Fiancee visa

The fiancee or K visa allows the prospective spouse of a U.S. citizen to travel to the United States for the purpose of marriage. The minor children (under 21) of your prospective spouse can also travel to the United States with a K visa.
There are several types of K visas:

• K-1 Visa

• K-2 Visa

First Step: Filing the Petition

To begin the K-1 process, a petition must be filed at the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS or BCIS) office having jurisdiction over your current or intended residence in the U.S. The documents can be found on website of USCIS, www.uscis.gov . There is a filing fee of $170.00 for the petition. As with all fees connected with visas, this fee may change without prior warning. The children of your fiance(e) must be listed in the petition even if they will not be traveling at this time. USCIS sets the requirements for petition approval. Petitions for K-1 visas cannot be filed or approved outside the United States.

Petition approval is not visa approval. The petition only supplies the basis on which your fiancee can apply for a K visa. Your fiancee must still establish eligibility to receive a K visa.

Second Step: When Your Petition is Approved

When your petition is approved, USCIS will notify you and will send the approved petition to the Department of State's National Visa Center (NVC) in Portsmouth, NH, for further processing. NVC will send a courtesy notification letter to the petitioner advising him or her that the petition has been received and that it will be sent to Embassy in Kyiv or Moscow. All fiance(e) and immigrant visas for Belarusian citizens are processed at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.

Third Step: Processing the Provisional Case:

All approved I-129F petitions are being sent by USCIS to the National Visa Center (NVC) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, rather then being sent directly to the overseas issuing post. The NVC performs all initial procedures and after they are completed, the petition is sent to the appropriate office overseas

Fourth Step: Scheduling an interview:

Your visa interview can only be scheduled after we the embassy received the hard copy of the approved petition as well as the signed and filled out KEV-1 form.

When receive the approved I-129F petition is received, the embassy sends the information to the beneficiary. The applicant is told what documents he or she must collect prior to the visa interview. ("Packet 3")

During an interview each applicant is required to present originals documents together with their photocopies. Any document in a foreign language should be accompanied by a notarized English translation. After the interview all originals except the police certificates are returned to the applicant.

When your fiancee has collected all the necessary documents, he or she should notify the Embassy by returning KEV-1 form certifying that all required documents have been obtained.

Fifth Step: The Visa Interview:

Visa interviews are by appointment only. Applicants who appear without appointments are not interviewed. On the date of the appointment your fiancee should come to the Immigrant Visa section of the U.S. Embassy in Kiev or Moscow. Belarus citizens submit the documents to U.S. Embassy in Warsaw and is invited to the interview to Warsaw as well. Minor children under 14 do not need to attend the interview. When you arrive at the Consular Section, please pay at the cashier's window, indicating the type of visa you are applying for.
Your fiancee will be asked to present:

• Valid passports for the beneficiary and any dependent children

• A notarized statement from an absent parent giving permission to a child to immigrate to the US along with a photocopy of the photo and signature pages of his/her passport OR court decree of sole legal custody OR death certificate

• Birth certificates for the beneficiary and any dependent children

• Proof of termination of any prior marriages of both petitioner and beneficiary

• Change of name certificates or marriage certificates

• Police certificate(s) for the beneficiary and any dependent children over 16 years of age

• Medical exam results for the beneficiary and any dependent children

• Proof of adequate financial support once in the United States to ensure that your fiancee and dependent children will not become public charges

• Supporting documentation verifying the relationship between the petitioner and beneficiary

After a consular officer has reviewed the case, your fiancee will be interviewed. The consular officer will ask your fiancee questions about your relationship, such as how you met and when you decided to marry. The consular officer is required by law to verify that your relationship with your fiancee is real, that you met at least once within the last two years, and that you do intend to marry within 90 days of your fiancee's arrival in the United States. Your fiancee will be required to sign a statement regarding his or her legal capacity to marry and intention to marry. The consular officer will thoroughly review the case to make sure that your fiancee is eligible to receive a U.S. visa.

Your fiancee and each dependent child will pay a $100.00 non-refundable machine-readable-visa fee on the day of the interview.

Spousal visa

The new K3 and K4 nonimmigrant visas allow spouses of U.S. citizens and the children of those spouses who are under 21 years of age and unmarried to enter the U.S. while their permanent visa petition is pending.

Only spouses of U.S. citizens and their children are eligible for the new K-3 or K-4 nonimmigrant classification. Other relatives of U.S. citizens, as well as any relatives of lawful permanent residents, are not eligible.

There are three requirements for an alien to obtain this nonimmigrant classification:

1. The alien must already be married to a U.S. citizen who has filed a relative visa petition (Form I-130) on the alien's behalf for purposes of an immigrant visa. An I-130 for may be at any U.S. Consular post overseas or at your local INS office.

2. The same U.S. citizen spouse must petition on that alien's behalf to obtain a nonimmigrant "K3" visa (Form I-129F). The I-129F must be filed with USCIS in the U.S. only.

3. The alien must be seeking to enter the U.S. to wait for an immigrant visa.

Once the current I-129F is approved, USCIS will notify the American consulate abroad specified on the petition. If the marriage took place abroad, the USCIS will notify the consulate in the country where the marriage took place.

Applicants for K-3 and K-4 visas must apply for those visas in the country where the marriage to the US citizen took place.

Applicants for K-3 and K-4 visas should not schedule an interview appointment before receiving a "Packet 3" of information from the Consular Section. The Consular Section will only send this packet upon receipt of the approved I-129F from USCIS.

When the applicant has collected all the required documents noted in the "Packet 3", he or she should report to the Consular Section in Kiev, Moscow or Warsaw accordingly as indicated in "Packet 3".

When the Consular Section schedules the appointment, Packet 4 is sent to the applicant with the appointment date. The alien beneficiary may appear at the consulate only when the appointment date is set.

If all the documents are collected and the consular officer issues the visa - the visa will be placed in the passport and the applicant will receive a package of materials for USCIS. Both the visa in the passport and the package for USCIS are necessary to enter the U.S. with a K-3/K-4 visa.

Aliens who enter the U.S. with a valid nonimmigrant K-3 visa will be admitted for a period of 2 years. A minor child entering the U.S. with a valid nonimmigrant K-4 visa will be admitted for a period of 2 years or until the day before the alien's 21st birthday, whichever is shorter. Following the 2-year admission period, a K-3 and K-4 nonimmigrant may apply with the Service for an extension of stay using Form I-539. Extensions of Stay are issued in 2-year increments. Once the pending immigrant petition is approved, the individuals in the U.S. on the K-3/K-4 visas may adjust their status to conditional permanent residency.

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