The Fiancee Visa

Background
In almost every case, the best visa for a U.S. citizen considering marriage to a foreigner is the "K-1" Fiancee Visa. The K-1 Visa allows you to invite your fiancée 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 (although a second fiancee petition will be a more challenging proposition). Your fiancee similarly will not be precluded from receiving another visa in the future.

Visa Status
A Fiancee Visa is a temporary visa, but one that can be readily converted to a permanent visa after the marriage occurs in the U.S.. The fiancee obtains conditional permanent residence status by filing an I-485 petition with the U.S. government. In a few months to two years, depending on the backlog of I-485 applications in the local USCIS office, 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 government, the fiancee may apply for the condition to be removed. Approximately a year later, the fiancee is eligible for citizenship.

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

• You are a U.S. citizen (there is no comparable visa for permanent residents)
• 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.

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 K-1 Fiancee Visa. The waiting time for the USCIS to approve a K-1 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"). The USCIS send out literally thousands of RFEs per year. Of course, every one of the petitioners who filed the incorrect petitions had read the USCIS instructions and thought he had done everything correctly. Unfortunately, these cases are rarely as simple as they appear at first glance. Our firm uses our experience with having filed thousands of K-1 petitions to reduce the risk of an RFE to nearly zero (our RFE rate is less than 1%).

U.S. Embassy 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.