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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawThe K-1 Fiancée Visa Process in 2020

The K-1 Fiancée Visa Process in 2020

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the K-1 Fiancée Visa

This is a topic that comes up a lot on this channel. I personally deal with a lot of US Immigration cases specifically here from Bangkok, although we do deal with other cases here in the region, for example cases from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, occasionally Vietnam. We deal with cases out of Singapore sometimes so things regionally here in South East Asia. We tend to deal with not a few of K-1 Fiancée Visas in a given year. 

A question I get around the turn of the year oftentimes is "Is anything going to change?" I suspect this will become a perennial video where I basically just kind of look back at the prior-year and look forward to the year to come. 

So with respect to the K-1 Visa, what did we see in 2019?" Well what some have described as Trump's "invisible wall", which is basically certain administrative protocols that seem to be kind of designed to make the overall process a little bit more difficult to deal with. That I don't think is going to discontinue.  I hesitate to say it is designed to be more difficult but whatever it is, it has the practical impact of making the overall process a little more obtuse for lack of a better term. A big thing that we saw in 2019 and I think this is going to continue into 2020, is that those seeking K-1 Fiancée Visas are likely to see more issuances of Request for Evidence from the Department of Homeland Security. We saw that a lot in 2019. I think moving forward we are probably going to see more of that in 2020. I don't think that that overall paradigm if you will of looking for more evidence at every turn in some cases you know, basically being as exhaustive as possible, I don't think that is going to change

So looking forward, I think we are going to probably see more of the same with respect to the Request for Evidence. Now that being stated, it is always a good idea to have a good professional legal service, in our case I am an American attorney that handles these things, and go ahead and try to foresee what is going to happen, deal with case processing, petition compilation in such a way that you can either try to forestall an RFE or mitigate the problems with it or deal with it as quickly as possible once one is issued. Also I think it is fairly safe to say that do-it-yourself cases are probably going to become more difficult. I think in 2019 it is pretty safe to say that  do-it-yourself K-1 cases were somewhat more cumbersome to deal with when compared to times past and so those folks who are looking for some level of for lack of a better term more certainty in the overall process, that probably you are going to be behooved by at least gaining some professional guidance in dealing with the K-1 Fiancée Visa. 

So moving forward I think it is safe to say that 2020 will be a much like to sort of paraphrase Bogart from Casablanca, “it will be much like 2019 only more so”.  I think we are going to continue seeing the same policies enacted and I suspect we will probably continue to see things like RFEs issued with more volume than they were issued in the past. We will keep you advised as to changes in the overall process via this channel so stay tuned.