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CR1 Visa Thailand: Will We Need to Live Separately?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the CR-1 Visa from Thailand and specifically the issue of whether or not it will be required for the couple to live apart during the pendency of the case. 

Now the operative word here is "required". Is it going to be a requirement that the couple live apart? There is no legal requirement that the couple lives apart but from a factual standpoint, the facts may be such that there is no choice in the matter that the couple will have to live apart because for example an individual may have to take a job in the United States. The foreign spouse may have matters to wrap up here in Thailand but more recently especially in the aftermath of the closure of the local USCIS office here in Bangkok, Thailand, we are seeing a situation where folks who once were not really required to live apart due to the fact they could often times process a CR-1 or IR-1 Visa case through the local office here and go ahead and process out here and get back to the United States while living together the entire time, now the cases have to go back to the United States. The processing time generally speaking is going to be longer and for that reason it is resulting in what I am seeing as more and more people who are required based on the facts of their case, to be separated where once they weren't in order to obtain the status of Conditional Resident Visa holder coming into the United States.  

So before, it was possible to get and frankly it would take usually 4-6 months to process a CR-1 Visa through Thailand if one had already been living in Thailand.  We saw this a lot with retirees living here who were looking to return to the United States with a Thai spouse. We processed the case directly through the Embassy here and we would see that case moved in 4-6 months. Now it is more like a year and for that reason, we are seeing more and more folks who need to be separated for at least some period of time during the processing of the Visa case just basically because that is how long the process takes. That is the way it is for lack of a better term. 

So the thing to take away from this video is yes it may in your circumstances be incumbent upon you to be separated as a couple, physically separated I should say, for some period of time while the case is processing and unfortunately until some sort of overhaul in the system occurs that I don't particularly see forthcoming. We are probably stuck with the system as it is into the foreseeable future.