Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the notion of “waiting” to apply for a K-1 Fiancé Visa. I deal with a number of US Immigration cases in any given year. I mean I don't know how many, dozens, hundreds, hard for me to say. At this point after going on 17 years of practicing US Immigration Law, I'm able to sort of compartmentalize that part of the firm. That's primarily where I run point on almost all the cases, although we do have staff in the office, our clients are well aware of them, that assist me in getting cases processed out, processed through the system. But the point of this video is the issue of waiting to apply for a K-1.

What I am talking about here is, we'll get calls and we'll set up appointments and I'll be talking to clients or prospective clients about the K-1 process and every once in a while I'll hear somebody say "well I'm going to go ahead and wait on that because I have this plan, that plan, whatever." Again you need to make determinations as to what is best under your circumstances for you and your loved one with regard to your immigration benefits. That said, I don't think a lot of lay people fully comprehend just how Byzantine and quite honestly neo-Soviet, the current state of the US Immigration apparatus is. It has been Byzantine years and dealing with sort of complexity in a bureaucratic environment, it's kind of what I have done, it's kind of what I do. I deal with a lot of bureaucracy especially in the US Immigration space. That said, these days it's not only bureaucratic, but it is relatively dysfunctional. The system is clunky. It's kind of being held together by spit and duct tape quite honestly; it's got multiple redundancies throughout the bureaucratic process of getting a K-1 Visa. So for this reason, and the reason for the video is, when you are looking at waiting - if you are talking to me for example - make sure you get a good understanding of what the timelines are because I think a lot of people think "oh, we are going to wait and then we are going to process it through and it is going to process through efficiently, take a few months and we'll get that Visa and we will be able to go on over to US." No, in point of fact, K-1 cases are not running in months at the moment. I am not saying they are running in multiple years, but they are not running simply, exclusively in the timeline of multiple months. It is taking quite a bit of time to deal with these cases. On top of that, it seems like every time you turn around, they are throwing a monkey wrench somewhere to cause the overall process to be less than optimal. 

So the thing to take away from this video is really get a good understanding of what the timing of the process of the K-1 is. Also something else to keep in mind, look, at the end of the day, generally speaking these visas are issued with a 6-month validity meaning you have six months to use them. Now again this depends on the case; it may depend on the validity of the documentation submitted at the time of the interview and the adjudication associated therewith. It might be a shorter period of time than 6 months depending on certain documents that may or may not have a certain amount of validity in the underlying case file, so let's set that aside.

But long story short, you are going to have a fairly long period of time to utilize a Visa once it is issued. So again, in many cases I think waiting to file can be counterproductive whereas just going ahead and getting it on file and letting the clock tick while you go around living your life and then just sort of dealing with it as and when it comes out, is often times a better strategy. That said, it is not always the best strategy. All cases are going to be circumstantially dependent and you should make decisions based on the prevailing facts in your given case.