Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing K-1 Fiancé(e) Visas. Specifically we are discussing these in the context of Adjustment of Status, Advance Parole, and what is called Abandonment of Status. 

Now, the reason I'm making this video is because unfortunately, people's expectations these days are really kind of off in terms of what they expect the Immigration system for the United States to be able to do, and what the reality is. So a lot of people go to the United States, they use a K-1 Fiancé(e) Visa, and they do want to get their significant other their Green Card and then they want to be able to travel again, and I completely get this. And in a perfect world, the Immigration System should be able to accommodate this, and quite honestly, up until the second half if you will of the first Trump Administration, for the most part this wasn't really much of an issue in terms of legal immigration. That said, sometime around about 2017, I remember seeing situations arising where we used to send folks over to the United States on K-1 Visas, they would file their Adjustment of Status and see their adjustment done in like six weeks. It was basically almost a pro forma endeavour. Basically they would get in on the K-1, file for their Green Card, and they would have it back in a couple of months. These days, the process, maybe six or eight weeks, sometimes we are seeing people process in extremely longer periods of time, again depending on their location.

The point of this video is to understand that yeah there is an option to be able to get somebody back out of the United States while their adjustment is pending; it is called Advance Parole. It's an Advance Parole travel document to keep the status “alive” if you will, “alive” while that person is abroad. Failure to get Advance Parole means that upon leaving, the K-1 Visa holder status expires; it is extinguished at the moment they leave the United States, so you are back to square one at this point. Presuming you got married, now you have got to go ahead and seek presumably an Immigrant Spouse Visa to get back in the United States which takes about 18 months, or seek a K-3 supplemental Visa basically in order to get that person back into the United States but again, I would say it's probably going to take it 18 months; it depends on circumstances. K-3 Visas are routinely subject to what is called Administrative Closure by the National Visa Center. Long story short, if you leave the United States on a K-1 while the adjustment is processing and you don't get your Green Card issued yet, your status dies. It is extinguished at the moment of departure from the United States; that is a significantly negative thing.

Again expectations though need to be in line with how the system is currently working. I get emails from people that say, "we want to do XYZ." Well the system doesn't care that you want to do XYZ, and on top of that, the ostensible purpose of the Visa is to move to America and reside there. I understand that people do have a right once they are resident in the United States. to be able to come and go etc. The paradigm of the immigration apparatus is not one of ‘we are your travel agent, and we are like helping you be able to get your status sorted in order to be able to travel more thereafter’. No, if anything it's the opposite. The mindset is yeah, we really don't care at best, and we will process this through in the obtuse, largely semi-broken kind of manner that we've been processing things through heretofore for at least the past five years. I mean the system has been in really bad shape for a while now and I think you can safely say the latter half of the Trump Administration going through COVID up to now has not been the optimal state of the Immigration system in the United States. And by this, I mean the legal immigration system. For those who follow this channel with any frequency, I am not a fan of illegal immigration and no I'm not going to call that undocumented or any other nonsense term. You are either going through the legal channels, or you are not. But that being said, I unfortunately have seen situations arise processing cases as long as I have, where unfortunately the legal immigration system in many ways is way harder than the illegal system. Well that's because you are going through the legal channels.

Long story short, and the thing to take away from this video is yeah, you may be in a situation where you are going to be waiting a prolonged period of time to go ahead and get one's status adjusted or to see an Advance Parole even issued so as to be able to leave without causing an abandonment and thereby extinguishing of an underlying K-1 visa and the process for adjusting status to Permanent Residence in the United States being cancelled.