The famous TV show 90 day fiancée is the dramatic and shocking show that made the K-1 visa process well known. How much of the drama is real or staged for reality TV is up for debate however the concept of needing to decide to get married within 90 days is very real.
The visa type that these fiancée’s enter the US is a K-1 visa. This visa is meant for an unmarried couple when one of the spouse’s is a US citizen and one is a foreign national. Nowadays, the most common way a couple meet is through the internet. This allows people to meet their boyfriend or girlfriend who lives nearby or far away. It is becoming more and more common for people to find love internationally.
Recently, we had a couple come in for a consultation. Andrew lived all the way in Florida and Tal was from Israel in nearby Ashdod. They met online in a chatroom and found themselves chatting for hours on end. They would video chat all the time and fell in love before they had even met. After two months of talking, Andrew made the big decision to fly to Israel. After meeting her family, he decided to propose! They were so excited and wanted to start to live together. The problem was that Andrew had a job in the US that he couldn’t leave. They wanted to Tal to move to the US however she only had Israeli citizenship.
They didn’t want to wait to do the Green Card process since they would have to get married first and it its lengthy. Instead, we suggested they start the K-1 visa process. This process allows them to be living in the US together quicker. Tal would then enter the US on her K-1 visa. Just like the TV show, they must get married within 90 days and then they can start the Green Card process.
The K-1 visa is made up of two stages. The first stage is submitting an application to USCIS. This needs to include the relevant forms and copies of personal documents. Following approval of the application, the foreign national will need to attend an interview at their nearest Embassy. At the interview, the consular officer will ask questions to check that the couple indeed intent to get married and are in a real relationship. After the consular officer approves the case, a K-1 visa will be issued and the foreign national can enter the US and be reunited with their partner.
The questioning by the consular officer can sometimes be quite extensive. This brings us back to the TV show 90 day fiancée. In the TV show, we see couples who maybe thought they were starting their happily ever after love story. However, when the reality of living together hits, they aren’t happy together and end up breaking up. The consular officer wants to make sure that the couple know each other well and have a genuine relationship. Couples who have known each other for short periods of times, couples who have a big age gap and couples that haven’t lived together are generally subjected to more scrutiny and could get denied. The consular officer also takes seriously the fact that they haven’t committed to each other by getting married yet.
Our US immigration lawyers prepare clients for the interviews and work with the couple to put together a lot of documentation to prove the validity of the marriage. This can completely turn around a case when you are able to attend the interview confident and knowing what to expect.
Although this process is a great solution, it is not without its flaws. The processing times vary wildly depending on where USCIS choose to assign your case. You cannot pick which service center USCIS will send your case and it could be the difference of a 4 month processing time to a 22 month processing time.
It is also important to note that the process isn’t used instead of the Green Card process. For a K-1 process, you firstly apply for the K-1 visa. Then, upon relocation, you need to apply for the Green Card in the US. This results in a lot of government fees that need to paid for and a long drawn out process in total. However, for couples like Andrew and Tal who just want to be together, the benefit of getting to live together in the US outweighs the drawbacks.
If you are interested in a K-1 visa our office can assist you in checking if this would be the best visa type for you. We can also see what issues you may have in the process and what we think your chances of success are. Our office handles your process from start to finish and assists you with every step of the process. We put together and submit your application and track your process. We then prepare you for your interview with all the correct documentation. We hold an interview prep meeting to go through questions you will likely be asked. This allows you to go in to your interview confident that your application will be approved by the consular officer.
