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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawK-4 Visa Thailand: The Derivative Visa for Children of K-3 Visa Holders

K-4 Visa Thailand: The Derivative Visa for Children of K-3 Visa Holders

Transcript of the above video:

In this video, I'm going to be talking briefly about the K-4 visa category. The K-4 is a derivative of the K-3 visa. As a derivative, it's intended for the children of the spouse of a United States citizen, so essentially, the stepchild presumably of a U.S. citizen, but instead of coming in on an IR-1 or CR-1, the spouse of that American citizen is presumably coming in on a K-3 visa.

As previously noted on another video in this channel, and I strongly recommend those watching this video check that video out, K-3 visas are becoming something of a thing of the past. They were created under the LIFE Act. They were created because there was a specific need for an expedited visa category for spouses of U.S. citizens because at the time the overrunning backlog of lawful permanent resident cases for spouses in general of lawful permanent residents as well as citizens, was quite significant and it resulted in these weird, strangely counter intuitive situations where fiancée visas were actually taking less time to adjudicate the process than marriage visa cases were. So the K-3 was created for a specific reason and that specific reason was expedited processing of marriage visas. That reason has gone away. The underlying processing of I-130 is basically CR-1 and IR-1 visas. The processing times have dramatically diminished and as a result, the K-3 visa in a way was phased out by the National Visa Center through the administrative closure function so we're seeing less of them, and just in general, their overall need, they're sort of redundant, they're kind of redundant visa category, but that being said, they can still be issued and their derivative category is the K-4. The thing to keep in mind with respect to K-3 is much like the K-1 category where one receives the K-3, even though it is a marriage visa; it still requires adjustment of status in the United States. So those entering the country on a K-3 or in this case, as well as K-4 still have to undergo an adjustment status process before a green card is going to be issued. And that fact also creates something of a redundancy with respect to the fact that once getting a K-3, which is a marriage visa, only to enter the country and then turn around to adjust status.

At a time when the processing of the immigrant visa was significant, substantially longer than the processing of K-3 cases, the adjustment of status process was sort of viewed as a necessary evil for getting expedited processing essentially getting one's spouse into the country. Now that's no longer necessarily the case. The need for adjustment of status just sort of further highlights the fact that the K-3 itself is rather redundant, in my opinion at least, and so is really the K-4. So that being said, the K-4 still exists but for practical purposes; it's not a particularly useful travel document these days.