Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the possibility that Donald Trump could make applications essentially for American Marriage Visas mandatory for direct Consular filing. 

What are we talking about here? Okay. So, for anybody that is aware of the American Immigration system, in the vast majority of cases, especially now, you file a case at either the Global Lock Box in the United States or one of the American Service Centres in the United States depending on where you live. So, if you have a Thai spouse, if you live abroad, you file at the Global Lock Box, if you live in the United States you file with whatever Lock Box has jurisdiction. So that's, basically you are filing with the Department of Homeland Security. 

Anybody that knows my videos going back some 6, 7, 8 years ago, we would talk about what used to be called locally filed I-130s here in Bangkok because Thailand had a USCIS Field Office here. It was across the street from the Embassy in the Sindhorn Building; I talked about that in many videos. I also talked about at the time, when Trump closed, under Trump's Administration, they closed that USCIS Field Office here which is ironic because it's the biggest Embassy in the world. We've got attachés from every place, but we don't have a USCIS Field Office for whatever reason. So, the one little benefit that Americans could avail themselves of here in Thailand by dint of being in Thailand as sort of a full-time resident if you will, was being able to file a locally filed at I-130 but that was taken away. Great, everybody wins, I guess. And I remember at the time they told us the announcement was "Oh the Global Lock Box would be more efficient, blah, blah." Well I'm here to tell you, it used to take sometimes 4 - 6 weeks to process an entire I-130 - now that was going back years ago when we didn't have all this extra gobbledygook frankly that has come along - but it took a matter of weeks if not maybe 4 - 6 months at the outside to process an I-130 because it was all done through the Embassy here. For various reasons, people, they got rid of that, okay? And I can understand within the rubric of Trump's thinking why they did it with regard to, for example again local field offices for USCIS. I can see the argument regarding budgeting and things, let's just all put that all in one place and process it all out of there.

Okay maybe, but here's the problem, is that spouses of American citizens are taking forever to process into the United States right now. It's really ridiculous. It's especially galling when you look at the state of the US border and you consider the fact that there are people patiently waiting in line to diligently obey the law I believe to paraphrase at the time, Senator Barack Obama, there's people patiently waiting in line to do it the right way and then we see the enforcement at the border is just non-existent or it's not optimal, however you want to put it. But in any event, I get that Trump may be wanting to change things coming into a new Administration. Something I'm hoping they bear in mind or think about, why not just make locally filed I-130s mandatory if it's the spouse of an American citizen and that American citizen can show that they're normally resident in whatever place they're at. How would you determine that? Well, we had a good way of dealing with it at the old local USCIS Field Office. Namely you had to be able to show that you would maintain lawful status here in the Consular Jurisdiction of Thailand for a 1-year period in something that's not a Tourist Visa, basically a Non-immigrant Visa, something that shows that you're staying, otherwise normally residing in that country. If you can show that, and you're an American citizen and you have a spouse, I think it makes sense to allow those folks to be able to file directly with the Embassy and not have to wait in a protracted line, for no apparent reason in my opinion, especially have having seen how this process could work prior to roughly 8 years ago or 7 years ago, whenever it was; I guess they closed USCIS office in what '16 or ',17 -  2016 or '17 under the last Trump Administration. I've seen how this process could work. Again, it could take 4 - 6 months for an American to get their spouse into the United States as opposed to the multi possible year waiting time that you're dealing with here. 

And it's my understanding in the first Trump Administration, and I do understand that then Secretary of State Tillerson didn't really get along really all that well with Trump in the end, but they were trying to come up with something where DHS would be posted in Embassies or something. It was all kind of really vague and nothing really ever came of it. There's a really easy way though to streamline this. Just make locally filed I-130s mandatory for people regularly resident in the Consulate Jurisdiction.