I became a U.S. citizen in 1/2018 2018, and filed I-129F in 2/2018
Long story short my now wife received her 10 year green card 10/2022 close to 5 years after I-129F was filed.
We didn t go the CR-1 route because of the legal difficulty of my wife, a citizen and resident of Burma, getting married to a foreigner of a different race and religion. Among the few countries she could travel to without a visa, marriage between two foreigners was a cumbersome process. Something like the Utah zoom marriage service did not exist.
Let s imagine remote marriage service did exist and we went the CR-1 route. How might our timeline have changed:
March 2017 - during one of our actual in person meetings , we get married via Utah Zoom and file I-130. While we had decided to get married earlier, our previous two meetings were in Burma and in 2016, Internet speeds their didn t support video conferencing.
January 2018 - I take oath of citizenship and inform USCIS or NVC to upgrade petitioner status.
March 2019 - on our two year wedding anniversary my wife enters the USA on her CR-1 visa. In the real timeline she entered January 2019 on a K-1.
April 2019 - my wife receives a 10 year green card. In the real time line she filed I-485 April 2019, and received a 2 year gc in January 2020, forcing us to file I-751 in 10/2021.
In the real timeline, a year later in 10/2022 she received her 10 year gc. This btw is abnormally fast. We have a high profile member on visajourney who has been waiting 3 years with a joint filing and if anything, has a more solid case than ours.
Back to the alternate timeline. March 2022 - my wife files for U.S. citizenship. In the real time she hasn t filed yet and won t be eligible until later this month in October 2022.
K-1 was not faster for us. It was more expensive in USCIS fees.
Imagine a petitioner who is already a U.S. citizen, visiting a fianc (e) in a country with decent Internet. I think end to end the process would be faster by a year or 2. Probably more because I-751 cases are a death march now and not a day goes by without discussion on visajourney about what to do when a 24 month extension letter expires. 36 month extension letters are coming is my prediction.
Conditional LPRs increasingly can t travel, can t work, can t drive. This didn t matter much to us because of the pandemic and my fortunate financial situation. But most couples aren t as old as my wife and I are.
Do not do K-1 unless your alien fianc (e) has children aged 18, 19, or 20 and you both want them to immigrate at the same time.