US K-3 Visa: Application Issues
A common question for those seeking an expedited Marriage visa for their loved one is: why does the K-3 visa use the same application as the k1 fiance visa?
The K3 visa was initially designed as a way of getting spouses of American citizens to the United States in as fast a manner as possible. Back when the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service was referred to as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the classic I-130 application for an IR-1 or CR-1 Immigrant Spouse visa took as long as three years to adjudicate. This lead to an egregious backlog of pending cases and probably was one of the reasons why INS (USCIS) was reorganized.
When filing for a marriage visa, the first phase is filing an I-130 petition. Should the couple decide to apply for a faster visa, then they can submit an application to USCIS. This part of the process can only happen once the application has been submitted to US Immigration officials.
In a number of ways, the K-3 visa is somewhat akin to the V visa, a visa category created to ease the backlog of pending Immigration cases. At the time of this writing, the "V" visa category is being used less and less often because the statutory provision is effectively sun-setting.
This does not deal with the original question: why submit a K-1 visa application when a marriage visa is being sought? Put simply, it was probably simpler and less expensive to use the I-129f application form rather than create a completely new document to be used exclusively for the K3 marriage visa.
For those uninitiated in dealing with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, filing the proper paperwork is critical to obtaining an approval from the officers working for the Service. Also, depending upon the visa being sought, the analysis differs. Therefore, the burden of proof may be different if one is seeking a fiance visa versus a marriage visa.
It should always be remembered: lying to the United States government is not an effective means of getting a US visa. An approach such as this could result in a finding of legal inadmissibility and therefore cause more work, delay, and hassle in order to ultimately obtain the visa.
(Please note that nothing contained herein should be utilized as a substitute for legal advice. One should always contact an attorney for personalized legal consultation. A lawyer-client relationship should not be assumed to exist between the writer of this article and any reader.)
