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My Law,LLC Immigration Law Firm WebSite: www.mylawllc.com E-mail: attorney@mylawllc.com Phone: 1-(630) 903-9625

Monday, March 21, 2011

Why you should not file a K-3 or K-4 visa

Why you should not file a K-3 or K-4 visa
Recently, a client asked me if they should apply for a K-3 visa. The client was married to a US citizen and residing abroad. I explained to them that filing for a K-3 visa was a waste of time and money. Instead, they should file an immigration petition and go through green card processing at the US consulate in their home country.


The K-3 visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows the spouse of a U.S. citizen to enter the U.S. while an immigration petition is pending with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). 

The immigration petition must have approved in order for their foreign spouse to be eligible for an immigrant visa in the United States. The K-4 visa is available for the unmarried children under 21 of a K-3 visa holder. 

Ideally, a U.S. citizen would submit the immigration petition, get the receipt notice shortly thereafter, and then apply for a K-3 and K-4 visa so the foreign spouse and children could reside in the U.S. while the immigration petition is pending.   

However, the process does not work so smoothly. You file the K-3 or K-4 visa petition with the USCIS in Texas. In order to do so, you need to have a receipt notice of your immigration petition application. The receipt notice is a document from USCIS that confirms they have received your immigration petition which takes about 2-3 weeks from the date you submit your immigration petition. But, if you look at the current processing times for the immigration petition, the K-3 and the K-4 visas on theUSCIS website, it currently shows it takes about 5 months to process each of those applications. In other words, it is likely that an immigration petition would be approved before the K-3, or K-4 visas approved.

In summary, accordingly to the USCIS website, the immigration petition, K-3 and K-4 visa are all processed in the same estimated time frame.  Since you would have to wait about 2-3 weeks after filing an immigration petition receipt to file for the K-3 or K-4 visa, and all three applications take about the same amount of time to be processed, your immigrant petition will almost certainly be approved before your K-3 and K-4 visa. 

What this means is that if you file an  immigrant petition for your husband or wife and then apply for a K-3 non-immigrant visa, it is almost certain that your immigrant petition will be approved before your K-3 visa.  Given these estimated processing times, applying for the K-3 or K-4 visa is a waste of time and money.



attorney@mylawllc.com
My Law, LLC
Immigration & Tax Law Firm
www.mylawllc.com

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