Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing expiration of K-1, K-3, CR-1, IR-1 Visas. We deal with a lot of that here in our office; basically family-based visas, fiancé’s, marriage, that kind of stuff. I mean quite honestly, it's not so much we are unable to do employment-based visas, it just doesn't seem like it pops up very often. 

The reason for the video is I have had a lot of people recently ask me about, "what is the expiration date on my K-1 Visa? What is it going to be?" Probably I am hearing this a lot more again because there was a long time in there where I wasn't hearing anything about visas because they weren't processing much out and now we are starting to see cases. Things have kind of thawed, we are seeing stuff moving through the Embassy with a little more frequency, so I guess I am just kind of hearing this question a lot and it is a valid one. Yeah, a visa does expire. It has a facial expiration date if you will once it's issued and a lot of people ask me, "Well what is the expiration date? How long is it going to last once we apply for it, once it is approved?" Well the answer to that question is "we don't know, until we know." Until you have the visa in hand you don't know what the expiration date is going to be. This is the reason that the Embassy will tell you and I will say it over and over, make no irrevocable travel arrangements until you have the Visa in hand because you don't have any kind of right, and right isn't even the correct word, there is no real benefit that has been granted to allow entry to the United States until the Visa is actually issued; so that is a big thing. 

Putting that aside, regarding expiration, at the end of the day the expiration date is oftentimes dictated by the interviewing Consular Officer and that is oftentimes dictated by certain underlying documentation. Now everybody strives to make sure the documentation is presented in a timely manner but every once in a while, there may be something, like a medical exam or a police report, especially third country police reports where you are dealing with a police report not in the country in which you are processing the case. These kind of situations sort of lend themselves to a situation where you could see the expiration of a Visa being very short in duration. It's not 6 months. The rule of thumb is generally speaking they oftentimes issue the visa for six months but I have seen Visas issued with a weak validity and basically you just have to get into the United States to essentially activate one's landed status, in the case of the CR-1 and the IR-1 Visa as a landed immigrant; okay in the case of the K-1 and the K-3 you are a landed non-immigrant but you are landed, you are there, you are in. Now this doesn't happen very often but it does happen so be aware of expiration dates with respect to these types of visas because it can have a tremendous impact on overall travel arrangements.