Fiancé(e) visas – Sound Immigration

Step 2 – The consulate

Once your I-129F petition is approved by USCIS your case is heading off to the Department of State (DOS) and to U.S. consulate in your fiancee’s home country. In this section I’ll give a high-level overview of what this looks…

Step 1 – The I-129F petition

Congratulations! You’ve carefully assessed every eligibility requirements and grounds of inadmissibility and decided that you should proceed with a fiance visa. (You did do that, right? If not, please jump back to the previous section.). Now it’s time to do…

Submitting your USCIS filing fee

April 11, 2018
Sound Immigration
Fiancé(e) visas, Marriage-Based Immigration, Updates
0 Comments

The mandatory USCIS filing fees must accompany an application or petition at the time it is filed. If you do not include the filing fee than the case will simply be returned to you and not filed. Here are some…

About fiancée (K-1) visas

Fiance visa / K1 visa. To initiate marriage-based consular processing a couple must be legally married, as further described below. In scenarios where the couple is engaged but not yet married, it often makes greater practical sense to pursue a…

Can I apply for a K-3 visa to speed things up?

September 15, 2017
Greg McLawsen
Fiancé(e) visas, Marriage-Based Immigration, National Visa Center, Updates
1 Comment

If only I had a dollar for every time a client was confused about K-3 visas. But the confusion is understandable. Basically, Congress created the K-3 visa category as a way to get married couple reunited without having to wait…

May I visit the U.S. on a B-1/B-2 (or ESTA) after filing an I-130 or I-129F?

January 10, 2017
Sound Immigration
Consular processing, Fiancé(e) visas, Marriage-Based Immigration, Updates

It's just a fact - marriage and fiancé(e) visas take a long time. The process starts when the U.S. petitioner files an I-130 (marriage) or I-129F (fiancé(e)) petition. After the petition is filed, all you can do is wait for…

Marriage visa (IR-1/CR-1) versus fiancé(e) visa (K-1)

June 24, 2016
Greg McLawsen
Fiancé(e) visas, Marriage-Based Immigration
2 Comments

It is common to have the choice of pursuing either a marriage-based visa or fiancé(e) (I-129F, K-1) visa. Let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of each. But first we'll start with an overview of what the two processes look…

Op-ed: Fiancé visa disruption would impact Americans

December 21, 2015
Greg McLawsen
Consular processing, Fiancé(e) visas, Updates
4 Comments

In this piece in the Tacoma News Tribune I argue that Americans will be hurt if the fiancé visa program becomes more difficult. Following the violence in San Bernardino there has been talk of ratcheting down on fiancé(e) visas, but…

What goes into an I-864 Affidavit of Support lawsuit complaint?
I’ve been representing clients in lawsuits to enforce the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support for about a decade at this point. Over that time, I’ve made a lot of changes to the template that we use for federal lawsuit complaints. (A complaint is the initial case document that sets forth the plaintiff’s legal claim…
What is a joint sponsor’s liability under the Form I-864, Affidavit of Support?
A joint sponsor (also called co-sponsor) has the same liability under an Affidavit of Support as the primary sponsor. By signing the USCIS Form I-864, the joint sponsor agrees to “joint and several” liability on the contract. The sponsored immigrant can sue the joint sponsor for financial support in state or federal court. A joint…
Can you enforce the Form I-864 Affidavit of Support in a divorce case?
Yes – in most states the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support can be enforced in a divorce case. A family law court has the authority to enforce the I-864 either (1) as a breach of contract claim or (2) through spousal maintenance (also called alimony). But as discussed below, divorce court is not necessarily…
USCIS Form I-864 enforcement in divorce court – another cautionary tale (Marriage of Bychina)
It is a theme that I have written about many times on this blog and elsewhere. Yes, the Affidavit of Support can theoretically be enforced in family law proceedings. But in practice, beneficiaries frequently encounter problems in that forum. Here is another example. Marriage of Bychina was a family law case in Illinois. See No.…
How do you calculate damages under the I-864, Affidavit of Support
In an important ruling for one of our I-864 enforcement clients, a Court ruled today that damages under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support are determined based on taxable income. In Flores v. Flores, the Western District of Washington ruled that the term “income” is governed by the definition contained at 8 C.F.R. §…
How do you settle a claim under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support?
As I explain elsewhere on this blog, almost all claims under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support result in settlement. To get an idea of how long that process takes, read this post. Having settled many of these claims, here is an overview of how we generally approach settlement. What goes into an Affidavit…
Can you enforce the Form I-864 Affidavit of Support with a preliminary injunction?
Non-citizens needing to enforce the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support are usually in serious need of help. To have a claim under the Affidavit, their income needs to be below 125 percent of the poverty line. That’s about $1,400 per month for a household of one. But a lawsuit can take months or even…
What affirmative defenses are available to Form I-864 sponsors? None.
The Eleventh Circuit has held that the common law defenses of unclean hands, anticipatory breach, and equitable estoppel are unavailable to a sponsor who has signed a USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support. Blevich v. Thomas, 17 F.4th 1048 (11th Cir. 2021). Belevich joins a growing line of cases that stand for the proposition that…
The federal right to immigration “alimony” under the Form I-864, Affidavit of Support
A version of this article first appeared in the Side Bar journal for the Litigation Section of the Federal Bar Association (Spring 2021). If you are like most federal litigators – this author included – you would never enter divorce court unless your name was on the case caption. The vitriol, the sabotage, the meanness.…
How long does the I-864 support last?
A sponsor's obligation under the Form I-864 lasts indefinitely. It terminates only upon one of five Terminating Events, including when the green card holder has 40 quarters of work or becomes a U.S. citizen. It *does not* terminate automatically after ten years, even though lawyers mistakenly