K visas allows US citizen’s Fiancée (K-1), who is not a US citizen and outside the United States to enter into the United States prior to marriage, and US citizen’s spouse (K-3), who is not a US citizen and outside the United States to enter into the United States as non-immigrants before applying for permanent residence in the United States. Children, unmarried and under the age of 21, of US citizens fiancée and US citizen’s spouse are allowed to come to the United states as K-2 and K-4 respectively.
The benefit of these provisions is that it will allow them to enter the United States as non-immigrants, if fiancée, couple will be able to perform their marriage in the United States, and if it is spouse and children of the United States, allows them to re-unite with their family here, and then apply for immigrant status while in the country.
The spouse and the children of the US citizen are not mandatorily required to go through this process to obtain permanent residence. They are allowed to file for immigrant visa outside the United States. This visa only allows aliens to come to the United States while their immigrant visa petition is pending from a long time, so that they will be able to avoid the waiting period and able to reunite with their families.
General requirements for US fiancée visa are that US Citizen and his or her fiancée must be unmarried or their marriages must have been ended through divorce, annulment or death. It is also required that the US citizen must have met his fiancée in person within the last two years before filing for the fiancée visa. This requirement may be waived if meeting fiancée in person might violate long-established customs, or meeting fiancée would create extreme hardship to the US Citizen. An Alien fiancée who entered on K-1 visa must marry US Citizen within 90 days of her entry into the United States in order to be eligible to adjust his or her status as permanent resident in the United States. Incase, she does not marry US Citizen or married some other individual, she is required to leave the United Stated within the initial 90day limitation period.
The limitations of K visa are that law does not allow non-immigrant aliens to change to K visa status while they are in the United States. It is solely available to those who are outside the United States. Further more, K visa holders will not be able to change their status to any other non-immigrant status while they are in the U.S. Persons who are barred to enter into the United States for previous immigration violations, will not able to use K visa to enter into the United States, and amended INA section 245(i) does not benefit K visa holders.