Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are comparing the K-3 Visa to the CR-1 and IR-1 Visa. The CR-1 and IR-1 Visas are Immigrant Spouse Visas, the K-3 Visa is a Non-immigrant Spouse Visa. The K-3 is used often sort of almost euphemistically or ubiquitously, it is just out there in the ether as if it is the label for all Marriage Visas. It seems to kind of be the layperson's term for a US Marriage Visa. It isn't. The K-1 Visa is a Fiancé Visa, the K-3 Visa is actually a relatively new addition as far as Marriage Visas go. Up until the mid-90s and the promulgation of the Life Act under President Clinton, the K-3 Visa didn't even exist. The only options you had were a CR-1 or IR-1 Visa and the K-3 was invented because those visas were taken too long to process in the minds of the Government at the time. 

The point being for this video, what is faster as a practical matter? Well the answer is the K-3 probably would be if you can actually get it processed through. Understand first of all the K-3 is a supplemental petition. It exists alongside or on top of an underlying filing for either an IR-1 or a CR-1 depending on your circumstances. Now as we have discussed in other videos, going back about 10 years ago, it is actually getting to be about 12 years ago now, the National Visa Center in the United States began administratively closing K-3 cases if the CR-1 or IR-1 case either was adjudicated at the same time as or before the K-3 case and the Department of Homeland Security has gotten very quick, they operate with a great deal of the alacrity in processing out CR-1 and IR-1 cases. The result is oftentimes the K-3 just is administratively closed; it just dies on the vine and you have to deal with the CR-1 or the IR-1. 

In a perfect world, it would be sort of an available option to process the K-3 because quite frankly, yeah I think it would be faster if it could get through with any kind of certainty when you are processing these cases because the CR-1 or IR-1 have to go through the National Visa Center and that thing can be a bureaucratic quagmire on the best of days whereas the K-3 it kind of bypasses that in much the same way the K-1 does and just goes directly to the Embassy for further adjudication. So yeah, it would probably be a faster option but as a practical matter in the vast majority of cases I think you are going to see a situation where the CR-1 or the IR-1 Visa is going to end up being processed rather than the K-3.