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CR-1 Visa Thailand: Is Medical Insurance Required?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the CR-1 Visa; that is the Conditional Resident Visa generally issued to spouses of American citizens. In this video we are going to narrowly talk about such visas issued from Thailand but you can extrapolate some of the information more broadly for other visa categories if you deem it necessary.

So we are specifically talking about a recent Proclamation from President Trump with respect to Immigrant Visas and those who are looking to immigrate to the United States. Now to be clear, we are talking about medical insurance okay. This is a little different from the President's recent announcements with respect to public charge rules as that pertains to financial evidence associated with immigrating to the United States. 

So in a recent posting from the State Department, it is on travel.state.gov. It is titled Presidential Proclamation on Healthcare. It states: "This requirement will apply to all Immigrant Visa applicants and individuals seeking to enter the United States on an Immigrant Visa except individuals who are holding or who held a valid Immigrant Visa as of November 3rd, 2019." Quoting further: "Applicants for K Fiancée visas and other aliens entering the United States without an Immigrant Visa, including lawful permanent residents, refugees and asylees”. So again lawful permanent residents and it will apply to everyone except for those who already hold an Immigrant Visa as of November 3rd.

So who is this going to impact? Well first of all, let us state, it may impact no one because as of the time of this video a Federal Judge, in I believe Oregon in the United States, has basically handed down an injunction enjoining the Government from enforcing these rules until the matter can be further adjudicated. So for now we have basically gotten a reprieve from having to deal with these requirements.

That being said, that reprieve may not last forever. An adjudication has to be made with respect to the legality of this Proclamation. It may be overturned on basic legal grounds or perhaps on Constitutional grounds. It remains to be seen and we can't really foresee exactly what will happen with respect to that but for now we have got a delay and until such time as the injunction is lifted, these rules are not in effect. That being stated, if the injunction was to be lifted or the matter was deemed to be constitutional and thereby lifted the injunction and we saw these rules enforced it will pertain to those who are applying for a CR-1 Visa. In that case, we are going to go ahead and put this on the screen.  This is a copy of the DS 5541 form and it is the Immigrant Health Care questionnaire and apparently Consular Officers have been instructed, I should say Consular Officers who are adjudicating Immigrant Visa petitions, are being instructed that they will need to use this form in order to make a determination as to whether or not the individual in question will be covered by insurance when they go into the United States and they presumably will not be issued a Visa until such time as they can prove that they are going to have some kind of Medical Health Care coverage. 

As I said, we will go ahead and put that up on the screen. One of the questions on here "Will you be covered by health insurance in the United States within 30 days of your entry into the United States? If you answered "yes", identify the specific health insurance plan and date coverage will begin. So clearly they are serious about this and unlike the K categories, which at least for the time being would seem to be not covered by this Proclamation, Immigrant Spouse visas such as the CR-1 are going to be affected by this if and when the injunction is finally lifted and these rules come into effect. 

For related information please see: CR1 Visa Thailand.