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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing timing of filing petitions and applications for Fiancé Visas and Marriage Visas. This is a question that I see in a lot of our initial consults. People will ask, they will sort of say "well we would like to be here by this date". One of the first things I try to disabuse folks of is having any type of notional - you can have estimated time frames of when a case is going to process out but to try to pinpoint "oh we're going to plan a vacation to this specific spot", be it inside the United States, perhaps outside the United States, again depending on the context of the case. For example, Adjustment of Status of K-1 Fiancé Visa status over to Marriage Visa status or even in the context of a K-3 that needs to be adjusted over to a Green Card - and again there may be travel options with regard to that travel document, that said pretty rare to even see those issued in the first place. But in either case, travel outside of the United States might be an issue with regard to Adjustment of Status. Travel inside to the United States to at a specific or by a specific time maybe or may not be feasible but then on top of feasibility, again you have to deal with the prevailing circumstances of the processing center at the time that you're dealing with it. 

So again, to try to pinpoint an exact date when you can get a case done, yeah sure if it is a standard Spousal Visa for an American citizen, yeah you can say that in 5 years we expect this process to be over, sure. But can you exactly state that it's going to be only one year that the process is going to take? Probably not. Again, it depends on the context of the case. 

Meanwhile, again this then factors in and people are trying to make decisions about when to file, I end up usually saying what I say in the vast majority of cases, again there may be some infinitesimally small percentage of cases where this might not apply, but for the vast majority of cases that I deal with, look just get the case on file. Get the thing filed, get it in the hopper as it were, get it receipted in to the Department of Homeland Security and get it processing through. Because prior to that, really anything you do is sort of irrelevant.

I've also told people over time, there are ways to slow down a case but speeding one up yeah, that's just not going to be possible. So generally speaking, as a rule of thumb, it's a good idea to get a case on sooner rather than later regardless of future plans. Now again, that said, not every case that's going to be the correct answer. So those who may have some concerns, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.