How Long Does it take to get a Spousal Visa Vrs a Fiance Visa?

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Rossonero NorCal SFECU

I don't advise going delta's route, if the INS had figured out she applied for a tourist visa so she could come here and get married they would have sent her home and blocked her from entry for 3 years.

Spousal visas may get processed a little faster overall, BUT your wife will probably have to stay in brazil for months after you get married while you wait for the consulate to get everything together. My wife and I got married a month after a friend from Miami married his brazilian wife. We went the fiance visa route, they went the spousal visa route. When our honeymoon was over, my wife came back home with me, they were separated for about 4 months while they waited for her paperwork to get processed.

Originally, my wife came here on her fiance visa and we immediately had a civil ceremony, then filed for an adjustment in status (to her as my wife instead of fiance). We then filed for permission for her to return to Brazil to prepare the church wedding. That took 3 months, and we got down to the wire (our wedding was a month later), but we made it.

Fiance visas take awhile to get approved unfortunately (ours took 5 months), but overall I'm glad we went that route.

Tara B

Well my now hubby and I went for the K1 fiance visa, because we heard it was quicker. He is from England and I from the US.
It took us from Oct 04 to Feb 05 (there were a few hangups).
So it was not overly fast, as it fell during the holidays as well, which didn't help the timeframe. I can tell you the time does depend on WHERE in the US you live and what country your significant other is from. I'm not sure about Brazil. East coast and west coast filings are a nightmare, as NYC dominates in immigration for the east, and California for the west. Midwest you have a quicker turnaround time, as does the pacific northwest and the south, except FL.

My friend now works for an immigration attorney and said we should have gotten a B1 visa (which is a business travel visa I think) got married then applied for the spouse visa, she claimed it would have been quicker plus my man would have been allowed to work as soon as he got to the US. (he should have been able to do that anyway but we were MISINFORMED which lead to him not working for almost a year.)

The K1 process wasn't too bad, but we made some mistakes along the way even though we hired a specialist in UK to help us (although she made many mistakes) When we got married we filed for permanent residence on our own and it went thru fine.

Look up some sites such as visajourney.com for more information and opinions.

And a piece of advice, save everything! They want proof of relationship from dating to marriage. So save photos, plane tickets, cards, emails, everything. The more proof you have, the easier the process. No joke!

GOOD LUCK!

Delta

I am brazilian and my husband is american. We were going to apply for a fiance visa in 2001, but they told us it would take at least ten months. That was right after 9/11, and we were afraid it could take much longer. So, since I already had a tourist visa, I just came in and we got married, and then we applied here for my work permit (it took just two months) and green card (three years).

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