K1 Approval Rate dropping significantly?

[Michael2017 368]

https://cis.org/North/K1-Fiancee-Visas-Are-Now-Harder-Get-Why-Have-Them-All

 

If this is true,  what about CR1??? Same trend?

 

K-1 (Fiancée) Visas Are Now Harder to Get, but Why Have Them at All?

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By David North on January 23, 2018

 

A few years ago I wrote that one of the easiest visas to secure from a consular officer was the K-1, for an alien fiancée.

After all, who wants to stand in the way of Cupid?

At that time (2015) an alien, whose citizen fiancée had secured an approved petition from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had a better than 99 percent chance of floating through the consular interview successfully, as I reported at the time.

No more.

Two things have happened to the K-1 visa: First, there was the mass murder in San Bernardino (Calif.) by two Middle Eastern terrorists; the woman involved had been admitted on a K-1 visa. Second was the arrival of the Trump administration, which has started to handle some of the nuances of migration control with rather more skill at the working level than the rumblings about a Wall coming from the White House.

The nuances of the K-1 visa, as I reported frequently in the previous eight years, were one of the tools employed by the open-borders types in the previous administration to open up all sorts of loopholes in the immigration law, always resulting in a little more migration.

In a 2015 report, I noted that USCIS usually granted the petition (I-129f) that led to the K-1 visa without bothering to interview the citizen seeking it.

That, according to a recent Reuters report recently has been changed by USCIS, and now a face-to-face interview must take place; in such interviews the citizen is (one hopes) warned that not all U.S. citizen-alien marriages work out as hoped.

The K-1 decision numbers are now much different than they were in the past. There are two sets of them. The first deals with the initial step in the process, the petition. In FY 2016, USCIS approved 90.5 percent of the petitions it received; then in FY 2017, which was mostly under the Trump administration, that figure fell to 66.2 percent. (The data are from this hard-to-read USCIS statistical summary.)

The second step — the one involving the overseas interview — showed in the latest data available that in FY 2016 the denial rate was about 20 percent, a huge increase from the 2015 rate of less than 1 percent. Bear in mind that the 20 percent denial rate was laid on cases that had been 100 percent cleared by USCIS. The two agencies are moving in the same direction with, State backstopping DHS.

I dove into these numbers because the Center for Immigration Studies received yet another of those grim letters we see all too frequently from a citizen who had been charged with abuse by the K-1 visa-bearing spouse, who, as usual, prevailed later as a "self-petitioning" applicant for an immediate-relative-of-a-citizen green card. As usual, the citizen did not have a chance to testify and defend himself, as USCIS never allows this to happen. In this case the American was duped by the alien woman despite his PhD and a captain's rank in the Air Force.

This got me to thinking about the need, or lack of it, for the K-1 visa itself. It comes into play only when none of the following scenarios is possible:

• Both the alien and the citizen are now in this country (where they can marry);
• Both the alien and the citizen are together overseas (where they can also marry);
• The alien can get a visa, as a tourist or a student, for example, to come to the United States; or
• The citizen can (or will) travel overseas for the wedding.

So the K-1 visa's existence flies in the face of the old adage "love will find a way." It only is needed when the alien cannot or will not get a visa to come to the United States and, simultaneously, the citizen cannot or will not fly to the other nation for the marriage. If they really wanted to marry they could do so without a K-1 visa.

So why issue them at all? Particularly when some of the K-1 visas produce spectacularly bad marriages.

---

The fine print: There is also a series of immigrant visas available to spouses of citizens and green card holders. Our discussion here is about the K-1 nonimmigrant visa, for the fiancée, and the vast majority of K visas are the K-1s for prospective brides or grooms; there are also K-2 visas for the K-1's child or children, a small number of K-3 visas for alien brides and grooms, and an even smaller number (20 in FY 2016) for the children of K-3's. There are also V-1 visas for fiancées of green-card holders, and V-2 and V-3 visas for the children of V-1's. There are no V-8 visas.

[cd37 229]

Michael, good to see your post here. I remember we had a similar priority date. Although this topic is not applicable to me but following:

[JFH 12,189]

2 hours ago, Michael2017 said:

 

 

 

In a 2015 report, I noted that USCIS usually granted the petition (I-129f) that led to the K-1 visa without bothering to interview the citizen seeking it.

That, according to a recent Reuters report recently has been changed by USCIS, and now a face-to-face interview must take place; in such interviews the citizen is (one hopes) warned that not all U.S. citizen-alien marriages work out as hoped.

 

This is one of the points in the article I take exception to. There is no interview required for the I-129F. They are getting confused with AOS from K visa people who are all now routinely being interviewed at AOS stage (previously AOS was often approved without an interview). There are occasions (very rare) where an interview is requested at petition stage. These are for more complex cases. 

 

USCIS does not get involved with or base decisions on how strong they feel the marriage is or whether they think the couple will divorce. Their process manual strictly instructs the adjudicators to not base their decision to approve/deny a petition on whether they think the marriage will last or not. Marriages end for a variety of reasons. A marriage between two USCs who have lived in the same street all their lives has a 50/50 chance of ending in divorce. The petition is solely concerned with meeting the legal requirements to apply for a family-based visa. 

 

Basically, the USC is saying “I’m a USC, my fiancé’s name is x and I want to bring him/her to the United States to marry him/her and live with him/her” and the I-129F is USCIS saying “prove it! Prove that you are a USC, you have a fiancé named x that you have met face-to-face in the last 2 years and who you are able to and willing to marry. And if you can prove that we will let x apply for a visa”. USCIS petitions are just a filtering method to ensure only those that really qualify can apply for visas. Otherwise the embassies would be receiving DS-160s by the truckload every day from hopeful chancers wanting a new life in America, claiming to be the fiancé of a USC. 

[geowrian 22,335]

2 hours ago, Michael2017 said:

The K-1 decision numbers are now much different than they were in the past. There are two sets of them. The first deals with the initial step in the process, the petition. In FY 2016, USCIS approved 90.5 percent of the petitions it received; then in FY 2017, which was mostly under the Trump administration, that figure fell to 66.2 percent. (The data are from this hard-to-read USCIS statistical summary.)

The approval rates were not ~90.5% pre-Trump, and they are not ~66.2% now.

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms-data/data-set-all-uscis-application-and-petition-form-types

They hovered in the ~18-25% range before Trump took office until now.

 

Quote

The second step — the one involving the overseas interview — showed in the latest data available that in FY 2016 the denial rate was about 20 percent, a huge increase from the 2015 rate of less than 1 percent. Bear in mind that the 20 percent denial rate was laid on cases that had been 100 percent cleared by USCIS. The two agencies are moving in the same direction with, State backstopping DHS.

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/NIVWorkload/FY2015NIVWorkloadbyVisaCategory.pdf

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/NIVWorkload/FY2016NIVWorkloadbyVisaCategory.pdf

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Non-Immigrant-Statistics/NIVWorkload/FY2017NIVWorkloadbyVisaCategory.pdf

2015/2016/2017 Initial Approval Rates: 70.5%    63.1%    62.9%

2015/2016/2017 Final Approval Rates (includes initially refused visas): 86.4%    83.4%    84.9%

These are certainly nowhere near the numbers claimed, and are all within historically consistent rates. The slight decreases are nothing out of the norm, especially for the final refusal rate (which includes people issued a 221g after the interview but completed processing and got the visa).

The claimed <1% refusal rate was likely based on the old reports which only counted K-1s that were initially approved by the IV unit but then refused by the NIV unit (very rare and not indicative of actual refusals).

 

Edit: This article is from 2018? Wow...they are using using old data, and the claimed <1% refusal rate stopped being reported that way years ago.

It also mentions V visas, which haven't been issued since FY 2009 (which was only 1 visa issued and 125 refused). Heck, the I-130 had to have been filed before Dec. 21st, 2000 to even qualify.

Edited November 5, 2018 by geowrian

[debbiedoo 2,339]

as @geowrian said, their numbers arent accurate and the real numbers are within standard approval rate variances. And the author isnt clear on the the actual process and role of USCIS and the consulates.

 

Now, why any one of any ethnicity other white would want to move here under the current administration, is my question but a whole other topic altogether.

 

Honestly, I think the criteria for meeting is too lax. once in two years? not enough in my mind. no requirement on how long youve known each other or been together. no requirement on actual amount of in person time. These are things that are recipes for disasters (in ANY marriage), and no real way to track without looking at the stats for ROC with divorce waivers (which wouldnt account for those who went back to their home country or stayed illegally). Being able to apply for multiple K1s (with or without waivers). obviously (and im just saying this for clarification lol, you cant apply for them simultaneously but ive seen some cases where its look like the petitioner is 'shopping' for a spouse overseas) But again, all of these are totally different subjects than what the article is really talking about.

 

 

[met 106]

This article is actually entertaining  Aside from being obviously anti "current administration" it shows some ridiculous ideas... like getting marry on a tourist visa. I mean, how ignorant you have to be to even think about writing such an article. 

 

[C-ma'am 684]

**post moved from K1 Process to Progress Reports where similar posts are discussed