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Immigrant Intent in the Context of US Marriage and K1 Fiancée Visas

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we are going to be discussing the issue of Immigrant Intent, specifically with respect to US marriage and fiancée visas. Frequent categories of US Immigration are US Immigrant visas and, although the K -1 is a non-immigrant visa, it is effectively treated as an immigrant visa. One of the biggest issues involving these visas is what is called “immigrant intent”.

The immigrant or prospective immigrant I should say, basically the applicant for the underlying visa needs to have the genuine intent to immigrate to the United States at the time they file for a visa thereto.  The thing with immigrant intent is the fact, what it comes down to is that Yes, it’s an intent issue and one’s intentions need to be genuine and one’s intentions can change later. Let’s say K – 1 fiancée moves to the United States to be with your fiancé, they marry, adjust to permanent residence and then a couple of years later they need to move abroad for some reason or leave the United States periodically, this is fine, this is perfectly acceptable, but that being said, immigrant intentions need to be genuine at the time the alien is both applying for their immigrant visa and at the time they’re actually getting ready to travel to the United States.

In another video on this channel, we discussed specifically the issue of domicile, or what is sometimes referred to as the “domicile paradox”, with respect to immigrant visas, especially those filed abroad, or sought abroad, in what are called the direct consular filing, or local filings at USCIS field offices overseas, and in some of these cases, the “domicile paradox” can come up, whereby they want to see that the American citizen has taken what are called “affirmative steps” to reestablish their domicile in the United states. Under those circumstances, the issue, again I think one of the big issues, that that sort of sub issue relates to is again this immigrant intent. They want to see that the family, the spouse or the married couple or yet to be married couple, prospectively married couple, does generally intend to move to the United States and reside there in at least for the foreseeable future. Again, unforeseeable circumstances may arise where intentions change but at the time of immigration, the intentions need to be there and need to be genuine. In another video on this channel, we discussed maintenance of residence with respect to lawful permanent residence in the United States. That kind of plays in a little bit into this but that’s an issue that comes up later after the immigrant is a landed immigrant in the United States and has established their lawful permanent residence therein or has adjusted  over from K – 1 fiancée to a lawful permanent resident based on marriage to an American citizen. That is sort of a different analysis than this one. Immigrant intent is what needs to exist at the time of the application or petition I should say, for the visa is filed and it needs to be maintained throughout the entire process until the applicant has gone to the United States, has landed there and established lawful permanent residence and much like what we discussed in another video with respect to the 30, 60 and 90 rule and fraud misrepresentation, you know.  Somebody going to the United States, to sort of immediately turning around and changing their mind does look a little bit suspect and may call into question ones intentions as far as immigration. Less of an issue where one is ultimately trying to get permanent residence and then something suddenly changes than it is with respect to using a non-immigrant visa in order to sort of circumvent the normal protocols for emigrating to the United States.  It is somewhat less of an issue, but nonetheless, it is kind of an issue if one just immediately, the day after arriving in the United States, immediately leaves again. Circumstances can arise where that can genuinely happen and there’s a genuine reason for doing that, but in most circumstances, the thing to take away from this video one needs to have immigrant intent at the time that they apply for visas such as CR - 1,  K-3, IR - 1 or  K - 1 Visa and at the same time, one needs to go ahead and maintain that intent throughout the entire processing of the case as well as at the time that the immigrated has emigrated to the US physically and enters therein, or is admitted therein. These are the issues that are somewhat complex, they can be very circumstantial, but nonetheless, from a legal standpoint, intent is a very important topic.