Marriage & Fiancé Visas

Miami Lawyer for Marriage and Fiancé Visas

You might assume you can bring your fiancé or spouse into the country and that they’ll receive a green card or citizenship right away. Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of assuming this and get turned back. There is a legal process that needs to be followed to bring your fiancé or spouse into the country. Whether you need a fiancé visa, also called a K-1, or you want to get married outside the country and go through the IR1/CR1 process, you should call our experienced Miami immigration law attorney Lupe Lafont. Ms. Lafont understands the urgency of this situation for her clients and works hard to obtain favorable outcomes. Below, the word fiancé is used interchangeably with fiancée.

Marriage or Fiancé Visa

There is a high demand for marriage and fiancé visas. In order to immigrate, your spouse or fiancé must go through a multi-step process. As a United States citizen, you can initiate the process of getting a fiancé visa by submitting a fiancé visa petition or an immigrant visa petition. A K-1 allows the partner of a citizen to come into the country as long as a couple gets married within 90 days of entry. The immigrating spouse can apply for permanent residence or green card based on marriage. However, you can also marry outside the country and a citizen spouse can sponsor a foreign spouse for a green card via the IR1/CR1 process or “I-130 petition.”

You’ll need to take several steps to go through the visa application process in our complicated immigration system. Our Miami lawyer can guide you to make sure you get the best possible outcome. It takes 8-10 months for USCIS to process the Form I-129. After that there are 4-6 weeks during which the application will be processed, and an interview request will be sent.

After you apply for a Form I-129F, your fiancé will need to undergo a medical exam at his or her own cost.

Eligibility for an Immigrant Visa or Green Card

To show an immigrant fiancé who needs the K-1 is qualified, our Miami lawyer must be able to show:

• Intend to marry a U.S. citizen
• Had a meeting with the citizen, in person, within the last two years, and
• Be legally capable of getting married.

Additionally, the immigrant must be coming from another country for this type of visa. As a citizen, you cannot get the fiancé visa for somebody already in the country.

It’s possible to meet eligibility requirements for an immigrant visa or green card based on marriage if:

• You are legally married to a United States citizen or permanent resident.
• You are not married to somebody else at the same time
• You are not married to a citizen or lawful permanent resident who already has another spouse.

Our dedicated Miami immigration lawyer will need to establish all of these elements. In most cases, legal marriage is the most straightforward thing to prove. It can be proved with a copy of your marriage certificate. If you married outside the United States, it may be a little trickier because USCIS demands the certificate come from a government office instead of a church, a ship’s captain, or another nongovernmental source.

Process of Obtaining a Fiancé Visa

You’ll need to take several steps to go through the visa application process and our lawyer can guide you through these steps to make sure you get the best possible outcome. We need to have supporting documents to attach to a completed form; these include, among other things:

• Proof of citizenship for a United States citizen fiancé.
• Proof your relationship is real. This proof could include photos, emails, love letters or affidavits.
• We’ll need to include proof you met in person at least once in the last two years. As with the prior requirement, this proof could include photographs, correspondence, hotel stays, or plane tickets.
• Sworn statements with brief descriptions of the nature of your relation and your intent to marry within 90 days.

USCIS may ask us to submit evidence if they don’t feel what was submitted was sufficient. If the Form I-129F is approved, a notice is sent.

Marriage Visa

Marriage visas are immigration visas that allow foreign spouses of citizens or legal residents to immigrate to the country. The two types of marriage visas are the CR1 marriage visa and the IR1 marriage visa.

Background Check

It’s important to be aware that the process bringing a fiancé or spouse into the country involves USCIS, the Department of State, and the Customs and Border Protection. Background and security checks may be performed on you and your immigrating spouse using different databases for criminal history, national security, and other information. The checks are performed using names, fingerprints or other biometric or biographic information. Moral character, as determined by one of the foregoing entities, can affect your citizenship.

Hire Our Experienced Marriage and Fiancé Visa Attorney

If you need to obtain a fiancé visa, you’ll need to seek legal counsel. Our compassionate, tenacious immigration law attorney Lupe Lafont may be able to represent you in Miami. Before she served as an attorney in immigration law matters, she worked in surgical health care and now uses the same compassion to help those seeking fiancé visas. Please contact Ms. Lafont via her online form or at (305) 439-0604.