The K1 fiancee visa, K3 marriage visa, and CR-1 Relative visa services have been our ONLY business since Aug. 24, 1984.

Where do I begin?

Document your courting:
"What kind of visa?" This question is almost meaningless without documenting your courtship. You must be able to prove, with various documents, how your relationship grew. Ultimately this comes up at the visa interview whether married or not, and is a major factor in determining whether or not the visa is granted to your honey. This is required for both K1 Fiancee visas and K3 marriage visas. To sift out fraud cases, the interviewing immigration officer will require proof that the two of you discussed basic things that lead to a solid marriage. Ultimately, you will choose between a K1 visa or K3 visa. Requirements for both are explained further below.

Meeting in person:
In order to get your honey here, or keep him/her here, you MUST have met in person (or be already married) and be able to prove it without question! If you married your sweetheart abroad, that's meeting. If not, then you MUST have met in person somewhere within the last 2 years and be able to prove the meeting and date for a K1 Fiance visa. More...

What kind of Visa?:
This depends on a number of factors, and is a choice the two of you must make together. There are a lot of tradeoffs. See "a case for the K3 visa" to put the often maligned K3 visa in perspective. You have the choices of a K1 visa (fiance marry's you in U.S), a K3 visa (you marry your sweetheart in abroad), also called a marriage visa, or a concurrently filed relative visa if married within the U.S. and your honey has been here a significant time before you married.

Visitor or Tourist visa:
The chance of having your honey visit you to avoid having to make a trip there, is almost impossible in most cases (countries). A single woman is almost certainly denied since the Consulate Officer believes she is only hunting for a husband or a place to earn more money. About 30% visitors from 3rd. world countries do not return as promised. See more....

Bringing children along:
The requirements differ between the K1 visa ( K2 visa for a child ) and the K3 visa ( K4 for a child ).

K1 visa child ( K2 visa ) The child is merely listed on the visa petition along with the foreign parent's other children. The child must be under 21 and unmarried at the time of visa issuance to come along on a derivative K2 visa, and must apply for an adjustment of or change of status just as a parent in order to obtain Permanent Residence.

The K3 visa child ( K4 visa ) The child is also merely listed on the visa petition along with the foreign parent's other children. The child must be under 21 and unmarried at the time of visa issuance to come along on a derivative K4 visa, and must also apply for a change of status.

HOWEVER - See K4 visa for more details.

What we do:
We provide a comprehensive service to get your sweetheart to the U.S. in the fastest time possible. Our specialized service includes K1 visas ( fiancee visas ), ( some misspell it "finance" visa ), K3 visas ( Marriage visa ) for foreign spouses, and CR-1 Relative immigrant visas for immediate relatives. Our service includes Advance Parole or Reentry Permit processing as part of our application for change of status, as part of all our Full Services. No additional fee. We don't play games in charging for different process steps. Just a flat fee for the whole process. And we guarantee THE VISA, NOT just the petition approval as the other lawyers do. A moron can get a visa petition approved eventually. Click here to see how we do it.

Our service guarantees an immigrant visa being issued to your loved one, not just a petition approval. That guarantee extends all the way through the Change of Status proceedings for K1 visas and K3 visas. No other service offers this.

K1 fiancee Visa

A K1 visa is a temporary 90 day, one time non-immigrant visa used to bring your fiance to the U.S. for the sole purpose of marriage in the U.S. It's not to get to know each other.

You must first get to know each other through communication of some sort that can be documented, and have met in person within the last two years. Proof of this meeting is NOT obvious. It can be faked in many ways, but the USCIS is VERY familiar with such attempts that may be born out of fraud or ignorance.

The U.S. citizen is the visa petitioner, and your foreign sweetheart is the fiance visa applicant or beneficiary.

An average of 42% of K1 visas are rejected due to unacceptable proof of meeting documents and insubstantial proofs of relationship building (courtship). In many thousands of fiance visa cases, over 23 years, Apex has NEVER had one rejected. A number of attempts, yes. But never held up. We have some distinct advantages over our competitors and we do more work for the buck than anyone.

When a K1 visa holder arrives in the U.S., the couple must marry within 90 days or return. After the marriage, the fiancee visa holder must apply for Change of Status to obtain an immigrant visa in order to have permanent residence. Getting U.S. citizenship is optional and may not be applied for until being married to the same person for 3 years. K1 visa details....

K3 Marriage Visa

If you choose to marry outside the U.S., then a K3 Visa AND an I-130 Relative Visa petition filing will be required if you want your honey here in less than a year. Just filing a Relative Visa petition alone can take well over 2 years to process while the K3 visa takes about the same time as a K1 fiance visa. The K3 visa is often called a "Marriage visa." See K3 visa details....

Marrying in your fiance's country requires an I-130 Relative Visa Petition to be filed in order to qualify for filing a K3 visa. Being married makes you relatives. Your spouse's child(ren) become your stepchild(ren) and therefore, relatives.

Upon arrival in the U.S., within a 2 year period, the primary (your honey) and any children coming along, must apply for a change of status in order to gain permanent residence. This is because they arrived as non-immigrants.

A separate Relative petition must be filed for each child as well, at some point in the process. The stepchild(ren) become K4 Visa derivatives of the blood or adoptive parent's K3 visa. See details....

The K1 and K3 visas differ in several ways

Each visa type has characteristics that can make the choice of which way to go. You'd be well advised to understand both. The Internet is loaded with K1 fiance visa talk, but the K3 visa ( marriage visa ) has far too little said about it.    Learn all about the advantages / disadvantages here.

If your honey is already in the U.S.A. visiting, working, or going to school, you may be able to keep him/her here!

You may be in real luck. Neither a K1 Fiancee or K3 Visa are required. You may be able to marry and keep your spouse here! But it depends on how long your honey has been here or how long he/she is allowed to be here - legally. But DO NOT MARRY until you've spoken to Apex FIRST, else you may walk into a trap and you're honey would have to return home. We do quite a few of these cases. If you find yourself in such a situation, CALL US before you do something you'll regret. This has to be done right, else your honey will have to return home to await a much longer process.

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Information on this site is intended to keep you from
making common BIG mistakes!

The visa process is like walking through a mine field. If you don't know what you're doing, understand the consequences of your bad choices, you will be miserable and you'll waste lots if time and money, then end up more miserable than you can imagine. KNOW what choices you have and the person you are going to marry!

Everyone's in a hurry. Haste makes waste. If you find someone promising short processing times over the promises of another, then call your Congressman's office to see how long it takes! An attorney and others have more of a biased reason to make bad claims. After all, they benefit in some way. Your congressional aide does NOT have an interest in your wallet or purse.

We show you what it's all about and where the baloney comes from. Our knowledge of the K1 fiance visa and K3 visa process provides the missing details that government case workers want to see, but don't tell you. THE DEVIL's in the DETAILS and that's what our service provides along with filling out the forms and reviewing them meticulously. Read How We Do Your Case, then you'll understand how we earn our keep, besides giving you these caveats.

Other things to know - Like Fees and other costs.

1) OUR FEES, government fees, and other fees are published in several places on this web site. Click here to see government filing fees. See drop down menu at top of this page for OUR fees.

2) Our money back Guarantee applies to the whole process, from petitioning to GETTING THE VISA!   K1 visa and K3 visa attorneys only guarantee a petition approval, not the visa! Yet visa denials ALWAYS take place AFTER a petition has been approved - THE LAWYER HAS NOTHING TO LOSE!! Learn how you get scammed! It's a long read, but very interesting and sheds a lot of light on reality.

3) The over all process - so you get the picture of what goes on in the whole process.

a) You - are the U.S. Citizen Petitioner. Your foreign honey is the visa applicant and beneficiary trying to obtain U.S. Residency.

b) The Petition is filed and goes to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service) - under the U.S. Dept. of Justice, but now also referred to as the Dept. of Homeland Security, to process the K1 fiance visa or K3 Visa petition only.

c) The NVC (National Visa Center) receives the Petition documents from the USCIS after approval, to place them in the jurisdiction of the U.S. Dept. of State which may issue the visa through the U.S. Consulate - part of the State Dept.

d) The NVC has a security check run on your foreign sweetheart. When the report comes back clean, it goes to the Bureau of Consular Affairs who is the "boss agency" of the U.S. Consulates outside the U.S. They send the approved package to the proper U.S. Consulate in your honey's country.

e) The U.S. Consulate sends your honey a package containing - at least - the application (DS-156) for the visa, a State Dept. Biographical form (DS-230 part 1), AOS (Affidavit of Support) requirement and other needed documents like, police clearance, divorce papers, birth certificate, etc. These instructions are quite simple, but vary from one country to another, and are often in your honey's native legal language.

f) Your honey fills these out, pays for the visa, and returns them to the U.S. Consulate, which in return sends back final instructions with interview date and the required medical exam. Details of all the above are included in our Service information as well as special forms for YOU to petition. One little error can cause comments on the case rider that causes your honey to deal with a surprise interrogation at the interview. That's TROUBLE, and it's why we are here.

g) After your honey concludes the visa interview, he/she comes to the U.S.A. What's done after your honey arrives depends on whether it's a K1 fiancee visa, K3 spouse visa or I-130 Relative visa. But in K visa cases, your honey will have to change the non-immigrant status to permanent resident in order to remain in the U.S. Those details are included in our service.

h) You will be notified at each processing point as the case moves through the system by "Notices of Action" (which are just memos). You will receive receipts, approval notices, and transfer notices. You MUST keep us informed of these notices so we know when and what to send you next.

We do not include this kind of info until you need it because of the frequent changes that seem to be occurring at a growing pace. We're constantly updating these things so they are up to date when you need them. You must get everything right the first time in order to avoid long, extra delays and possible visa denial, not to mention extra costs.

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