Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing K-1 Fiancé Visas. These are Visas specifically designed for the fiancé of an American citizen, so an American citizen can petition to bring their, in this we will call it Thai Fiancée, to the United States; it could be any nationality. We deal with a lot of cases coming out of the Embassy here Bangkok but it could be any nationality. And once that person gets into the United States you have 90 days in which to get married and file for Adjustment of Status. 

So what are we talking about when we are talking about Adjustment of Status? We are talking about adjustment to Lawful Permanent Residence, to so-called Green Card status, to real PR, real Permanent Residence in the United States. Now presently the processing time for that can take a number of months, I am even hearing stuff of it can take longer than a year in some cases. So the question then posed by many is well what if she, my foreign fiancé, my Thai fiancée needs to leave the United States while that adjustment of status is pending? Well if you leave without obtaining what is called an Advanced Parole Travel document, the entire case will extinguish and you are back to square one, so you don't really want to do that in most cases. 

Meanwhile, the question posed by this video is 'What is the timing for the Advanced Parole?" I'm not going to give an exact time frame, 'oh, it is an exact 6 months or 3 months, or whatever.' Some of the cases seem to be coming out rather quickly; I have seen some out there in the ether of the internet talking about Immigration matters that seem to think there is some kind of strategy to that to have a low number of them come out very fast, so to make people think that there is some kind of discrepancy, that every case processes through differently. I don't know that I necessarily believe that. I just think the system sort of is what it is and doesn't have any real rhyme or reason to it at times. That said, what I will tell people is in terms of a time frame to get an Advance Parole Travel document, presume it's going to take a bit; presume it's going to take possibly a matter of months, possible multiple months, possible half a dozen months maybe even. Again I can't say for certain. Every case is going to process on its own timeline because every case is going to be driven by its own specific fact pattern. That being said, don't presume it is going to be a matter of basically flying into the United States, getting married and in a matter of weeks just getting a travel document. 

Let me be clear, I don't want to be making this video. In my opinion there's no reason the apparatus could not accommodate that. At the end of the day, we all pay fees into USCIS. Then they come up short every once in a while and go with their hat in their hand to Congress and continue to say ‘oh, well we are self-funded’ even though basically, okay they are self-funded until they are not and then they are tax-payer funded. So they get you coming and going with this thing. As they say, well it is self-funded so we only have the resources we have. Well how about you just do better? That would kind of just be my general observation. But long story, yeah I do think it could be done in a matter of weeks. Quite honestly I remember the time and it wasn't that long ago, it was within Obama's Administration, it was even within Trump's Administration that we would see scenarios where folks would go to the United States on the K-1 visa and have their Green Card issued in a matter of 6 weeks after arrival. So again, it's going to be highly case specific; highly dependent on the underlying facts in a given case but that said, presume it's going to take a bit of time to get an Advanced Parole Travel document issued even if you file for one subsequent to arrival, marriage and filing for Adjustment of Status in the United States.