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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawWhat Will the K-3 Process Look Like Post COVID-19?

What Will the K-3 Process Look Like Post COVID-19?

Transcript of the above video:

In a prior video we did on this channel  we were discussing K-3 visas and how they may prove to be advantageous to folks during the COVID-19 outbreak and all the ramifications associated therewith. I am making this video to specifically discuss what I am foreseeing being the K3 Visa process in the aftermath of COVID-19. 

So first of all let’s understand I think what we are going to see after this COVID-19 situation has sort of settled. I do think that the Immigration system will see some changes although it generally takes time but some immediate things that I see with respect to the K-3 Visa process is, I definitely foresee a situation in which the medical exam requirements associated with the final issuance of a K-3 Visa, I think they are probably going to change and I think we can probably safely say that they are going to change shortly after the Immigration apparatus comes back online in the aftermath of the closures.  For example, the Immigrant and Non-immigrant Visa units at the US Embassy here in Bangkok as well as the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and the US Embassy in Vientiane, Laos, all of these Visa units are not currently issuing visas because they are not even currently having interviews. 

As noted in prior videos, the Trump Administration has suspended certain Immigration albeit it may not necessarily apply to certain family-based cases. The overall situation is such that Immigrant Spouse Visas, the process for getting them issued after the Immigrant Visa units reopen as well as the Trump suspension is lifted; although it remains to be seen I think we can presume medical exams are going to change. I think it is not impossible to see a situation where they want to see a COVID-19 clearance where folks have been tested for COVID-19 and cleared of it. It is difficult to say with certainty that that will happen but I think it may. It is my understanding that these tests are not exactly the most commonplace thing so until there is testing everywhere we might see kind of an interim period where we don't necessarily see medical exams requiring COVID-19 clearance as far as an actual test although I suspect the Civil Surgeons associated with doing an examination for someone to be issued a Visa itself, I suspect those people are going to be well aware of COVID-19; they are going to be looking out for the symptoms. Here in Thailand, the medical infrastructure is such that I think testing is going to be possible in a wide-scale at least shortly after we would prospectively see the interviews being brought back online, the system being brought back online. So I think the medical exam is going to be one thing of a major concern.

I also think K-3 Visas are definitely going to come more in vogue after COVID-19 settles because I think there is going to be a backlog associated with Immigrant Spouse visas and those American citizens who want to bring their spouse in, in an expedited manner, the K-3 Visa was created specifically under the Life Act during the Clinton Administration for that purpose. Although we did not see a lot of K-3 Visa issue the past 10 or 12 years, that was due to the fact that Immigrant Spouse visas were processing in a much quicker fashion than they are now and in the aftermath of COVID-19, I think Immigrant Spouse visas and probably going to see adjudication processing times going up and for that reason it is possible that the reason for Administrative Closure will not be there anymore and NVC will start processing K-3 Visas in the manner that they did prior to them not being necessary in these past roughly dozen years. 

So the thing to take away from this video is I think one of the big things that will change in the aftermath of COVID-19 with respect to the K-3 Visa process is definitely the medical regimen that folks go through in order to get a visa to the United States, that is going to change.  I think that we also may see a situation where more K-3 Visas are filed and more K-3 Visas are issued than we have seen in the relatively recent past.