Applying for a K Visa in Virginia
A K visa is a visa that allows for the fiancé or fiancée of a US citizen to enter the United States. There are certain factors to keep in mind when applying for a K visa in Virginia, such as necessary documentation, and the limitations on these visas. A Virginia K visa lawyer can help clarify all these factors and allow for a smooth application process.
Necessary Documents for K Visa Applications
The most important documents to keep track of are the proof of the bona fide relationship between the U.S. citizen and the fiancé. This is a challenge in many of these cases because if a person is the fiancé and not a spouse, the chances are that the paper trail to prove their relationship is not going to be as extensive as in a spousal relationship. Also, in a lot of these cases, there may be couples who have spent a lot of time residing in different countries. They may not have cohabitated. They likely don’t have comingled finances.
When this is the case, the person needs to get more creative with the type of proof that they can submit. This can involve letters from family members attesting to the relationship. It’s also very important to have pictures of the couple together, because in order to be eligible for this kind of visa, the immigrant and the petitioner need to be physically present with each other in the past two years or within two years of the date of filing. In some cases, such as in an online relationship, that might be difficult.
The other documents needed are identity documents and biographical documents proving the applicant’s identity and admissibility to the United States. The person also needs to have a medical exam. They need to prove they don’t have a criminal record in their home country that bars them from entering the U.S,, and they need to prove that they don’t a history of prior immigration violations in the United States.
The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act
The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act was created under the larger umbrella of legislation called the Violence Against Women Act. It was put in place to protect people from using the K visa as a way to facilitate human trafficking, because there was a kind of explosion in the 90s and the early 2000s of mail order bride services. Also, more and more relationships are beginning online, so the IMBRA is intended to acknowledge this shift and to protect immigrants from entering into a relationship with an abusive petitioner in the United States and becoming trapped in that relationship.
The act demands that the petitioner or the US citizen must disclose a criminal history involving domestic violence or sexual assault, child abuse, child neglect, dating violence, elder abuse, stalking, other violent crimes such as homicide, murder, rape, or a number of other crimes at the time they apply. They are subject to a heightened background check before they can petition for their spouse.
The International Marriage Broker Act also places limits on the number of fiancé visas an individual can apply for. It is not only to protect the immigrant applicant from entering into a relationship with an abusive sponsor, it is to guard against individuals who are trying to commit immigration fraud by applying for a number of fiancés to enter the United States and then never executing the marriage.
Applying for Permanent Resident Status
It is very common for people to enter the United States, for instance on a visitor’s visa, meet someone while they are here, and decide they want to remain in the United States permanently. This is technically legal. A person is allowed to change their mind, but they need to be extremely careful about it. In many cases, it’s much better to get an attorney because the government can look at a person’s intent at the time they entered the U.S. as a visitor and say that the person committed fraud because they lied to the U.S. government about their intent to remain permanently in the United States.
The most important factor in being granted a visitor visa is that the person does not intend to remain permanently. If the government believes the person entered the United States on a visitor’s visa and made the representation to a United States immigration official that they were only coming in temporarily and then immediately apply for a permanent status, they could be charged with fraud and misrepresentation. In the immigrant context, this has very serious consequences. It can permanently bar someone from receiving any kind of benefit and it can lead to them being deported. A person needs to make very certain that they speak to an immigration attorney if they are in this position and want to apply for permanent status.
Conditional Permanent Resident Status
A person is assigned conditional permanent resident status if they received their green card via a relationship with a U.S. citizen spouse, but the marriage to that citizen spouse happened within two years of the time of filing. If a marriage is less than two years old at the time the person filed the application, they become a conditional resident instead of a legal permanent resident. This is basically like a probationary period; it was put into place to guard against marriage fraud. It guards against people who enter into a quickie marriage and as soon as they get papers, they get a divorce.
If the person is not married two years after they were granted conditional resident status; they must file for a waiver. They have to prove their relationship was indeed bona fide at the time the person entered it. Conditional residents are subject to another step in the process to becoming a real legal permanent resident. They must file Form I-751 two years after the date they are granted their conditional resident status. This involves resubmitting the bona fide relationship documents and proving that the relationship is still intact.
Two years after the person is granted their conditional resident status, they file an application to remove the conditions on USCIS Form 751.
How a Fiancé Obtains Permanent Resident Status
Once the application is approved, the visa interview is conducted, and the person is granted the K visa. They’ll use the K visa to enter the United States and will then have ninety days to marry the U.S. citizen fiancé. At that time, the U.S. citizen spouse must file another application, the I-130, as well as the green card application on the I-485. Once those applications are approved, the person may have to attend another interview here in the United States to evaluate the bona fides of the relationship or other issues. Assuming all stages are adjudicated positively, the immigrant will become an LPR.
The biggest roadblock is proving the bona fide relationship. In many cases, it is difficult to create a paper trail for the relationship, especially when the couple hasn’t been living together or sharing finances. It’s more difficult to create a body of evidence that satisfies their burden of proof in these cases than in marriage-based cases.