Q: My family arranged my marriage, am I still eligible for a marriage based visa so I can migrate to the U.S.?
U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents may petition for their foreign-born spouses to come live with them in the United States. In order to qualify for an immigrant visa based on marriage, the applicant must be able to show that the marriage is legal and legitimate, not solely for immigration purposes. The U.S. Embassy needs to believe a true husband and wife relationship exists. It does not seek to judge your relationship and strives to approve visas for all legitimate applicants that qualify for the visas. There is no prohibition to obtain a visa if the marriage has been arranged or set-up by friends or family.
It is important when you come for your immigrant visa interview that you and your spouse are completely honest in your responses to the consular officer. Because many people seek to obtain immigration benefits through sham marriage, the Embassy has to examine each case with great care. Dishonesty or omission of important facts during your interview is a strong indicator that the relationship may not be genuine. If during the interview, the officer detects that you are being dishonest in any way, your case may appear to be fraudulent. Even if you are in a legitimate relationship, if you fail to respond truthfully during the interview to the consular officer, your case will likely be delayed and eventually your visa may be denied.
The Embassy has noticed many applicants are reluctant to admit that their families made arrangements for them to initially meet their U.S. citizen spouse. The Embassy does not view such relationships negatively, and makes every effort to assess these relationships on their own terms as it does with all marriage cases. As with all marriage cases, the interviewing officer wants to see that the couple is in a legitimate husband and wife relationship. However, when applicants are not honest about the circumstances of how they met or other important details involving their marriage, their cases are often delayed and sometimes refused under suspicions that the marriage is a sham or for immigration purposes only.Q: Is it better to file a K1 fiancée petition or a regular IR1/CR1 marriage based petition?
K1 visas are intended for people who plan to marry in the United States. They are not designed to expedite the migration process. At the Embassy, K1 visas are subjected to the same interview process as IR1/CR1 visas. However, in addition to the interview at the Embassy applicants will have to participate in an adjustment of status interview in the U.S. once they have married, and possibly an additional interview to remove their conditional status after they have been a legal permanent resident for two years. Furthermore, since the K1 fiancée visa applicant has not yet married, they must not only be able to show convincingly that they are in a legitimate relationship with the petitioner; they must also show that the relationship will result in a legitimate marriage in the United States within 90 days from the time of entry. In many cases the K1 process ends up taking the same amount of or more time than a regular marriage-based petition.
Note that K3 is a different visa category than a K1 fiancée visa. The K3 visa petition is submitted at the same time as the I-130 immigrant visa petition used for a CR/IR1 visa. It is designed specifically to allow applicants to enter the United States while they are waiting for the I-130 petition to be approved. While the initial processing time for K3 visas may be slightly faster, once cases arrive at the Embassy, they are treated exactly like any other marriage based case and are subject to the same burden of proof as the CR/IR 1 visa. Q: I heard that I need to bring hundreds of cards and pictures as evidence of my relationship, is that true?
No, the Embassy gives people the opportunity to provide evidence that they may have available to assist the consular officer in assessing the validity of the relationship. There are no specific requirements for evidence of the relationship. You should not create or manufacture evidence, such as letters, pictures, and cards, just to prove to the Embassy that you are in a legitimate relationship. Rather, you may wish to carefully select some items you have accumulated during the normal course of your relationship that clearly show you and your partner are together. Please note that lewd or pornographic photographs are always unacceptable and not considered to be evidence of a relationship.
The best strategy is to come to your interview calm and prepared to be fully honest and answer all questions completely.
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“Ask the Consul” is a fortnightly column from the U.S. Embassy answering questions about U.S. immigration law and visa issues. If you have a general question about visa policy please email it to us at AskGeorge@state.gov. We select questions every other week and publish the answers in Stabroek News and on our website at http://georgetown.usembassy.gov/guyana/ask_con.html. For more information about visas please see http://www.unitedstatesvisas.gov or http://georgetown.usembassy.gov/.
Other than the questions we select, we DO NOT respond to questions sent to Ask the Consul. Please contact the visa inquiries unit (email visageorge@state.gov or call 225-7965 between 8 am- 12 pm and 1 pm- 4 pm Monday through Friday) if you have questions about a specific case.
