Normally, the K-1 visa requires the K-1 applicants to meet within the two years immediately prior to the filing of the K-1 fiance visa. However, the immigration agency allows for two exceptions to this requirement. One exception is based upon the extreme hardship that would be felt by the K-1 petitioner. The second exception is based on whether “compliance would violate strict and long-established customs of the beneficiary’s foreign culture or social practice.”
Many applicants who are cognizant of the exception mistakenly believe that they are eligible. Given the USCIS’s interpretation of the regulations, however, it is extremely difficult to establish one’s eligibility for this exception. Many cultures and religious do not approve of a couple meeting before their wedding. However, in the modern age many couples do not always completely comply with their cultural and/or religious practices. The USCIS has repeatedly ruled that if a meeting is not approved of by a religion or culture, but is tolerated nonetheless, the meeting requirement will not be waived.
It is possible to obtain a waiver of the meeting requirement because of the beneficiary’s long standing culture or religion. However, to be successful it is necessary for an applicant to thoroughly demonstrate the cultural or religious practice forbidding the meeting. Gafner Law Firm is a NYC fiance visa law firm that will work closely with k-1 visa applicants from throughout the United States to ensure that a K-1 beneficiary who is eligible for a waiver based upon his or her cultural or religious practice will be able to demonstrate that eligibility to the government.