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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawFrustrations in the K-3, CR-1 and IR-1 Visa Process

Frustrations in the K-3, CR-1 and IR-1 Visa Process

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the K-3, CR-1 and IR-1 Visas from Thailand and just the frustrations people are having with the overall process. The point of this video is I have been accused in certain emails and things "oh you are an apologist for the system."  No, not really. If anything, if you saw me at work or you saw me when I am not around the public or on video, no I am not a big fan of how they operate. I try to keep a civil discourse regarding discussion with this in public and how this operates. In fact the producer who is making this video just had a big grin when I said that I am not overly civil in private about this because he has seen me when I get angry about you know visa processing.

There are a lot of frustrations right now. 2020 was not a good year by any stretch of the imagination. We had Administration that seemed kind of hell bent on making things more difficult than they had been in the past and then we also had COVID which they also seemed to latch on to as a pretext for making things even more difficult on top of COVID making it difficult and the latter half of 2020 we were effectively in a deep freeze out here in Thailand where we weren't seeing any cases processing through the US Embassy in Bangkok at least to speak of.

Now, the reason for this video, I am not here to apologize for why the situation is what it is, I am just here to say look there is some light at the end of the tunnel. We are still in that tunnel. A lot of folks, clients of mine they sort of think because Biden has come in and we are starting to see some progress that BOOM everything is just going to start moving again. That is probably not how it is going to work. Some of our cases that were already queued up and right on the verge of an interview almost a year ago now it seems, yeah those cases started moving through pretty quick when Biden came in. Well they were just totally on pause and they were sitting right here. Things that are in the apparatus things, things that are in the pipeline and have yet to come over here to Thailand it is a little bit longer duration we are going to be dealing with. There are also a number of things, of obstacles to overcome to get that case over here. Then on top of it there is a general backlog. The Embassy is months out right now in scheduling interviews. They are doing them, they are scheduling them. To their credit and I am watching them, they are processing these cases through as fast as they can but there is only so much time in the day; there are only so many people working in that office; there are only so many resources so it is going to take a little time to clear this out.

It is actually happening more quickly and more efficiently than I thought it would. I thought we would be in a quagmire for some time further. We are moving ahead but again we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel we are still in the tunnel. I understand people are exasperated but there isn't really much to do about it other than doing the best we can when we need to. It is very much a hurry up and wait process. When we need to we hurry up and then we have got to wait.