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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawK- Fiancée Visa Application Denial and the I-601 Waiver

K- Fiancée Visa Application Denial and the I-601 Waiver

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are going to be talking about the I-601 waivers specifically in the context of K-1 fiancée visas.

The reason I made this video specifically is, it is an interesting thing to bring up, strictly speaking the K visa, it is something “hybrid” visa, just across the board. It is a Non-immigrant but it is treated as an immigrant visa for purposes of Consular Processing and the reason it is treated that way is, the individual obtaining a K visa is maintaining an intent at the outset to live in the United States but the visa itself is only issued for 90 days which simply allows the applicant 90 days lawful presence in America in order to undertake a marriage and subsequent filing for more permanent status which is called  Adjustment of Status; there is another video on this channel which goes into adjustment of status specifically.  What I am getting at with this video here is, there is another video on this channel which discusses what are called “qualifying relatives” in the context of I-601 waivers and under the provisions of that, of the Immigration and Nationality Act, laws and rules with respect to I-601 waivers, it is required that the individual in question have a qualifying relative that is going to be put under an extreme hardship by failure to issue an approved I-601 waiver. The reason I bring this up is, one of the approved qualifying relatives is a spouse.  Well in a K-1 fiancée case, you are not yet married. How do you deal with this? Well the INA and relevant regulations deal with this rather succinctly. They simply treat the American citizen fiancée as if they were already married to their foreign fiancée; in most cases that we deal with we are dealing with Thai fiancées. But in that set of circumstances, if it is a K-1 fiancées visa it is treated as if they are already married. It is sort of like a legal fiction, it is created that is basically they are already married and it is adjudicated as if they are already married.

So the reason I made this video is for people to understand that K-1 fiancée visas can be the subject of an I-601 waiver. There can be a finding of inadmissibility in a K-1 case and one can seek a 601 waiver in much the same way that one would be seeking a 601 visa in a spousal case.  It is qualitatively treated the same thing in the eyes of the law.