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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawExtension of I-129F Petition Validity for K-1 Visas

Extension of I-129F Petition Validity for K-1 Visas

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing K-1 visas. We are discussing this in a more general context although it does pertain to folks who are processing their K-1 visa application through the US Embassy here in Bangkok. 

The point of this video, and I made other videos in the relatively distant past some years ago, on the issue of Petition Validity and Re-authorization. What are we talking about? Well when you file for a K-1 Fiancé visa you first have to get an approved petition from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service. Once that petition is approved, it only has a certain amount of validity; generally speaking about 4 months. Now folks often get really freaked out especially now during this COVID response, because we are seeing these cases proceed so slowly especially on the back end where we are dealing with the Embassies and Consulates because they are not getting through NVC particularly fast and then folks are contacting me and they are saying "Well the petition says it expires on this date. What do we do?"

Long story short, Consular Officers at US Embassies and Consulates abroad have what I would call "pocket authority" to reauthorize those petitions for good cause. Generally speaking, this was done as a matter of course even before COVID-19 as processing can take a little bit of time notwithstanding the fact that there weren't any obstacles like COVID or the response thereto I should say, that were sort of impeding the process. During this time frame, I do not see where Department of State employees are going to want to be viciously allowing petitions to expire and it has been my experience and we have processed out K-1s in the aftermath of the COVID response, no they are not looking to watch the petition validity sort of extinguish. They, in my experience, are approving and reauthorizing the validity of the petition in order to get these cases moved through. 

That said, you need to go ahead and proceed with alacrity in moving your case through the system but under the circumstances, "hurry up and wait" is certainly always part and parcel of the Immigration system. As of right now, it is a lot more "wait" than "hurry up".