The K1 Fiancé(e) VISA- Part 2

Hello Everyone! Before starting this blog’s topic, I wanted to remind you all that you can visit and follow my pinterest account for more information regarding the VISA process!

My last entry went over the initial steps and paperwork needed to apply for the Fiancé(e) VISA. I recommend reading that post before reading this post. Today’s blog will focus on the necessary steps to take AFTER submitting the Petition for the Alien Fiancé(e):

1) Wait. Yes, you heard that right: wait. What will you be waiting for and how long will you be waiting? You will be waiting for various documents that I have listed below. The waiting time however varies for every case. It took 8 days from the day that I sent the Petition for the Alien Fiancé(e) to the day that I received the first notification from USCIS. After this, it took approximately 2 months to receive the approval notice of my petition (I have been told that this is faster than the average time it takes).

Documents you can expect to receive after submitting the first round of paperwork:

1. Receipt from USCIS for the Petition for the Alien Fiancé(e).
2. Approval Notice from USCIS for the Petition for the Alien Fiancé(e).
3. Retrieval notice from the National Visa Center (NVC) (this is just a fancy way of saying that the NVC received your approved petition from USCIS and will now be forwarding it to the U.S. embassy in your Alien Fiancé(e)’s country).
4. An email from the U.S. embassy with an instruction packet on further documents needed before an interview can be scheduled.

2) Follow the application instructions in the packet that the U.S. embassy (in my case, the one in Buenos Aires since my Fiance is from Argentina). This instruction packet lists further documents and information that you and your fiancé(e) will need to provide to the U.S. embassy before they can schedule an interview for your fiancé(e). Here is a list of the documents that you need to submit:

Note: this list may not be correct for all countries and may change depending on the year that you are filing the petition.

1. DS-160: non-immigrant VISA application online.
2. Photographs: 2 identical recent photographs 2x2 inches (5x5 centimeters), front view, light white/ off-white background, on glossy paper, unretouched, and unmounted.
3. Valid Passport and 1 copy of the biographic page.
4. Previous Passports.
5. Birth entry/certificate issued by the Civil Registry.
6. Marriage entry issued by the Civil Registry (this is only if your fiancé(e) has been married before).
7. Death certificate of a spouse (of petitioner and/ or applicant) issued by the Civil Registry (once again, this is only if a previous spouse of the U.S. citizen or foreigner has died).
8. Divorce Decree of Petitioner and applicant (only if you or your significant other have gotten a divorce with someone).
9. Military Record: A certified copy of any military record, if applicable, is required.
10. Police Certificate: Each visa applicant aged 16 years or over is required to submit a police certificate from the police authorities of each locality in which the applicant has lived.

11. Court and Prison Records: Persons who have been convicted of a crime must get a certified copy of each court record and any prison or criminal record.
12. Physical Examination: This must be done with one of the Certified doctors in the country, which will be listed when you receive the instruction packet.
13. Evidence of Support: The US Citizen will have to complete form I-134. If the petitioner does not qualify as a sponsor, a Joint-Sponsor should ALSO be presented (any US Citizen living in the US or Legal Permanent Resident), who will also have to complete form I-134. This form is required to show that the US citizen or a Joint-Sponsor makes enough money to support their future spouse while in the U.S.
14. Evidence of Relationship: They prefer to see photos of you and your partner throughout your relationship. Receipts of money sent from the U.S. citizen to the foreigner is also good proof of relationship, as well as cards and letters with the original post marked envelopes, and phone records.
15. Fee (yes, MORE money): The current K1 visa fee for 2016 is 265 USD for each applicant.
16. Translations: All documents not in English or Spanish (Spanish is the second language for my situation because my Fiance is from Argentina) must be accompanied by a certified English translation.
17. Legalizations: Any document issued by the Civil Register in the foreigner's country (Birth, Marriage, and Death Entries) must be legalized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Argentina located at: Calle 25 de Mayo 179, Capital Federal (once again, this information is specific to Argentina. It will vary for each country).

3) Wait for an email from the U.S. embassy telling you the official interview date for the foreign fiancé(e).

Note: You must mail a COPY of each of these documents to the embassy, and bring the ORIGINAL copies to the interview.

A lot of this information is pretty easy to come by (ie. passport photos) and others are more difficult (ie. I-134). In following posts I will explain how to complete or obtain some of the more difficult items on the list. For now, feel free to ask any questions that you may have!

The K1 Fiancé(e) VISA- Part 1

In this post I describe the final option for achieving residency through marriage in the United States:

The K1 Fiancé(e) VISA

As I revealed in my last post, this is the option that my fiancé and I have chosen! I am more familiar with this process (I am in the midst of it as I write this post), and will be writing several detailed posts about it. First thing’s first: why did I choose this option when there are two other perfectly good options out there?

1. My boyfriend and I already had the intention of getting married in the U.S., so option get married in the U.S. was out.
2. I didn’t want to have to be apart from him again (we had already done the long distance thing and it wasn’t fun), BUT I didn’t want to marry him right when I arrived in Argentina.

Let me explain reason number 2 a bit more: Another very appealing option for my boyfriend and I was to marry in Argentina and apply for the K3 nonimmigrant VISA. But this VISA usually takes about 10 months to process. Let me remind you that I am only staying in Argentina for 12 months, meaning that we would have had to get married ASAP upon my arrival in Argentina. This is bad for several reasons: one being that it would be super stressful gathering all of the documents to get married and planning a rushed wedding, and two being that I wanted to live with him for a good amount of time before committing to marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my boyfriend and wanted to be with him forever! But I always said that I would live with my future husband before committing to marriage. This is something else to keep in mind when going through this process: marriage is a huge commitment whether your future spouse is from the same country as you or not. The process of immigrating to the U.S. is stressful and expensive and is sure to cause some arguments. You need to be positive that this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with before starting this process.

In the end, the K1 VISA, which only takes around 6 months, has allowed my boyfriend and I to live together before committing to spending the rest of our lives together and (hopefully) return to the U.S. together. Our personal situation led to choosing this option, so it is important to do your research before picking one. We submitted all of our documents just before christmas and heard back from USCIS on December 21st saying that they had received our petition.

Now for the information that you came for. Question and answer time:

• What forms are needed for the Fiancé(e) VISA petition? 
• g-28 (X2)- For both the petitioner (the U.S. citizen) and the Alien Fiancé(e). This was only necessary as we had an attorney representing our case. If one does not have a lawyer he or she will NOT have to fill out this form.
• g-325A (X2)- For both the petitioner and the Alien Fiancé(e). This document provides biographical information such as where you have lived and your places of employment for the last five years.
• i-129F- This document is the actual petition for one’s Fiancé(e) to come to the U.S. and provides more biographical information. This document only needs to be signed by the petitioner (the U.S. citizen).

Note: The documents use the title petitioner to refer to the U.S. citizen and Alien Fiancé(e) to refer to the foreigner so I am trying to stick with those terms when answering questions.

• What other documents are needed for the Fiancé(e) VISA petition? 
• Declaration of intention from both the petitioner and the Alien Fiancé(e).
• Flight itinerary for the times that you have visited each other (We simply printed out the flight confirmation emails that we had received. As an extra document we sent a trip itinerary for the U.S. that we had made together).
• A copy of the petitioner's and Alien Fiancé(e)’s passports and birth certificates. 
• A passport-sized photo of each the petitioner and Alien Fiancé(e). 
• Photos of the petitioner and Alien Fiancé(e) together (no more than 10 pictures, we only submitted 5).
• Email conversations (we didn’t have any email conversations, so we printed out snippets of our whatsapp conversations). 
• What is the purpose of the “Declaration of Intention”? The purpose of this document is to explain how the U.S. citizen and Alien Fiancé(e) met and that they plan on marrying within 90 days of entering the U.S. (Our lawyer had us submit two, one a little more detailed than the other. *Sample at the end of this post).
• How soon must one get married once entering the U.S. with a K1 VISA? One must get married within 90 of entering the U.S. with a K1 VISA.

 

*”Simple” Declaration of Intention Sample: (This is an example of what the U.S. citizen would write. You will also follow this pattern to write a declaration for the foreigner)

The more detailed declaration of intention was one page long (no spaces!) and did not fit this cookie cutter format. Although each of our detailed declarations mentioned some of the same events in our relationship, they were both in a unique format. We each started off with meeting each other in Argentina when I was studying abroad and ended with the formal statements of intending to marry the other within 90 days of entering the U.S. In these declarations we gave a chronological summary of our relationship. We mentioned trips we went on together, meeting each other's families and friends and finally, when we decided to get engaged. Having to write these statements kind of annoyed me at first, as the information we were providing was pretty private! But just keep in mind that the reason they are asking for this statement is to see if your relationship is legitimate or not. In the end, I wrote a good sized statement with simply stating the facts of our relationship.

I hope this post has answered some of your questions regarding the Fiancé(e) K1 VISA! My next post will detail the next steps (yes, there are more) after submitting the petition. Click here here for even more information on this topic. I have also started a Pinterest account dedicated to information on immigrating to the U.S. Click here to take a look at other sites that can help you through this process!