This is immigration attorney Parviz Malakouti. In this video, we're talking about K-1 fiance visas.
What is it? How does it work? What are the steps of the process? First of all, the K-1 fiance visa
is a visa that allows the fiance of a US citizen, not legal permanent resident, but of a US citizen
to come to the United States, to get married to the US citizen, and then apply for a Green Card
via adjustment of status within 90 days. Now, the 90 days is from the moment that the fiance comes
into the United States, then the clock starts ticking. But the process before those 90 days
takes a lot longer. It could take six months, nine months, maybe even a year from these initial
submission of the application until the actual K-1 fiance is able to come into the United States.
I like to think of a K-1 fiance visa process as having two main steps, okay,
and then several sub-steps within each one. The first step is the filing of the petition.
It's the I-129F Petition for Alien Fiance. That is filed by the US citizen with USCIS. That kicks off
the process. So that's the process to basically establish the relationship between the fiance and
the US citizen. You have to submit, in addition to the form, evidence of the relationship, typically
photos, typically evidence that the fiance, the foreign fiance of a US citizen have met
within the last two years. Then also statements from both parties, from both the US citizen and
the foreign fiance that they intend to marry each other and apply for adjustment of status
with ... for the foreign fiance within 90 days of his or her arrival to the United States.
That's the first step, the filing of the petition. Then you wait for receipt notice. You wait to see
if you get what's called a request for evidence, asking for more information. Then hopefully,
that petition is approved. Once the petition is approved, then you start transitioning to the
second step for the K-1 fiance visa process, which is actually the case gets sent to the relevant
embassy. What's the relevant embassy? It's typically the embassy of the country in which the
foreign fiancee is a citizen. Not always. There can be some exceptions, and I've spoken about
that in previous videos. But typically, it goes to the embassy of the country of citizenship of the
foreign fiance. When it goes to the embassy, then the parties get communications saying that we've
got your case and a list of documents and items that are necessary for the visa interview, okay?
Typically with this, the list of documents will include, first of all, DS 160. The DS 160 is a
non-immigrant visa application. The foreign fiance has to fill out the DS 160 with a lot
of biographical information about his or herself, so his or her employment history, address history,
work history, education history, travel history, etc., etc. Important thing to note, if the foreign
fiance has a minor child that's also applying for ... to come over on the fiancee visa, that
would be a K-2 visa. That minor child also has to fill out a separate DS 160 as well. So anyway,
you fill out the DS 160. You get a list of all the documents that are required, usually passport
photos, police certificates, other types of documents as well. Then you schedule an interview,
okay, for the visa at the relevant embassy. Once all those documents, once you have those documents
and hopefully they're in order, especially if you're going with an immigration attorney,
you go to that visa interview and you answer a few basic questions.
Usually a few basic questions, not always. There could be a deep dive, basically verifying. Usually
the questions are about the bonafide nature of the relationship. So the adjudicator wants
to find it's a real relationship between the foreign fiance and the US citizen,
their intent to verify that they're coming. They want to come to United States. They want to get
married to the US citizen. They want to apply right away, and checking all the documents to make
sure that they're in order. If the visa interview is successful, then typically there's a period of
time after which ... in which the applicant has to give their passport. They get the visa in the
passport. It's usually a single entry visa. Then the applicant, the foreign fiance,
comes to the United States, okay? They come into United States, hopefully successfully, and again,
with the minor child, if that's applicable, if the foreign fiance has a child under 21 that's
unmarried. Then the next process starts beginning, which is the gathering and preparation for the
marriage and then adjustment of status. That's for a separate video. I'm not going to cover that in
this video, but that's the typical lifespan and basically how a K-1 fiance visa process works.
There's a lot more complexity in the different steps that I mentioned. This
is just a very basic overview of how it works. That's it for this video. If you want to have an
attorney represent you in this, or you want to at least speak about your particular situation,
click on the link below, book a paid consultation. We can get into your facts
specifically and see if there's any issues with your case.