Integrity Legal - Law Firm in Bangkok | Bangkok Lawyer | Legal Services Thailand Back to
Integrity Legal

Legal Services & Resources 

Up to date legal information pertaining to Thai, American, & International Law.

Contact us: +66 2-266 3698

info@integrity-legal.com

The IR-1 Visa Process in 2020

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the IR-1 Visa. That is the Immigrant Spouse visa and we are discussing it in the context of the recent New Year. 2020 has rolled in and Immigration matters continue apace.

I do get a lot of inquiries from folks asking you know,”Year to year does the Immigration process change?"  Yes there are changes that occur with respect to the Immigration process. That being stated, a simple date on a calendar doesn't change, it doesn't fundamentally alter the overall nature of the Immigration process. To think of it in that way is probably not a good idea. 

That being said, it does sort of incrementally change throughout the given year and themes that were present in 2019 I think are going to be present in 2020. For example we saw a great number of Requests for Evidence; more as a percentage than we had seen in previous years. Requests for Evidence are requests made by the Department of Homeland Security with respect to a given Immigration petition, basically seeking further clarification or further documentation in connection with a petition for a given set of Immigration benefits. In the past, these happened. I won't say they were rare but they definitely weren't as frequent as we are seeing them now. It seems more and more that the Immigration apparatus is looking to for lack of better term "dot all their i's and cross all their t's." In fact, in many cases that we have felt were absolutely exhaustive, we have seen Requests for Evidence that in my opinion "yeah okay, I see what they were asking for but we felt that we had all the evidence there." That being said dealing with an RFE quickly and effectively is important in order to keep the flow of the case going to keep things moving if you will. 

So the thing to keep in mind with respect to IR-1 Visas moving forward is, yes the RFEs still may be an issue and generally speaking I think it might be safe to say that do-it-yourself cases may be a little bit more difficult compared to times past based on some of the changes we have seen in the overall process. For that reason, it may not be a terrible idea to go ahead and get in contact with a legal professional who has experience dealing with American Immigration as doing so may forestall certain problems and it may also mitigate any problems that come up during the process.