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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawVisa NewsUS Visa Thailand: Extreme Vetting in the Context of the K-3 Visa

US Visa Thailand: Extreme Vetting in the Context of the K-3 Visa

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today, we're going to talk about extreme vetting which I've gone into in other videos before. Extreme venting is basically a policy that's been created by the Trump administration with respect to immigration or in many cases with respect to the visa application process abroad. And the extreme vetting protocols basically require that officers who are working or adjudicating matters in the U.S. visa process take further steps to basically do further due diligence with respect to the applicant in question. And the reason I bring this up is in other cases or in the past, I won't say I've maligned the category K-3 visa but I've often made it clear that in most cases, the K-3 isn't going to be particularly useful visa.

Well, one of the things that happened was years ago the National Visa Center made a policy whereby they stipulated that if an approved I-130 petition hit the NVC before and approved I-129F position associated with a K-3 visa at the NVC, they were just going to go ahead and process the I-130 and sort of administratively close the I-129F. The reasoning behind this was because under the provisions of Bill Clinton's Life Act, they created the K-3 category at such a time when it was taking multiple years to process a U.S. marriage visa categories such as the CR-1 or the IR-1 and it was only taking a matter in some cases months to get a fiancee visa in the United States. So basically what happened on the Life Act, they created a category that created the K-3 category and they said if you file for and I want 30 benefits specifically an immigrant spouse piece of benefit, you can then turn around and file a supplemental filing for the K-3 visa which will process through the sort of K line, the K-1 visa line as opposed to processing through the spousal visa line which was the longer in terms of processing times at the time that those were being fired.

The reason I bring this up is I do believe that moving forward, it's very possible. It hasn't happened but I think it's possible. Well I'm not going to say it hasn't happened. I think we're in a sort of a transitory phase here. It's possible that the process for obtaining a marriage visa, an immigrant marriage visa might take longer and as a result, it might behoove in certain cases. It might be a benefit to turn around and file a supplemental K-3 filing if for no other reason. Then if you can get the K-32 NVC first, if it just so happens to hit NVC first, it essentially bypasses NVC and you deal with it in much the same way that a fiancee visa processes in certain cases. This is going to move faster compared to immigrant visa cases.

Now this being said, the K-3 does not confer immigrant visa status upon entering the United States. Adjustment of status is still required. I bring this up in the context of extreme vetting because just the general tone of the Trump administration toward immigration, legal or otherwise, has not been overly accommodating. I'll put it that way. For example, certain policies have been enacted which basically did prioritize the processing of visas. So things like the non-immigrant visa units outside the United States under the Obama administration were basically given instructions, you need to go ahead and try and get an interview done within about three weeks of initial application. Trump did away with things like this extreme vetting protocol regime which is basically requiring you undergo more processing in certain cases.

Again, there are certain aspects of this where the various posts are sort of tasked with finding target groups that they feel like need more scrutiny. Things like this, all of this to me points to the probability or at least the substantial possibility that visas are going to, you know, immigration cases are going to simply processed slower in the future. So I can see hypothetically situations in the future where filing a K-3 application as a supplemental application to an I-130 could lead to a set of circumstances where the individual in question gets some benefit out of that because they're going to go ahead and at least process a little bit quicker through the K line as opposed to going through the immigrant visa line.

Whether this is how it's actually going to pay on how it remains to be seen. But it's something to think about and I just thought it was sort of worth making a video about it if for no other reason then I think it may be notable in the future and it remains to be seen how that'll work. If in fact later on it turns out that I was correct or if it turns out it was grossly incorrect, we'll do another video and I'll just sort of update the situation as I see it.