As an immigration lawyer who handles many marriage and fiancee visa applications, one of the most common questions that is asked of me is: should a couple apply for the fiancee visa or just get married and apply for the marriage visa?
For couples who do not care where or when they are married, this is a very important question – and one that merits a fuller discussion. Both the marriage visa and the fiancee visa are viable options for getting your loved one to the United States, and both have advantages and disadvantages over the other. It is just a matter of determining which offers the best options for you. The following discusses a few of those advantages and disadvantages – for a more detailed analysis please contact a New York City marriage and fiancee visa lawyer.
Fiancee Visa Pros
- Slightly Faster – Simply put, the fiancee visa normally takes a few months less to process compared to the marriage visa. This means a couple can normally be together just a bit faster with the fiance visa. Additionally, a couple that is ready to start the process does not need to wait for a marriage ceremony to start. The logistics of arranging a wedding can often add many months onto the process.
Fiancee Visa Cons
- Marriage Must Be In United States – Once the K-1 fiance visa starts, the couple must wait to get married until after the foreign national enters the United States on the K-1 visa. Failure to wait will result in the cancellation of the K-1 fiancee visa, and will require the couple to begin anew with the marriage visa. For many couples, there is strong family pressure to get married in the foreign national’s home country.
- More Expensive – The fiancee visa, when all said and done, is a bit more expensive than the marriage visa when it comes to paying required government filing fees.
- Work and Travel Authorization Delayed – Through the fiancee visa, it generally takes about 90 days after marriage before a foreign national is eligible to work in the United States and travel internationally. With the marriage visa, work and travel authorization is granted immediately upon arrive in the United States.
Marriage Visa Pros
- Work Authorization – Unlike the fiancee visa, a foreign national who enters the United States on the marriage visa is immediately able to start working. There is no waiting for a work authorization card to arrive, or for an adjustment of status application to be submitted. Instead, when a person enters the United States on the marriage visa, a stamp is placed over the marriage visa, and that allows the recipient to start working immediately.
- Travel Authorization – Just like work authorization, a foreign national who enters the United States on the marriage visa is immediately able to travel outside of the United States. This is significantly different from the fiancee visa, which requires a fiancee to remain in the United States until after marriage and approval of advance parole (likely more than 90 days after first arriving in the United States).
- Gain Permanent Residency Immediately – When a foreign national enters the United States on a spousal visa, the foreign national immediately becomes a lawful permanent residency. This means that three years after entering, the foreign national will likely be eligible to naturalize and become a U.S. citizen. This is much faster than the fiancee visa, which often requires a foreign national to wait over six months after entering to become a lawful permanent resident.
- Greater Evidence of Good Faith Relationship – In both the marriage visa and fiancee visa, it is necessary to demonstrate that a couple’s relationship is one of “good faith” – which basically means that a couple must demonstrate that it is a genuine relationship. By its very nature, a marriage is a stronger indication of a relationship’s genuine nature than an engagement.
Marriage Visa Cons
- Need to Be Married – When choosing between the fiancee visa and the marriage visa, one consideration is how long it will take to get married. If the couple is living on opposite sides of the world, the logistics, cost, and time to marry may be so significant that it is easier to just apply for a fiancee visa and to marry in the United States after entry.
- Longer Time Apart – When a couple is ready to begin their life together, they often want to be together as quickly as possible. Because of its process, the marriage visa often takes at least one to two months longer than the fiancee visa.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the decision of whether to apply for the marriage or fiance visa is up to the couple. However, fully discussing the options with a New York immigration lawyer is the best option, especially when done before the beginning the immigration process.