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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the K-1, K-3, CR-1 and IR-1 Visa. So in essence we are talking about Fiancé Visas versus Marriage Visas. Some questions have come up, I have had folks contact us wanting to know: "How do I best look at this from a cost benefit analysis? Do I go for a Fiancé Visa? Do I get married and do we process it through as a Marriage Visa? What are we looking at here?"

Well long story short, yeah the backlogs quite frankly are not great. Cases are moving through but the last 20 months or so has really taking its toll on the overall Immigration system. I am optimistic things are getting better because I am seeing things starting to unthaw if you will with respect to the overall process but that said, yeah things are taking longer than they once were. That then kind of begs the question: "Well what do we want to do? Do we want to get married? Do we want to use a Fiancé Visa?" I hate to sound like a broken record but it is going to be very fact-specific, it is going to depend on your situation. Now there is a lot of upside on either side. For example Marriage Visa, specifically Immigrant Spouse Visas, the CR-1 or the IR-1, that individual coming in on that Visa enters in Green Card status. The moment they are stamped in they are giving an I-551 stamp, boom they are Green Carded. Meanwhile those who enter on a K-1 Visa, it is a 90-day visa and it allows the option to adjust to Green Card status after marriage but you don't enter on Green Card status so there is still an ongoing process. 

As far as speed of getting the Visa, again it is fact dependent; you are weighing a lot of different factors. Speed sometimes falls to the side of the K-1 although here recently again that can be mitigated against a lot of different things. One thing that is nice about the K-1, or the K-3 which just for reference in this video, we don't see a ton of K-3s any more at least haven't in a while due to what is called Administrative Closure, they are not just not used at a level they once were, especially now where we see the underlying Immigrant petitions move through adjudication at USCIS a lot more quickly than they once did so sort of set the K-3 aside. Comparing the K-1 and the CR-1 or the IR-1, the one nice thing about the K-1, you are not dealing much with the National Visa Center and that can be a real sticking point once you get into the overall process. Again there are benefits to already being married and having a Green Card upon entry and in certain circumstances we have started to see the disparity between processing time somewhat level out. 

So again, for those looking at this it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into what is best in your case.