I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

Re:I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for... by joker_minmax on Friday July 28, 2023 @01:50PM (#36910564)

If you (US Citizen) marry out of the country, and stay with your spouse (foreign citizen) in that country, how long is the current wait to come back into the country and have your spouse with you on a CR1 visa? And are there any advantages to K-3 over CR1?

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Re:I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for... by Gabriel54 on Friday July 28, 2023 @02:08PM (#36910839)

- While the K-3 visa technically still exists, in practice it is rarely granted (i.e. on the order of 1 or 2 every year globally) [0]. You can apply for it in addition to the CR-1 visa but in practice, once they approve your I-130 petition the K-3 visa application will be cancelled automatically (and you will move forward with the CR-1 visa application)

- The first step to get a CR-1 visa is to file the I-130 petition, which as per [1] is taking about 12 months on average. Your luck may vary.

There is no magic pathway unfortunately but on the positive side, your spouse will be a permanent resident as soon as they enter the country.

[0] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

[1] https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/historic-pt

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Re:I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for... by proberts on Friday July 28, 2023 @05:38PM (#36913712)

Agreed. Generally it just makes sense to apply after getting married rather going the fiancée visa route. And expect 12 months or so.

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