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Are you ready to help your fiancé(e) enter the United States?

by | Jun 22, 2022 | Family Immigration

Maybe you’ve fallen in love with someone over the internet despite living on the other side of the world from them. Perhaps you recently reconnected with your high school sweetheart online. Maybe your parents have arranged for you to get engaged to someone because they know the family. Now you need your fiancé(e) to travel to the United States to marry you.

If you have a fiancé(e) who is a citizen of another country and you would like them to enter the United States, you can potentially apply for a special visa so that they can join you here in Hawaii. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion about the K-1 or fiancé(e) visa. What steps must you take to bring your intended spouse to the United States?

You must apply with the USCIS

The first step toward securing a fiancé(e) visa will be submitting the necessary paperwork to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Applicants will be subject to a background check and may need to meet specific medical requirements. There will be an extra step involved as compared with other forms of immigration.

You must prove a legitimate relationship exists

The potential for the abuse of the fiancé(e) visa program is real, so the USCIS goes to great lengths to ensure that those applying for such visas actually qualify to receive them. Typically, you will need to prove that you have a pre-existing relationship with the other party, that you have talked with your family about that relationship and that you have met in person at least once.

For those who belong to conservative cultures or traditional religions, there may be an exemption to the meeting requirements if you can prove that your culture frowns on couples meeting prior to their marriage.

You must prepare for a quick wedding

It can take quite some time to secure a fiancé(e) visa, but once you do, you need to start planning. Your fiancé(e) will need to enter the United States. You will only have 90 days after your fiancé(e) enters the country to officially get married or run the risk of the USCIS removing them due to visa non-compliance.

Learning more about the necessary steps and paperwork involved with a K-1 visa and other forms of family-based immigration will help you bring the person that you love and plan to marry here to Hawaii.