Virginia K Visa Lawyer
A person looking to enter the United States as a fiancé may be interested in filing a K visa. A Virginia K visa lawyer can help a person looking to enter the United States in this manner go through all the necessary application steps.
Different Types of K Visas
The most common type of K visa is a fiancé visa. It’s a visa available to individuals planning on getting married in the United States, who want to have the marriage in the United States. They must prove a bona fide relationship and show that they have immediate plans to marry, but they do not need to have executed the marriage. The immigrant enters the United States as a fiancé as opposed to a spouse, and then needs to marry the fiancée within 90 days of entry.
Once the marriage is final, they will file the I-130 and adjustment application just like any other applicant. Consulting with a Virginia K visa lawyer can simplify and smooth out this process. There is also a different type of K visa which is not for fiancees, but which is available to spouses of U.S. citizens only.
That visa is used in rare situations when an individual is already married to the immigrant spouse, but they don’t want to apply for their green card from abroad. The individual can enter on a K visa and then apply for the I-130 and the 485 green card application once they are in the United States. While there is rarely a reason to apply in this fashion, if an individual wished to do so, they should consult a Virginia K visa lawyer.
The reason this type of K visa exists, and is most often used, is for times when the adjudication times for the I-130s are excessive. In some cases, the I-129, which is the form filed to receive the K visa, can have a shorter adjudication time. A person may want to use the K visa to lessen how long their spouse has to be separated from them or waiting outside the country before they enter.
People Who Can File Form I-129F
The 129F is just for fiancés. They are for the fiancé of a U.S. citizen who is residing abroad and wants to enter the country to apply for permanent residency after the marriage is executed in the U.S. The petitioner, who is the U.S. citizen spouse, will be the one to file the application with USCIS. A Virginia K visa lawyer can help with this application process.
How a Person Applies For a K Visa
The first step in applying for a K visa, is to file the I-129 domestically with USCIS. Once that petition is approved, USCIS forwards the case file to the National Visa Center. At that point, the individual must submit additional documents to the National Visa Center. They will also pay the Department of State filing fees, and fill out the Department of State application forms online. Once that is done, the National Visa Center forwards the file to the consulate or the embassy abroad for the person who is going to attend the interview.
The interviewer in the foreign country reviews the entire file to see if they have any additional questions, or if there are any additional inadmissibility issues that might come up at that point. Once the interview is conducted and the application is approved, the person gets a visa stamp in their passport. It says they can enter the United States on a K visa. They come to the United States using that visa.