This visa is for those who have a fiancé(e) who is already a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. You may apply for this temporary visa (K-1) which allows you to live and work temporarily in the United States for a 90-day period on the basis of your engagement to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. It is expected that you will marry your fiancé(e) within that 90-day period. You will then apply for an adjustment of status to conditional "Permanent Residence." If you marry your fiancee outside of the U.S. we can greatly speed up her getting into the U.S. by use of the newly created K3 Visa for foreign brides of U.S. citizens. However, the K3 visa requires more paperwork than a fiancée visa.

If your fiancee is from one of the wealthier "developed" countries of the world (England, Canada, France, Australia, etc.) she can probably get into the U.S. without a K1 fiancee visa. However, for those who intend to marry a United States citizen, the K1 visa is the appropriate visa and it is advisable for several reasons to obtain a fiancee visa before the marriage.

Other types of visas for a Russian fiancee such as tourist, student or business visas are not suitable if your intention is marriage. If you marry your girlfriend visiting you on one of those visas, her legal status in the USA will be questionable, and she may be refused permanent resident status on the basis of visa fraud if the USCIS (former INS) believes her aim of visiting United States was simply for marrying a US Citizen. Having worked in immigration for more than decade we know such cases, as well as cases when women have arrived on student and tourist visas and were turned back by USCIS (former INS) representatives right at the airport. Once a violation of visa regulation is recorded, it will be difficult if not impossible for the person to ever receive a K-1 visa or any other type of visa to the USA.

What are the requirements for a Fiancé(e) Visa K-1?

The K1 visa requirements are simple. You must be a USA citizen. Lawful permanent resident "green card" holders of the United States are not allowed to obtain fiancee visas. Both you and your fiancee must be free to marry. This means that if either of you has been married previously, you are either divorced, widowed or the marriage was annulled. You must have met your fiancee in person within the previous two years. If your fiancee lives in a developing country she cannot legally obtain a visitor visa to meet you in the U.S. This means that you must travel outside the US to meet your fiancee. Finally, there is a minimum income requirement for the fiancee visa petitioner.

You may have heard that 40% of the K1 visa petitions filed never result in a visa being issued. From what other immigration attorneys have told us, we believe this to be true. Notice that we used the words "not approved," and not the word "denied". This is because both the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS", formerly the "INS" - Immigration and Naturalization Service) and the U.S. Consulates rarely turn down a K1 visa petition or application request if the requirements mentioned above are met.

What happens instead is that the USCIS finds some technical error or omission in the paperwork submitted to them. Then, after several months they will send you a form letter telling you what you did wrong. Very often, when you submit the required correction, they will again wait several months and again return the visa forms to you with another cover-sheet informing you of a second minor error or omission.

When (and if) your approved K 1 visa petition reaches the U.S. Consulate at the U.S. Embassy handling the fiancee visa for your fiancee's country, you still are not home free. If the consulate officer who interviews your fiancee can get her to give an answer to one of his or her many questions which is different from the information you submitted in your petition package, the officer can send your entire USCIS-approved petition package back to the USCIS in the U.S. for "investigation". The minimum delay from this action in getting your fiancee's visa issued is six months. Needless to say, if your fiancee does not know all about your background and because she will naturally be nervous during her interview, it is not too difficult to get her to give the wrong answer to one of the questions.

As you can see from the above, neither the USCIS nor the U.S. consular officers want to risk taking the political heat which could result from their turndown of an immigrant petition. However, if they can find an excuse to return it for correction or investigation, they are perfectly within their rights and not subject to criticism. In fact, it is their duty to find problems and return cases.

What usually happens in this situation is that one or both of you will give up. Unfortunately, the usual result of delays is that the fiancee becomes convinced that her American fiance is not serious about marrying her and she ends the engagement. She probably knows of someone whose fiance used our services to obtain a fiancee visa. She knows that the foreign wife received her fiancee visa quickly and efficiently and she wonders why you cannot do the same. Our normal processing timeline from the USCIS receipt date until visa issuance depends on the country of residence of your fiancee and the state in which you reside. When a particular USCIS Service Center or U.S. Consulate gets behind in their work, the K1 visa processing time can increase. When this occurs we will let you know. The bottom line is that however long it takes us to obtain your fiancee visa, we believe it would take you or anyone else much longer.

When your fiancee receives her fiancee visa, she has six months to enter the U.S. After her arrival in the U.S., you have 90 days to marry her or you must send your fiancee back to her home country. There is no legal way to extend the 90 day limit. While she is in the U.S. you are completely responsible for her financially. If for any reason you do not marry her and she departs the U.S. within the 90 days, she will not be precluded from coming to the U.S. in the future on another K1 visa and you will not be precluded from again bringing her or another foreign fiancee to the U.S. on a K1 visa. Although repeated fiancee visa petitions raise the suspicions of the USCIS, we obtain dozens of "second" and even some "third" fiancee visas every year.

How to apply Fiancé(e) Visa K-1?

The first step is initiated by your sponsoring fiancé(e) and the second step is initiated by you. If you marry within 90 days of arrival, you will follow a one-step process to apply for an adjustment of status to conditional permanent residence status.

• The first step involves applying for a visa petition (I-129F Petition for Alien Fiancé(e)) and supporting documents.
• If the Petition is approved, you will now file a formal application for your K-1 visa with the U.S. consulate in your home country.
  
  If the Petition is denied, you will can file a Motion to Reopen and submit new evidence or make corrections or you can enter a more formal appeal process.
• If your marriage takes place within 90 days of your arrival in the U.S., you must file an Application for Adjustment of Status (Form I-485 and supporting documents) that will provide you with conditional permanent residence status. This status is valid for two years. After two years, you can file a joint petition (form I-751) to remove this conditional status and give you permanent residency status.