Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Third Country National Processing for K-1, K-3, CR-1 and IR-1 Visas, so we are talking about Fiancé and Marriage Visas in this video and third country nationals. What are Third Country Nationals? Well that's what I call somebody who doesn't come from the country in which they are processing. So if you are a Thai national in Thailand, you are not a third country national. If you are a Filipino in Thailand you are; if you are a Malaysian in Thailand, you are; if you are an American in Thailand and you are processing for a visa to Europe, you would be a third country national because Thailand isn't your home country. It is basically people that don't hail from here, but they are processing their case through here.

Different Embassies handle this differently. Some of them are more friendly about it, others are not; I think it depends on the nature of the host country. So for example, places that are kind of used to a more international transitory kind of thing - Hong Kong, Singapore out here come to mind when I think about that - the Embassies and Consulates that are in those jurisdictions are going to be a little more amenable to third country nationals. Thailand is not the worst for this but it can be difficult.

There used to be a rule of thumb regarding Consular jurisdiction that you really had to be in the Consular jurisdiction for a year. Generally speaking, I would argue that still kind of applies in many ways, but it is possible to adjudicate for example, you are married to a Malaysian person, you are living in Thailand, you can show you have been living here, you can show that you are basically here on a permanent basis, the Embassy may process that case. Now I say "may" because effectively they have some discretion as to whether or not they are going to allow adjudication within that jurisdiction. What I mean to say is they can say, "you know what, we are not going to be able to fully scrutinize your documentation for example, because this is the Embassy in Thailand, we are used to dealing with Thai documents, and you have documents from Nepal - just pulling that out of the air - we are not used to dealing with that. We would prefer you go and process in Nepal where we have the folks on the ground that have more day-to-day expertise in what those documents may look like. I have seen that be used as a reason to not allow third country nationals to process through this post, I've seen it in the past. 

That being said, it is not a foregone conclusion that necessarily a third country national cannot process through this post, but the thing to keep in mind and the thing to understand is, it is not a foregone conclusion that they can, and there is an analysis as to whether or not they will be able to. Contacting a legal professional in order to ascertain whether or not one can process through this post may be prudent, especially as it may save time and money.