After hearing many horror stories about the mistakes that others had made and the length of time that it can take to process a fiancé visa, I decided to do my homework before proceeding with my own visa petition. In addition, I had heard that my state, was one of the worst states, time wise, in which to try to bring over you foreign fiancé. You see fiancé visas are processed by individual states agencies, so depending in which state you reside; you could already be at a disadvantage. Because of this I felt that there was little room for error so I wanted to make sure that I chose the right method that would get my fiancé here the quickest.

Along the way to making my decision on the best way to approach this I talked with a lot of guys who tried various methods and who recommended various things. In this article I would like to share with you what I learned along the way. I will talk about the different types of visas, some of the myths and misconceptions about visas, what worked for me and what didn't work for others and some little hints and tips that might help you along the way.

Let's start with the different types of visas. Which one is the right one to use? The proper visa to use when bringing a young lady whom you are considering for marriage to the United States is a fiancé visa or K-1. If you're thinking to yourself, "No kidding genius,"

... Not so fast. In doing my research I spoke to many different men who had done this a number of different ways. Please allow me to share these with you.

One pretty sensible guy told me that his fiancée was able to come over on a student visa. Apparently she was a teacher in Kherson, Ukraine and spoke English very well. She applied to an agency in Kiev who had an exchange program of sorts with the University of Houston. The university has very good English as a second language program and she was able to come over and study very quickly. They say that they filed in November 2002 and that she had her visa by mid December. Not long after her arrival they were married and filed for AOS. I was able to meet with them since I lived in the same city and sure enough she showed me all of the documentation to prove what they were saying. The only drawback to this is that your lady must speak a certain amount of English and be able to pass certain tests and have certain certifications in her home country, so obviously, most would not qualify. Although my lady spoke a fair amount of English, after looking into this further we found that she did not qualify for such a program.

Another gentleman told me that he was able to get his lady over on a business visa.

She was fluent in English and he had some business interests in Russia. He was able to convince the issuing authority that he had a job waiting for her that she was a necessary part of their company. He also had some help from a congressman who was a friend of the family I am told. Again, this is a situation for which most will not qualify.

I spoke to one guy who brought his lady over very quickly using a B-2 tourist visa. Although several different people had warned him that this was not the visa for his particular situation, he was in a hurry and decided to go that route anyway. A fiancée visa can take anywhere from 4 months to a year, depending upon what state you live in and how competent the person or firm filling out the forms is. He told me that it only took a month and a half and that once she was in the states they immediately married and then filed for an  Adjustment of Status (AOS). He told me that they never had any problem during the entire process. Sounds great, right? Before you get all excited, let me tell you what I found out after investigating this.

This guy may have done this the way he said, but if he did, he was very lucky. I spoke with my own immigration attorney, who has been processing visas for over 15 years, the U. S. State Department Visa Services help line and just for good measure, I called the U. S. Embassy in Kiev. All told me the same thing. This guy was extremely lucky, not only to get the B-2 visa in the first place, but that it didn't cause him problems down the line when he filed for AOS. I was told that the B-2 visa is extremely difficult to get in countries such as Ukraine and Russia. The person applying usually has to have some evidence that they will come back after their visa expires, such as a large bank account or if they own a business. A long-term well-paying job might also help their chances of getting a visa as might having several children or a spouse. In other words, if you are trying to bring a young girl with no visible means of support over to the states for a visit there is very little chance that she will even qualify for this type of visa. The U. S. Embassy in Ukraine told me that only about 5% of the people that apply for this type of visa get it. So let's say you get lucky and you are actually able to get this type of visa. The state department and my attorney told me that this could actually cause you problems down the line when you go to file for the proper type of visa or for an AOS. I was told that the issuing authority could actually view this as an act of deception on your part and this might delay the processing of the proper visa or even worse. I was told that it was possible that they might actually deport your lady while the visa was processed, even if you are married to her! I guess the bottom line is that you might be able to do it this way, but it's pretty risky. I absolutely would not recommend that you try this.

Another way to go is to get married first in Ukraine or Russia and apply for a K-3 spouse visa. A few years ago, when I first started my search, I spoke with some guys who told me that this was the way to go. One guy from Texas told me that a fiancé visa at that time was running anywhere from 9 months to a year. Obviously he didn't want to wait that long so he looked into other options. He and his fiancé decided, "why wait?" and tide the knot in her hometown. He told me that he was able to get her visa processed in less than three months and that was that. However, it seems that things have changed a bit since then.

Once I found my Lady and we decided to become engaged, I again looked into the different options. Based on previous information I decided to look into getting married first and then applying for the marriage visa. I spoke with a couple of immigration attorneys and called the state department help line and I was surprised at what I was told. I was told that the old logic really no longer applies. Apparently, K-3 visas, like K-l visas used to be processed by individual state agencies. I am told that this is no longer the case. I was informed that K-3 visas (spouse visas) are now all processed by one office, no matter the state, and that tl1ere is a tremendous bottleneck of applications. At the time I spoke with the aforementioned parties, spouse visas were taking a minimum of 9 months. I was told that the fiancé visa was probably a better bet since Texas had improved its performance to no more than 6 months. Needless to say I decided to go with the fiancé visa.

Now that I decided which visa I would go with, I needed to find out the best way to go about filing. Should I try to do it myself, as I am a real do-it-yourselfer, or should I enlist professional help? I decided to call a buddy of mine who I knew had filed the previous May on his own. I felt like if he could do it then so could 1. I knew that immigration attorneys charge anywhere from $750 to $2500 less the filing and documentation fees and I felt that if he was successful and did so in a reasonable amount of time that I would go the do-it yourself route as well. Boy was I in for a let down. My buddy, Sonny had filed in May and I called him in December thinking surely that his lady would be by his side by now. He told me that he had many difficulties in getting any information about the status of his application and that he still had really no indication of when he might get her over here. On a side note I called him in February and he had just received his notice and case # from the National Visa Center (NVC). It took him about 9 months from the time he filed. Sonny is a very intelligent and detailed guy so I figured that if he had that much trouble and recommended getting professional assistance, then that is what I should do.

Learning this, I decided that enlisting professional assistance would be the way to go so I talked with several guys who had used an attorney whose sole business was securing fiancé visas for their clients. I wanted to get recommendations from people I knew because I had heard many horror stories about high priced attorneys who failed to do any better than my friend that I mentioned earlier. Each man told me that this attorney had done an excellent job and in each case secured the visa in under the expected amount of time. One man was from Maryland and the other two were from Texas. Each man said that they had their visa in less than six months. I didn't stop there however. I went to the Internet and researched other attorneys.

I found those that ranged anywhere from $750 to $2500, but what sealed the deal for me was the fact that the attorney that had been recommended to me had an office in Russia to help my fiancé with her documents. This was my main concern because I felt that I would be able to correct any errors of my own, but I was not sure about how to help my fiancé with her documents. Also, I had talked to one man from whom I was trying to get a reference regarding a reasonably priced attorney that I had found on the Internet and he told me that the only problem with this particular attorney was that he had no office in Russia and there was really no assistance for his fiancé. Therefore he had to send all of the documents to her personally using either email or, God forbid, Ukrainian postal service. She then had to have them translated on her own, as they were in English. Many of his issues were because of this.

The attorney that I finally settled on, the one, whom my friends had recommended, set my mind at ease as they contacted my fiancé immediately and began coaching her on what to do. In the end I knew I had made the right decision, not only because of the end result, but because my fiancé told me that without the help and direction of my attorney's Moscow office she would have had a very difficult time figuring out what to do and how to do it.

Let's talk a little about what you need in order to complete your fiancé visa. Most of the things that you will need will be easily accessible to you, stuff that you probably have in a file somewhere in your home. Others may not be so easily accessible. Others may be things that you need to save along the way so pay attention! Most of the things that you need either have to do with your personal information and information about your finances. The things that you might not be expecting however have to do with proving your ongoing relationship with your fiancé.

Here's a tip they gave me when I was at the U.S. Embassy at my fiancées interview: The more evidence of your relationship you have in your fiancé interview packet that she presents to the officer on duty, the shorter and easier her interview will be. I will explain more later. I won't go over exactly what forms you need to fill out, as those instructions can be found at http://uscis.gov/graphics/howdoifianceapp.htm if you are doing it yourself or they will be provided for you if you are using an attorney. However I will tell you about some of the things that you need to get and save in order to prepare your documents and petition.

As I eluded to in the previous paragraph you will need to collect such things as a copy of your birth certificate, a copy of your passport and/or visas and stamps proving that you went to visit your fiancé, income tax returns from the previous two years, a divorce decree (if applicable and a letter from your employer as proof of your employment). These are all pretty standard things that you probably have in a file box somewhere. If not, they are all easily accessible. Some of the things that you need to save will be pictures of the two of you together, the more the better, dated if possible, any airplane tickets and itineraries. Keep also emails if that is how you are currently corresponding or copies of phone bills, evidence of text messages etc. This will let them know that you communicate with each other on a regular basis. If you have bought her an engagement ring keep the receipt and include it in her packet (tell her she's not allowed to look at it of course!). Keep your boarding passes, all of them. The officer at the Embassy told me that this is the best evidence, other than your stamped visas, that you came to visit your fiancé several times and that your relationship is ongoing. You may also want keep any letters that she sent you via mail such as birthday cards, seasonal greetings etc. If you hire an attorney to do this they should let you know about all of this stuff, but make sure you visit the USCIS website which I listed above to make sure that you have covered all of your bases.

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to seek professional assistance in filing my visa petition so that I could be sure that my fiancé would be able to come to the United States as quickly as possible. Some of the things that my attorney provided that I think were very helpful were the following: The most helpful thing in my opinion was the assistance they provided my fiancé. They had an office in Moscow and several ladies whom my fiancé said were invaluable. All of her paperwork was already translated into Russian for her so she did not have to do it or seek the help of a professional legal document interpreter. As I mentioned before, one of the men that I had spoken to told me that this was his only problem with the attorney that he had used. Not only were the documents not translated, but neither were the instructions on how to fill them out. In addition, it was up to him to get these documents to her either by email or regular mail. This was all taken care of for me and I never had to worry about whether or not my fiancé was completing the paperwork properly.

My attorney emailed me regularly with updates and kept me abreast of the status of my petition. They let me know by what dates I should have received certain documents or responses from the USCIS and/or NVC (National Visa Center). When I did not received my letter from the NVC containing my official case number and confirming the approval of my petition my attorney phoned their contacts at the NVC and got it over the phone so the process would not be slowed. They also prepared a very professional financial package for me that included everything that my fiancé would need to take with her to her interview. All in all I was extremely pleased with the performance of my attorney. They were early in securing the interview for my fiancé and that is all I could ask of them. They officially filed for me the second week of December and my fiancé was holding her visa in her hand by the fourth week in April. The original estimate was 6 months.  

Let's talk about additional fees. In addition to the attorney's fees there will be some filing fees for both yours and your fiancées documents. There is a $160.00 filing fee for the original petition and then there are some filing fees and expenses on your fiancées end. Some of the documents that she needs she may not be able to procure in her own town, depending on where she lives. My fiancé lives in a very small town so she was forced to go to larger cities a couple of times to get these documents prepared. Figure her travel expenses in with this as well. The first round of this cost me around $97. Also, she will be required to go before her interview to have medical exams.

 My fiancé had to travel to Kiev from her small hometown and be examined by three different doctors and received documents from each one. Including travel this cost about $450.00. Then there was the travel expense to Kiev for the actual interview and fee of $100 (in U .S. dollars) for her actual visa. In addition there was another $5 processing fee at the embassy.

Speaking of the embassy, I had the unique pleasure of visiting the U. S. Embassy in Kiev when my fiancé went for her interview. By the way, if you can manage it, I highly recommend that you go with your lady when she has her interview for several reasons. First, it's just plain interesting to see your country's embassy in a foreign country. I was expecting something grander I guess, but our embassy is just like most things in Ukraine, very modest. Second, if you are with your fiancé she will be treated much differently than if she goes alone. What I mean is once they see that you are American you are immediately whisked into the embassy and her along with you. As soon as I stepped out of the taxi with my cowboy boots and Houston Texans cap on a soldier came up to me and asked if! Was American. I told him yes and he put as up to the very front of the line to get in the embassy. There was a line outside of hundreds to get in and it was snowing, in April! We were inside in less than a minute. Once inside, as soon as I was identified as American we didn't have to wait in any lines. They took us immediately to the front of each one. It felt pretty darn diplomatic! Third, there is no clearer evidence of your ongoing relationship with your fiancé than for you to show up with her at her interview. That in combination with a well organized interview package for your fiancé to present to the officials at the embassy could mean a short and sweet interview.

Another aspect of going to the interview with her is a show of caring and support. If you can make it to her interview you will take away some of the fear and anxiety that surely accompanies such an appointment. I was with Nina the entire time from beginning to end. We went through security together, paid her fees together and I even got to sit just a few feet away from her during her interview with only a half partition separating us. I was able to hear everything and witness first hand her reaction and nervousness. It is a bond that we Will always have together. Remember, she is not only taking the next step to becoming your wife, but she is also taking her first step in discovering the American way of life, something most folks will never get to experience. Anyway, once her interview was over we were immediately told that her visa was going to be approved and processed. She had it in her hand six days later. It was delivered to her home by FedEx.

In closing I would like to make this suggestion. Make sure that you do your homework when approaching applying for a visa for your fiancé. If you are going to do it yourself, make sure that you contact the USCIS for guidance and for any questions that you might have. If you are not sure of something, ask! Better to ask before you submit because once you do it could cost you a great deal of time in getting your fiancée’s visa approved. If you are going to use an attorney, make sure to get one that is recommended by people you know who have used them before. Also, make sure that they have some form of assistance for your fiancé in filling out her part of the visa applications. Remember, this is the most

Important thing that you will do in starting your life with your new wife. Make sure that you don't skimp on anything. Don't try to cut corners on this. Better to pay a little extra and get it done right the first time!