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K-1 Visas: Timeline for Adjustment of Status?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing K-1 visas, specifically we are discussing adjustment of status? What is adjustment of status? Well adjustment of status is the process by which one converts their fiancée's Fiancé Visa into a Green Card within the United States.
What are the timelines associated with this? Well the first thing to understand is generally speaking a K-1 Visa is issued with a 6-month validity so it is issued with a validity period of 6 months, you have 6 months until it expires generally, although sometimes depending on documentation, a K-1 Visa will be issued with less of a validity period so you need to look at the expiration date on your K-1 Visa when it is issued to understand when it is going to expire.
Meanwhile, when you arrive in the United States all K-1 Visa holders are granted 90 days of lawful status. Within that time period, the couple needs to go ahead and get legally married and then they need to go ahead and file for adjustment of status. Now there's some ambiguity out there about whether or not well if I actually file within the 90 days or if I missed it by a day or we mailed it in and the post mark, it arrived a day later than the 90 day period? It has been my experience that USCIS does not take a hard and fast approach to the issue of when you file for the adjustment although you need to do it timely and this is not me telling people "oh don't worry about that.” You really should get married and file within the 90 day period. But the really important part is the marriage followed by getting the filing, doing the filing for the adjustment. And yeah, if you are a day or two off or whatever, I have never seen USCIS make a beef out of that. That said you should try to do it within the 90 day time frame. Now if it's impossible to do that for whatever reason, well that just is what it is and you are going to have to deal with that accordingly. But understand, the major issue associated with adjustment of status is marriage within that 90 days.