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Is Coronavirus Impacting the K1 Visa Process?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Coronavirus unfortunately.

There have been a lot of questions that have come to me here recently about the impact of Coronavirus is or may be having on the overall process of getting a K-1 Fiancée Visa from Thailand or from this region here in Southeast Asia; so we are talking Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore. Is the coronavirus having an impact on these kinds of cases? I have gotten not a few emails on this topic here recently. 

I am going to go ahead and cite some law basically and this is from whitehouse.gov, titled Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Non-immigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus. Quoting directly: "I have determined that it is in the interest of the United States to take action to restrict and suspend the entry into the United States as immigrants or non-immigrants of all aliens who, (and this emphasis here is added by me) who were physically present within the People's Republic of China excluding the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States. I have also determined that the United States should take all necessary and appropriate measures to facilitate orderly medical screening and where appropriate, quarantine of persons allowed to enter the United States who may have been exposed to the virus."  I have read all of the Proclamation. Those who are interested, again that is whitehouse.gov and that to me was the most relevant language on how this is going to work as a practical matter at least for the foreseeable future.

I don't know how coronavirus is going to evolve, how this overall issue is going to proceed. We are certainly going to give you updates on this channel as it does precede but that being stated, at the present time I don't think this is going to have a major impact on visa processing, specifically K-1 Fiancée Visa processing, out of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore. I don't think it is going to impact anyone of that nationality specifically or those located in those jurisdictions specifically yet. Now there is one caveat I will put on that and that is it may impact those who have travelled to China within the past couple of weeks. So again “of all aliens who were physically present within the People's Republic of China excluding the SARs,  Hong Kong and Macau during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States.” 

In a sense, apparently the coronavirus has a two-week incubation period. It sounds to me like any visa sought, even in countries like Thailand, there is going to be this kind of cooling off period with respect to making certain that an individual who has previously visited China, it could be a Chinese National presumably, that just simply hasn't been in China for a fairly long period of time, they are going to want to see this cooling off period between the time of application and ultimate visa issuance. 

So I think it's fairly safe to presume we might be seeing some 221g issuances, that is a refusal to immediately issue a visa, in this case of K-1 Fiancée Visa. I think it is very possible we could see those sort of issued just temporarily refusing issuance of a Visa until such time as a certain period of time has elapsed and it can be clearly shown that that individual does not have or I should say pose a risk of Coronavirus transmission.

So at the time of this video, that is where things stand we are dealing with it as it comes but presently I don't think this is going to have a massive impact on K-1 Fiancée Visas processed out of Thailand.