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K1 Visa Thailand: Is Medical Insurance Required?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing yet again K-1 Fiancée Visas and specifically K-1 visas for a Thai national. In this video, I am discussing this specifically in the context of insurance, specifically medical insurance, health insurance, for those who are looking to travel to the United States.  

For those who are unaware, in recent days President Trump has made a proclamation with respect to the fact that those looking to immigrate to the United States, including family members of US citizens and lawful permanent residents, need to show that they will have medical insurance in order to take care of themselves in the United States without and I believe from a policy standpoint it is basically to show that they will not become a burden on the US system, either the medical system or the state apparatus, so-called welfare system or otherwise. 

So a question that has come up here recently is "How is this going to affect me with respect to my fiancée in Thailand? So, Presidential Proclamation on Healthcare, this was posted on travel.state.gov. Quoting directly: "This requirement will apply to all Immigrant Visa applicants and individuals seeking to enter the United States on an Immigrant Visa except fiancée visa applicants for K Fiancée Visas and other aliens entering the United States without an Immigrant Visa including lawful permanent residents, refugees and asylees." So as we have gotten into on other videos on this channel, K-1 Fiancée Visas are a rather interesting animal. They are a Non-immigrant Visa but they are considered what is called a Non-immigrant dual intent Visa insofar as the non-immigrant can maintain an intention to immigrate but the immigration process is not completed until they adjust their status in the United States in order to receive their lawful permanent residence also known as green card status. So again, K-1 Fiancée's, kind of a different animal from standard immigrant visas, basically folks who are married to a foreign national. K-1 fiancées enter the United States in nonimmigrant status and for this reason this current proclamation apparently does not pertain to them or at least according to travel.state.gov

Another thing to keep in mind with respect to this overall issue, notwithstanding this proclamation, subsequent to this a judge I believe in Oregon, a Court in the state of Oregon, but a Federal Court issued an injunction enjoining this proclamation from being put into effect until it can be further adjudicated. It remains to be seen exactly how this matter will be adjudicated but until the injunction is lifted, the old rules continue to apply. So as of the time of this video at least, we are not going to see medical insurance required just yet but even if we were, it appears to me based on the documentation that I have seen to this point, it will not pertain to K-1 Fiancée Visas from anywhere but definitely not from the Kingdom of Thailand where we are located. So folks who are looking to getting a K-1 Fiancée Visa or who are currently in the process, at least for now there is a reprieve. Now this might change. The injunction may be lifted.  The proclamation may be amended down the road but as it sits right now, it does not pertain to K-1 Visas

That being stated, the adjustment of status process is a different type of procedure. In fact is a wholly different procedure than the K-1 Visa process and under that situation it looks to me like under this proclamation, medical insurance will need to be shown in order to go ahead and adjust into green card status. So there may be some folks will get in on a K-1 who subsequently may have issues dealing with the insurance requirement during their adjustment but again it all remains to be seen until such time as either the injunction is lifted and the proclamation is put into effect or perhaps a judge and maybe Appellate Courts as well will find that this law is perhaps unconstitutional or will strike it down for some other reason and in that event we won't need to deal with this medical insurance issue at all. 

That being said, that is not a foregone conclusion so as of the time of this video keep in mind, yes there is a temporary stay against these rules being implemented but as it sits, at some point we can probably presume that they will eventually be implemented.