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Getting a K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa

The K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa is designed for couples who are already married and therefore cannot use the K-1 Fiancé Green Card Visa.  It is a reasonably new Immigrant Visa that was created to address some of the drawbacks associated with the K-1 Fiancé Green Card Visa.  However, not everyone agrees that the K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa has lived up to its billing.

This page will help explain how to go about acquiring a K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa.  Like the K-1 Fiancé Green Card Visa, it is a multi-step process that involves both Consular Processing and Adjustment of Status.

The first step to getting a K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa is for the United States citizen spouse to file the Immediate Relative Visa Petition with the appropriate lockbox of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service.  A couple or few weeks thereafter the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service will send a Notice of Action acknowledging receipt of the Immediate Relative Visa Petition.

The next step in the process requires the United States citizen spouse to file a Fiancé Visa Petition.

Once the Fiancé Visa Petition is approved, the Consular Processing begins.  The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service will forward the whole case to the National Visa Center.  The National Visa Center will then forward the whole case to the appropriate United States Consulate for additional processing.  This process can take a long time, at least as long as a year or more.

An important point to understand here is that the Immediate Relative Visa Petition and the Fiancé Visa Petition will now proceed down parallel tracks.  If the Immediate Relative Visa Petition is approved before the Consular interview, the foreign national spouse will no longer be eligible for the K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa and will have to proceed as if the Fiancé Visa Petition was never filed.  In theory, the K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa was supposed to go much faster than the Immediate Relative Visa petition, but in practice, that has not always been the case.

After the United States Consulate receives the whole case, it will forward even more and more paperwork to the foreign national spouse.  Once those additional documents are fully executed, the Consulate will schedule the foreign national spouse for an in-person interview.  Assuming the interview goes well, the foreign national spouse will soon thereafter receive his or her K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa.

The foreign national spouse will then use the K-3 Marriage Green Card Visa to enter the United States at a port of entry, such as an airport.  There, the Customs and Border Protection officers will inspect all of the foreign national spouse’s paperwork.  Once again, assuming that everything is in order, the foreign national spouse will be formally admitted into the United States.

After being admitted into the United States, the foreign national spouse will then have to file an Adjustment of Status application, which must include, amongst other documents, the Affidavit of Support and the results of the sealed Medical Examination, Biometric Appointment and Adjustment of Status Interview.