By Art Saborio
There is so much information out on the internet about the immigration K1 Visa that it is hard to know what truth is or what is myth. Part of the problem is the amount of data that is either outdated or just incorrect. The other reason has to do with the different techniques that one company or law firm might take over another.
For example there are many law firms that stick with the word of the instructions and law. The problem with sticking to the word of the USCIS instruction is it does not lend itself to providing a good representation of the couple. You have to provide more than just what the instructions ask.
The first truth or myth – It takes a year or more to get a immigration K1 Visa. This is a myth. If done correctly you can easily get a immigration K1 Visa within four to six months. Depending on the country that the immigrant fiance(e) is coming from, the marriage visa could be completed even sooner. I had a case where the fiancé was coming from Argentina. It only took six weeks for the paperwork to get processed and K1 Visa granted to the immigrant fiance. It all depends on the country and amount of applications being processed for that country. If your fiance/Fiancee is coming from Russia, Europe or any former Soviet State, then you can expect the average time to be between four and six months.
The second truth or myth – It is not good to apply for a K1 Visa between the months of January and April. This is a truth. You want to plan ahead and avoid applying during these months. The USCIS will be expecting the most current tax year information from you. A lot of times taxes are done in April or March. If you apply within these months, ensure you first do your taxes and submit them with your application. If you choose to submit your application without the most current year’s tax filing, the USCIS will put your application on hold while they wait for you to send in the most current tax year.
Now let us say you do not submit your most current year’s tax information. What happens? The USCIS will kindly send you a letter requesting proof of your current income through your 1040 filing. But since you did not send in a copy with your application, the USCIS can and most of the time requires a tax summary from the IRS. What does this mean? It means that you need to call the IRS and order a formal summary report. The summary takes about two weeks to reach you. All along your K1 Fiance/K1 Fiancee Visa application is sitting on hold waiting for the missing information. Now consider this, it takes two weeks to order the summary and then another two weeks for your application to get put back into a review status. In the best case scenario, you have added one month to your K1 Visa application process. In the worst case scenario your application gets put on someone’s desk, gets lost or even denied because of the missing information. It is better to avoid these months than to risk the scenarios above.
The third truth or myth – If a U.S Embassy does not exist in the country of my fiance(e) I cannot get a immigration K1 Visa for her or him. This is not true. In the case where a U.S Embassy does not exist in her or his country, the fiance(e) may opt to cross the border into a country that does have a U.S Embassy. The process does take a little longer, but it is doable.
There is a lot of very interesting information out there and I commend those that take the K1 Visa process on themselves without the aid of an attorney. It can be a tricky process that does not leaned itself to romance or mistakes. Yet, when done correctly it can go smoothly and finalize in generally a short amount of time.
Throughout the years I have responded to a lot of myths. Some of the myths were rather strange and others very close to the truth. But being close to the truth is never good enough for the USCIS; it is that “close to the truth “information that is just wrong enough to cause someone a lot of trouble if they followed what they were reading.
