fiancée’s country for an interview.

Basic requirements to apply for a K-1 fiancée visa include:

• You are an eligible United States citizen;
• You have physically (in person, at the same location) met your fiancée within the two years immediately before filing the petition;
• You and your fiancée are legally free to be married; AND
• You and your fiancée have both have serious intentions to marry within 90 days of your fiancée’s admission in the United States.

For the physical meeting requirement listed above, you may apply for an exception if compliance would result in extreme hardship to you (the petitioner) or violate strict and long-established customs of your fiancée’s foreign culture or social practice and that any and all aspects of the traditional arrangement have been or will be met in accordance with the custom or practice. These exceptions are extremely difficult to attain.

Applicants who meet the basic filing requirements above are not guaranteed a K-1 fiancée approval. One of the most common reasons K-1 visas are denied is a finding of a lack of a bona fide relationship, such that the couple failed to convince the consular officer that they have a genuine relationship. Other common reasons for a K-1 denial are when the United States citizen and/or the foreign fiancée have certain criminal convictions and when the foreign fiancée has committed material fraud or misrepresentation on their current or prior visa applications.

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.

To begin the K-1 Fiance(e) Visa process, the petitioner must first submit an application to the USCIS. The petitioner and beneficiary will need to file Form I-129F and supporting documents with the USCIS in order to prove that they qualify for the K1 Fiance(e) Visa. The waiting time for the USCIS to approve a K-1 visa can be anywhere from about six to twelve 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”).

Once approval has been received, the case is transferred to the Department of State’s National Visa Center (NVC) where a background check is begun on the fiance(e). The NVC then forwards the case file to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate having jurisdiction over the fiance(e)’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 fiance(e) 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 usually be issued in the week following the interview. The fiance(e) is then free to travel immediately and directly to the United States.

The K-1 visa is a highly reliable visa if done correctly. Nonetheless, about half of fiance(e)s fail to receive their visa on the day of interview (our firm has a 97% success rate for first day issuance, and 100% eventual success). Failure to issue the visa on the day of the interview can lead to lengthy and grueling delays (we have to go through it every once in a while ourselves, and, believe us, it is not pleasant), and possible denial or return of the petition to the USCIS for “administrative review” and possible revocation. Some of the more common issues that can lead, alone or in combination with other problems, to a denial/failure to issue are:

1. Missing documents
2. Incorrect paperwork
3. Insufficient income/savings of the U.S. citizen sponsor
4. Very large age difference between the couple
5. Fiance(e) can not obtain written consent from the ex-spouse for their child to leave the country
6. Poor English skills of fiance(e)
7. Couple hasn’t spent enough time together in person
8. Couple lacks sufficient evidence of recent day-to-day contact
9. Fiance(e) interviews poorly and the consul doubts that there is a bona fide relationship with the U.S. citizen
10. Fiance(e) has relatives or friends in the U.S. who seem to be taking too large a role in match-making
11. Fiance(e) was previously in the U.S. and overstayed the visa
12. The U.S. citizen has previously sponsored a foreign national for a green card and the U.S. citizen can not prove that the foreign citizen maintained lawful status
13. Fiance(e) has a criminal record
14. Fiance(e) has a serious, contagious illness (such as AIDS, tuberculosis, etc.)
15. Fiance(e) commits a misrepresentation during the interview (or so it seems to the interviewing officer)
16. Petition includes a document that is deemed to be fraudulent

As a general question, the first five problems listed above will result in the Embassy holding the case to see if the petitioner and/or beneficiary can cure the problem with additional documentation or through a second interview. If they fail to do so, the case is sent back to the USCIS. Delays in such cases typically are measured in weeks rather than in months.
Problems 6 through 10 above, which controvert the genuineness of the relationship between the couple, are typically sent back to the USCIS for administrative review/revocation or are sent to the Embassy’s Anti-Fraud Unit, which will assign an investigator to go to the fiancee’s home town and interview friends and neighbors to get a better idea of whether the couple’s engagement is for real. Delays in such cases typically exceed six months.

Problems 11 through 16 above involve issues that render the beneficiary excludible from the U.S. as a matter of law. In some cases, however, the Embassy will entertain an argument on the facts that the beneficiary is not excludible (we have done this, for example, with clients that had a criminal conviction that we were able to convince the Embassy was not a crime of “moral turpitude” as defined by the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act). If the Embassy decides that the beneficiary is excludible, an “extreme hardship” waiver is usually available, although such waivers can be difficult to obtain. The typical I-601 Application for an “extreme hardship” waiver takes four to six months to process.

A Fiance(e) Visa is a temporary visa, but one that can be readily converted to a permanent visa after the marriage occurs in the U.S. Once married, the U.S. citizen can obtain conditional permanent residence status for his/her new spouse by filing an I-485 petition with the U.S. government. Several months later (the length of the wait varies considerably on where you live in the country) the couple is called into the local USCIS office for an interview, and a two year “conditional” permanent residence card is issued shortly thereafter. One year and nine months after the conditional permanent residence card was issued by the USCIS, the couple may apply to remove the condition and receive a 10 year permanent residence card. Three years after the foreign born spouse received her first green card, she is eligible for citizenship.