Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing I-601 Waiver approval, subsequent protocols associated with I-601 waiver approval and the issuance of a US Marriage Visa. For those who are unaware, there are three types of Marriage Visas that a foreign spouse may be eligible for depending on the citizenship of the petitioning spouse. So for folks that are a Green Card holder in the United States, you may be able to seek an Immigrant Spouse Visa for your spouse who lives abroad. Under those circumstances, we are talking about either the IR-1 or CR-1 petition, or I should say IR-1 or CR-1, ultimately the Visa, and again that category, whether or not it's issued as CR-1 or IR-1 will depend upon the duration of the marriage at the time the visa is not only issued, but at the time of the entry to the United States of the person who has the Visa, so there's that side of it. With regard to the K-3 Visa, we are talking there about spouses of American citizens; the K category, both K-1 and K-3 is reserved for the spouses of American citizens. 

But the question posed by this video is, what are the protocols subsequent to an I-601 waiver approval? And what is an I-601 waiver? Well one, it's kind of a misnomer to call it an I-601 waiver. It's a waiver of legal grounds of inadmissibility. The form happens to be I-601. That being said, what is it? Well in the event that a foreign national, a spouse of a US citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident, is found to be inadmissible to the United States due to a legal ground of inadmissibility as set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act, it may be possible to seek a waiver of that finding of inadmissibility and allow that person to get their visa and come into the United States. Again, the underlying facts in the given case will drive the analysis regarding the issuance or finding of ineligibility to enter the United States, inadmissibility, again the facts will drive that analysis, but let's get past the issue of 601 waivers themselves; I've discussed that at length in other videos. What happens after the approval? Well basically, you have got to go back and now, okay the waiver is approved; you have got to go back and deal with the Embassy to go ahead and get the visa itself issued. And again the protocols associated with that will depend on the US Embassy or US Consulate's protocols locally with regard to post-waiver approval, again it depends a little bit. 

That said, certainly one thing that usually comes up after a waiver issued is we oftentimes have to go back and deal with getting the medical exam reissued, sometimes the police clearance reissued, because those documents may have gone “stale” if you will, in the time it has taken to process the waiver itself, which presently most I-601s ones that I am looking at take about a year to process. Now again, the facts of the underlying case may drive some analysis on that, and it may be faster than that. I haven't seen it move much faster than that, but long story short, nine months, a year, is what you're looking at in terms of processing time associated with the waiver. But again, what happens after the waiver is issued? Well you need to go back and deal with the Visa issuance authority - notably the Embassy or the Consulate - talk to them in the interview and decide, well no, not decide, you basically have to go back, deal with the protocols of the Embassy itself and then ultimately get the visa issued. Different Embassies have different protocols. 

Here in Thailand we are quite used to dealing with the Visa section at the US Embassy here in Bangkok. For those who feel a little bit overwhelmed by this entire process, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.