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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawAny New K-3 Visa Requirements in Thailand?

Any New K-3 Visa Requirements in Thailand?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing we are discussing K-3 Visas here in Thailand. These are Non-Immigrant Marriage Visas and to be clear on this they are Non-immigrant. There is a supplemental petition that can be filed for a K-3 Visa on top of an Immigrant Spouse Visa that allows someone to apply for a Non-Immigrant Marriage Visa. Now the reason the K-3 exists, it is really not a superior visa to an Immigrant Spouse Visa but it exists because Immigrant Spouse Visas process quite frankly rather slowly. In the past they were created under the auspices of the Life Act under President Clinton at a time when what was the INS now the Department of Homeland Security, was processing Immigrant Spouse Visa cases very slowly and so they created a more prioritized Visa category, albeit Non-Immigrant for the spouses of American citizens, that is how we got the K-3. 

So what's going on with K-3 right now? Well not much. There are still issues with what we refer to as Administrative Closing where if it is deemed that the K-3 isn't necessary they will just close it at the National Visa Center. For those who watch my videos relatively frequently, I am not the biggest fan in the world of the NVC. It frankly is kind of a quagmire in my opinion and it asks for all kinds of redundant documents and documents I don't even think they need. I don't even think they should be adjudicating issues related to domicile because that should be a Consular Officer not just some faceless person or persons or no one or whatever part of the overall process. Long story short, yeah I don't think you are going to see a lot of sympathy right now in terms of you know not administratively closing a K-3 case and thereby by passing the NVC all together; I just don't think that is overly likely.

Some good news if that is to happen, we are seeing a thaw with respect to processing of K category visas. We are starting to see more interviews taking place, being scheduled; we are starting to kind of see the backlog start to thaw out and the log jam start to ease a little bit. Are there any new requirements for the K-3? No the same old ones that are pretty daunting to begin with but we are seeing things kind of start to move forward a little faster so hopefully that's good news here in 2022.