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STATE DEPARTMENT ISSUES MEMO ON PROCESSING NEW V AND K VISAS
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In a recent memo, the Visa Office of the State Department relayed the way it
believes the new V and K visas, created as part of the Legal Immigration and
Family Equity Act, should be issued. Consular posts are not yet authorized
to issue these visas, but this guidance is intended to help them prepare for
when the visas can be issued.
V visas will be available to spouses and minor children of permanent
residents who have had immigrant visa petitions pending for more than three
years, so long as the petition was filed before December 22, 2000. Because
of this, V visas will be issued for only approximately three years, and will
not be a permanent addition to the list of nonimmigrant visas. The State
Department believes that V visa applications, because the V visa is designed
to further family reunification, should be processed as if they were
applications for an immigrant visa. V visas will be issued only at posts
that currently issue immigrant visas.
A new class of K visa was created by the LIFE Act for spouses and minor
children of US citizens. The US citizen spouse must have filed an immigrant
visa application for the foreign national spouse, but there is no amount of
time that it must have been pending for the foreign national spouse to be
eligible for the new K visa. The State Department notes that in these new K
visa cases, it may not be able to issue the visa until the INS approves a
petition filed by the citizen spouse and that the INS has not yet reached a
decision in this regard.
LIFE requires the K visa to be issued in the country in which the marriage
occurred. In some cases, where immigrant visa processing for several
countries is done in one central location, this will require posts that
issue only nonimmigrant visas to issue K visas. Also, unlike the V visa,
the new K visa is a permanent addition to the list of nonimmigrant visas.
The documentary requirements for both the V and the new K visa will be much
like the requirements for the current K fiancé visa. Applicants will be
required to undergo the immigrant visa medical examination and present
police certificates. They must also present evidence that they will not
become a public charge after entry into the US, but will not be required to
file the I-864 Affidavit of Support.
Noting that the primary purpose behind the creation of the V and K visas was
to promote family reunification, the State Department will instruct
consulates to give priority to immigrant visas, then V and K visas, then
other nonimmigrant visas.
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