Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing K-1 Visas from Thailand, yet again discussing Advance Parole and Adjustment of Status. So, what are we talking about here? 

Once a K-1 Visa is issued and that is its own process, we discussed that process in many other videos on this channel, but once a K-1 is issued, now you are going to be dealing with Adjustment of Status on the other side in the United States to get that fiancé after marriage presumably, into Green Card status, so into Lawful Permanent Residence; that process is called Adjustment of Status. At the present time that process can take a prolonged period, months, in some cases years. Now I haven't seen a lot of cases where we are talking multi-years, but months is not an uncommon thing when you are talking about Adjustment of Status these days. It's very unfortunate, as I remember a time when it literally was a matter of weeks. We sent people over to the United States, get them married, file their adjustment and they would be sorted out in 6-8 weeks and they had their Green Card. 

In their infinite wisdom, and I do not understand for the life of me why Department of Homeland Security has really made the adjustment process quite a prolonged and obtuse process if I'm being honest, I think a lot of this occurred during the Trump Administration; not getting political here, not being partisan, simply making an observation that everything in Immigration especially in the last two years of that Administration seemed to just get more difficult, convoluted, obtuse and it just wasn't a good situation. That's not a great credit to the present Administration because they haven't seen to really have improved upon anything, if anything seems like it's getting a little bit worse, which brings up the issue of Advance Parole. Advance Parole is a travel document that can be obtained so that a foreign national can leave the country, leave the United States and not extinguish their underlying K-1 visa and the underlying process of getting a Green Card.

Now the point of this video though is it's almost one of these videos where I need to explain to people. You need to get your mind right about how this is all going to play out and you need to get into the proper paradigm for how Adjustment of Status and how Advance Parole works. People will often ask me "well what's the time frame? how exactly long do I have to remain in America?" I don't know. It varies from case to case; there is no set time frame. Moreover, there is no optimal situation here. I see a lot of people that are like "well I'm going to get her in", it's usually a her, "I'm going to get my fiancée in, get married and then she needs to go right back; she's got to leave the country; we have got to get her back to Thailand, whatever". Fair enough, but understand US Immigration doesn't care about that; they care about just processing paperwork sort of on a first come first serve basis. I would love to say there seems to be rhyme or reason to why they do what they do, but at the end of the day, they don't care what your plans are and you are at the mercy of the system less so than they are at any kind of mercy of your being upset or your plans. That's not to say that I think that this is right; that's not to say that I don't think there are times when the Immigration System is so far out of line they basically have to be sued back into line. We have discussed in other videos about how that works. Generally speaking, we don't handle those types of cases out here because we are really not in a great position to do so. But that being said I don't disagree with the notion of filing lawsuits against the Government when they just seem to be dragging their feet, especially on purpose which in a lot of cases these days seems to be the case. 

That being said, understand that yeah, there is an ability to come and go from the United States while the K-1 is converting if you will, is adjusting into Green Card status, that is called Advance Parole but as far as timing of how this stuff all processes out, it's very difficult to predict as all cases are at the end of the day different.