The Finace Visa process is a way that that Congress set up to facilitate the immigration of fiances of U.S. citizens. This is only for people who are engaged to be married and intend to be married and who will not marry until the foreign fiancé has arrived in the US. Once the foreign fiance arrives in the United States, they must get married within 90 days. I know of people, thinking to help their case along, who got married while they were waiting for the visa to come, and as a result had to start all over with a spousal visa — which causes a major delay.
As I stated above, the fiancé visa is only for fiances of U.S. citizens. A green card holder cannot use this route to bring a fiancé to the US. Both parties have to be unmarried from the start of the process (i.e., someone can’t file this if they are still married and waiting a divorce). They have to remain unmarried until the fiancé visa is processed, the foreign fiancé has had her interview, received her visa and has entered the U.S. They then absolutely need to get married within 90 days of arrival in the U.S.
Another requirement for the visa is that you need to establish that you have met in person within the two years immediately preceding the filing of the visa petition. They will not accept pictures alone as proof of this meeting. They want additional evidence like passport stamps or flight itineraries.
The process is started when the U.S. Citizen fiancé files a fiancé petition with the USCIS requesting the approval of a fiancé visa. The USCIS processes the petition and upon approval, sends it to the Department of State. That first step usually takes between three and six months, but it can take longer. Once the Department of State gets the petition, they send it to the appropriate consulate or embassy.
Once the consulate receives the petition, they notify the applicant that it is time for them to start gathering the relevant evidence — birth and police certificates and proof of financial sponsorship and relationship evidence and a medical examination. At this point, the foreign fiancé also pays the fiancé visa application fee. Once they have all this completed, the applicant notifies the consulate and schedules an appointment. This process usually goes quite quickly.
At the interview, the fiancé will be examined mostly regarding her relationship with the US fiancé, although they may look at other issues as well. I had one fiancé applicant, long ago, who listened to the other people in the waiting room and told the examiner that she was going to get together with her fiancé to see if she wanted to marry him. The examiner rejected her because she needs to intend to get married in order to get this visa.
Once the visa is issued, the fiancé has six months to enter the U.S. Then, as stated above, they need to get married within 90 days. And then the challenging part of the process begins.
Up to this point, the foreign fiancé only has a K (fiancé) visa. She does not yet have a green card. Once she is married, she then files an application for adjustment of status to apply for the green card. Two weeks ago I wrote about the process for filing for adjustment of status. I won’t repeat that here. It is all the same except that you do not need to file a spousal immigrant petition — the approved fiancé petition takes the place of the spousal immigrant petition.
I hope this is interesting and helpful. Remember that this is not legal advice. It is just a summary of certain aspects of immigration law which may or may not apply to your situation. I encourage you to consult an attorney if you think any of this may apply to your situation.
Gunnar Armstrong