Getting married involves all sorts of preparations. There are certain things that can add even further to the preparations a person needs to make for a marriage. One is if the person they are to going to marry is from another country and doesn’t currently live in the United States.
In such a situation, one of the things a couple needs to decide is what country they want to get married in. If a couple in such a situation wants to get married in the U.S., there will generally be some important immigration issues to address. This includes K-1 visa issues.
A K-1 visa is also known as a fiancé/fiancée visa. It is a type of temporary non-immigrant visa that allows a foreign national fiancé/fiancée of a U.S. citizen to come into the U.S to marry the U.S. citizen. When granted, such a visa lasts for 90 days. If a couple fails to get married within this period, the fiancé/fiancée has to leave the United States upon the ending of the period.
To apply for such visa, a visa petition is to be filed by the U.S. citizen for their foreign fiancé/fiancée. As a note, there are certain things that a U.S. citizen must show for their petition to meet the requirements for a K-1 visa, including that they have seen their fiancé/fiancée in person within the past two years (as a note, there are some narrow exemptions for which a petitioner may be able to get a waiver from this in-person meeting requirement).
As this discussion underscores, there can be some very important immigration law preparations to make if one is planning on marrying a person who is from another country. Skilled immigration law attorneys can assist U.S. citizens who are planning to marry a foreign national with immigration law preparations and help guide them through the various U.S. immigration processes that end up coming up for them and their fiancé/fiancée, like the K-1 visa petitioning process.