In the past the law required spouses of U.S. citizens to remain outside the U.S. until a green card was approved. Now with the introduction of the K3 visa, spouses are allowed to enter the U.S. whilst waiting for a nonimmigrant visa category and then can apply for permanent residence status. The process takes approximately 6 months. The advantages of applying for a K3 visa are that the process is normally proceeds faster than for marriage-based immigration visa petitions. Your spouse will also be permitted to search for work and apply for a work permit after received the visa. Your children are allowed to travel to the U.S. with you on a K4 dependent visa, as long as they are under the age of 21 and they were named in the visa petition. Once they are old enough they are allowed to seek work too. Before a K-4 visa can be issued to a child, the parent must have a K-3 visa or be in K-3 status. Conditions of applying for a K3 visa are, first, that the marriage to the U.S. citizen is legal. As the U.S. citizen, it is up to you to file on your spouse’s behalf a petition for family-based I-130 immigration status, to be sent to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) service center with jurisdiction over your place of residence. As soon this is handled your spouse will receive Form I-797, Notice of Action, this is an indicating of that the USCIS has received the Form I-130.A copy of this Form I-797 along with a USCIS Form I-129F needs to be filed by you on behalf of your partner. After adjudicating the Form I-129F, the USCIS then sends it to the appropriate American Consulate so that you can apply for the K3 visa. Once your spouse enters the U.S. with a K-3 marriage visa, they can live there for a 2 year time period. Dependents are also given the same length of time, however if they reach the age of 21 sooner, then they will only get the visa until this date. If your spouse is already in the U.S. on a different category of visa, such as a tourist visa, it cannot be changed into a K3 visa. In these cases they would have to leave the U.S. and travel to another country, applying for the K-3 visa from there and then re-entering under the new visa category. Once the 2 years admission is approved the holder of the K3 visa can later apply for extensions in 2 year increments to the USCIS. If a person has not applied for a change of status or put in an application for immigrant status during these previous 2 years, then the USCIS will want to know why. Any person in the U.S. on a K3 visa who has to visit another country is able to do so without any problems, a K3 visa will remain valid and not be canceled if leaving. This applies even if you are in the process of changing your status. The K3 visa has made things much simpler for couples married abroad to be together in the same country. If you have limited time or feel unsure on how to complete all the paperwork that goes with obtaining a K-3 visa there are visa agencies online that can expertly prepare a K 3 or K-1 visa application. This way you avoid all the hassle of dealing with all the bureaucracy involved and receive professional assistance.
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