If you need help with anything from opening a business to buying an apartment to getting a cpf number I can suggest an excellent lawyer who speaks english. Just PM me and I can give you the information.

Does anyone have a contact of a reputable law firm to handle the process of obtaining a K-1 Fiance Visa for a Brazilian young lady to come to the USA ?
Should I be working with a firm based in Rio or actually one based in the USA ?

Thank you.

You need to have a lawyer in the states, although ruour has it that the whole process has been streamlined and you don't really need a lawyer anymore (I did it 12 years ago, different world back then). GO to INS website first sut to get an idea of the process involved.

BS

Thanks badseed. You are correct that they have kits that you can "attempt" to do on your own. The problem is that they are worded that the average "joe" cannot complete accurately, thus creating constant delays. It is strongly advised that a law firm that specializes in obtaining K-1 Visas handles the entire process. They know all the questions and traps, and can complete the process as painless as possible...so I have been told. I figure it would be worth the investment for this process to assure accuracy and have this completed in a timely fashion. I know there are many forms that must be completed both here in the US and there in Brazil, plus interviews and medical exam for woman in Brazil. An experienced law firm will also coach her on the interview before she goes. Anyways, there is a lot of shit that needs to be done right, and I am looking for a qualified lawyer.
Thanks again.

see below:

The Fiancé(e) Visa
Background
In almost every case, the best visa for a U.S. citizen considering marriage to a foreigner is the "K-1" Fiancé(e) Visa. The K-1 Visa allows you to invite your fiancée to America for a period of 90 days, during which time your fiancée must either marry you or return to her home country. No extensions of the time period are permitted. You and your fiancée are not required to marry if things don’t work out according to your expectations. If you do not marry your fiancée, you will not be precluded from making a future Fiancé(e) Visa application (although a second fiancé(e) petition will be a more challenging proposition). Your fiancée similarly will not be precluded from receiving another visa in the future.

Visa Status
A Fiancé(e) Visa is a temporary visa, but one that can be readily converted to a permanent visa once the marriage occurs in the U.S.. The Fiancé(e) Visa petition process involves little or no contact with the foreign government. Most foreign governments, including all countries of the former Soviet Union, permit their citizens to exit freely on temporary Visas.

Criteria for Approval
In order to qualify for a Fiancé(e) Visa, you must meet the following main requirements:

You are a U.S. citizen
You have met your fiancé(e) within the previous two years
You and your fiancé(e) are both legally free to marry
You and your fiancé(e) both have a serious intention to marry within 90 days of your fiancé(e)’s arrival in America.
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) Phase
To begin the Fiancé(e) Visa process, the Petitioner must first submit an application to the BCIS. The petitioner and fiancée will need to file numerous forms and documents with the BCIS in order to prove that the petitioner and fiancée qualify for the K-1 Fiancé(e) Visa. A correctly prepared Petition will usually be approved by the BCIS in two to six weeks time. We have recently been advised by an Officer of the BCIS Texas Service Center that 60% of the Fiancé(e) Visa Petitions are sent back to the petitioner due to mistakes or deficiencies in the forms or supporting documents. Typically, a month or more of time is lost due to such errors. We make sure that the petition is done right the first time, every time.

U.S. Embassy Phase
Once approval has been received, the petitioner and fiancée must send a minimum of six additional forms to the U.S. Embassy having jurisdiction over the fiancé(e)'s petition (Moscow for Russians, Warsaw for Ukrainians, etc.). Once the documents have been received by the Embassy, and the State Department’s background check on the fiancé(e) has been concluded, the fiancé(e) will be instructed to undergo a medical examination at a designated local clinic, and to appear at the U.S. Embassy for presentation of forms and supporting documents and to undergo an interview with an Embassy Consular Official. If the paperwork is all correct, and there are no problems in the interview, the visa will be issued on the same day as the interview. The fiancé(e) is then free to travel immediately and directly to the United States.

I can recommend two Los Angeles attorneys that are *experts* in immigration law. inbox me and I'll get you their names/numbers.

RJ

As for the interviews and exams in Brazil prior to her coming here, what the INS is looking for is:

Is she legally able to marry?

Does she have any STD's, especially AIDS?

Is she a prostitute? (How did you meet?)

Does she have a criminal record?

Is she a member of the Communist or Nazi parties? (actual questions, I kid you not)

.....A "Yes" to any of these will get her K-1 denied. On the other hand, they do NOT investigate finances, as they do for travel visas. However, they do try and evluate if your meeting and proposed marriage are legit.

Good Luck!

BS

Soprano.... Badseed is correct. The whole process has been streamlined and is very easy to follow from the U.S. Consulate websites. The only thing you can't cotnrol is the wait. I wouldn't waste the money on a lawyer, but that is just my opinion.

I spoke with a friend of mine that brought a woman over from the Philipines a couple of years ago. His situation was a little different because he screwed up and married her over there first (so her family could see her get married... I told him he was a dumbass for doing that), and then had to return home without her. He filed the papers and waited and waited. His wasn't a K-1 situation, but in many ways it was a more complicated process because he was already married to her. The point is, he did it on his own. To make a long story short, with the bureacracy in both countries, it took 1 year and 4 months before she could come over. Meanwhile, this guy was spending $500 a month on long distance cell calls and home telephone bills for all of that time.... plus sending her money. He said the process isn't hard, but it takes some effort getting up all of the material (mostly on her side) The wait is the hardest part, but again, his wasn't a K-1 situation. She still had to have an interview though, but I understand that once she gets her interview date, then it is pretty much a done deal unless she throws up some serious red flags.... like the ones Badseed just mentioned.

My advice (gained from him) on the K-1 process is to start taking photos of the two of you together, save all of your emails/letters (even write some snailmail letters and send them to her), save airline tickets, be prepared to show tax records to prove you can support her, and by all means, if she is a working girl, come up with a plausible story as to how the two of you met and even be prepared to produce a witness that says they introduced the two of you. That is exactly the kind of stuff a lawyer is going to advise you to do.


I just did a google search on U. S. consulate and came up with a website with links to consulates all over the world. If your girl is in Rio, then you are in luck because all interviews are held there.

Go here and it has adobe packets and forms you can download in either English or Portuguese.

http://www.embaixada-americana.org.br/index.php?itemmenu=55&submenu=7&action=rio.php&html=fiance.htm

If that link doesn't work for some reason, the main address to the Rio site is:

http://www.embaixada-americana.org.br/index.php?itemmenu=55&submenu=7&action=rio.php

I'd give that instruction packet a look and study the forms before I went out and hired a lawyer if I were you. It certainly is doable on your own.... just don't marry her over there first.


(Message edited by aldaron on November 12, 2003)

Soprano-- Was curious as to who told you the papers are so difficult to fill out ? Did a law firm tell you this ? Nonsense. I have the papers in front of me now, i gotta tell you i could of fill these out in the 8th grade, there is nothig to it. The girl fills out 1 side of 1 paper, called Biographic iformation, name date and place of birth, mother and father`s name and place of birth former husbands and date and place of marrige and ternination of marrige, residence last 5 years, employment last 5 years, that`s about it , you fill out the same form, then you fill out a petition for alien fiance, 1paper ,front and back, but mostly a repeat of biograpgic paper, that it , mail all 3 and wait. Maybe different service centers have different paper work, this is what i got from the northeast.

Okay... I've read what all of you guys have to say, and I think all of you raise some good points. At this point in time, I'm just playing "devil's advocate". What if your fiancée just gets a tourist visa, comes to the States, and you get married while she's here ? Would you still have to jump through as many hoops ? This is just an academic discussion for me at this time, but it's good information to have.

(Message edited by rickm0755 on April 07, 2005)

Once she's here, if you get married she's pretty much good to go. She will have to stay in the US for a while, until all of the paperwork clears. However, getting a K1 is fairly guaranteed, it just takes time to get the paperwork completed then more time to get everything processed. Garotas have very little chance of ever getting a tourist visa, so that option is not realistic.

This is a very easy process. A friend of min meet a girl at a resturant in Ipanema in May 2001. He was afraid that this was just too good to be true. He had been married 2 times before to Americans. Both marriages were disasters for my friend. He married his brazilian hottie in July 2003, and did the paperwork himselft at the consulate in Rio. An attornery in LA wanted 4500 for all the paperwork. My friend said FU to the attorney, and did it himself.

The Brazilian bride has been in the states almost 2 years now. My friend is happier as time goes on, and cannot recomend a Braizian wife higher. He is happy, and she treats him like a king. I WISH I HAD A WIFE LIKE HE DOES.

My friend is an OLD FART. He is 61, and she is 43 (you wouldld think she was 28 if you saw her).

The point of this post is that it is really possible for an OLD FART to meet a really beautiful Brazilian wife.

The wife even lets my friend visit a terma now and then. She says that all husbands in Rio do it, so she lets him do it as long as he is discrete.

Live the life, and meet the Brazilian wife of your dreams.

MM

ps: It helps to be able to talk to your wife in Portuguese, for Spanish. My friend could not speak Portuguese. Luckily, my friend speaks Spanish, and his Brazilian wife speaks Spanish also.

(Message edited by majormajor on August 25, 2005)

Catacony said: "Once she's here, if you get married she's pretty much good to go."

This is so NOT true!!

A K-1 is the way to go - but is ONLY available if you are NOT married.

Once you are married, then she will have to go home while you go thru the system to get your foreign national SPOUSE a VISA. Current processing time on that for the California Service Center is 26 months! Yes, over 2 YEARS. And if there are kids involved....

(I have a friend who is going thru this now. Luckily his wife has a tourist VISA, and can come visit him for weeks at a time while they wait on her green card.)

(Message edited by catocony on August 26, 2005)

Curious,

What exactly are you talking about? I know of nine guys, at this very minute, who are with their wives in the US. Some came in via K-1, some via tourist visas, all came in with legitimate papers and got married in the US while still in their window of opportunity - 90 days or less with K1 and tourist entries. They did not need to leave the country while paperwork is being processed. In fact, all received the "amnesty visa" or whatever it's called, that allows them to enter and exit the US while their residency paperwork is pending.

Marrying illegals may be another matter, but if they came through immigration/customs on their way in, got their passports stamped and are still in good standing, i.e. have not overstayed their visas, I have never heard of a spouse having to leave while paperwork is processed.

Got a friend doing this presently.

He gave me this url:

https://egov.immigration.gov/cris/jsps/Processtimes.jsp?SeviceCenter=California

Hmmm....
the odd https:// is apparently unrecognized by hombre's system or the link is getting blocked or something.

Clicking through gets me the added http://https//

copying and pasting gets http://https://

The difference being the second colon.
Maybe it's my browser.
Play with it to get to the site.

Curious is a bit confused..

What he is talking about is if you get married overseas, then you have that long wait problem.

There are dozens of types of VISAs which will allow a foreign national to enter the USA for varying lengths of time.

Assuming we are talking about a foreign national getting married to a US Citizen and wanting to live in the USA legally, there are only four VISAs available to a foreign national that are influenced by marriage status to a US Citizen. (Note there is a fifth approach to getting this done, thru a direct consular filing, but that only applies to certain countries and in certain circumsyances.)

Those four are the K-1, the relatively new K-3, the IR-1, and the CR-1.

Note that ALL of these require an interview at the US Consulate in the foreign nationals native country before they will be issued.

The K-1 is issued after an interview, but is unique in that it is the only one of the four issued prior to marriage to the US Citizen.

If someone were to get, say, a B-2 VISA (commonly called a tourist VISA) and come to the USA and get married while in the USA, said marriage has NO IMPACT on the B-2 VISA. If that VISA (via the I-94) allows 90 days stay in the USA, getting married doesn't extend that time period.

The foreign national could apply for an extension, but typically marriage is not going to be considered a reason to grant an extension. The application alone, however, can add three months to the persons stay in the USA.

Instead they will most likely be encouraged to apply for a K-3. To apply for the K-3 the foreign national will have to apply, and be interviewed, at the US Consulate in their home country. They specifically CANNOT apply and complete the process it while in the USA. Period.

Now, assuming they are still in the US legally (say on that B-2 VISA) nothing is stopping them from having someone do all the paperwork back home, and they just fly home for the interview. But they WILL have to go home for that.

A good summary of all options available when marrying a foreign national is located at: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?pg=compare

Oh, and BTW, it does NOT matter where you get married. The USCIS treats any marriage that is recognized as legitimate by the US State Department as being the same - married in their home country, married in the USA, or married in a third country all together - as long as it is recognized as a legal marriage by the US State Department.

Again, I will say that the K-1 is by FAR the best choice, for many reasons - most of which have not been discussed here. And it REQUIRES that you not be married at the time of application.

Curious,

The point we're trying to make is that with a K-1, that is a single entry visa, good for one 90-day stay. If you marry the girl before the 90 days are up, she stays in the US. No need to leave and go back home. However, if you don't get married within the 90-day window, she's supposed to leave at that point, since her visa has expired.

I work in Human Resources and I know a good immigration lawyer in Texas. He used to be with a big law firm and now he's got his own law firm. Even though my company was a client of his old firm for years when he quit and started his own company we stayed with him. He's that good. I would highly recommend him. IM me for contact info.