If you are a U.S. citizen who is engaged to a foreign national who lives overseas, you must file a petition for alien fiancé (Form I-129F), and meet certain requirements. Below is a document checklist for this type of case:
CHECKLIST FOR FIANCE(E) VISA
1. Copy of face page of Sponsor’s US passport and certified copy of US birth certificate (copy both front and back of birth certificate)
2. Evidence that you and your fiancé(e) have met personally within the past two years, e.g.,
- photos of the two of you together
- copies of passport pages that show the identification page and admission stamps
- airline ticket stubs and receipts (that indicate month, day, and year of travel)
- ATM and credit card transactions, flight itinerary on airline/travel agency letterhead
- affidavits from persons who have personal knowledge that you have met*
3. Statements from each of you regarding your plans to marry within 90 days of your fiancé(e)’s entry into the United States
4. Statement regarding how and when you first met
5. Evidence of termination of prior marriages, if any
6. one passport photo of your fiancé(e), and one of you
7. a completed Biographical Information Form (G-325A) for both you and your fiancé(e)- foreign spouse must also sign in his/her native language
8. filing fee – check or money order payable to “US Department of Homeland Security”
9. certified copy of all conviction records, if sponsoring spouse has ever been convicted of a crime in the U.S. or abroad
Among the requirements for a successful fiancé petition is proof that you and your fiancé have met at least once during the two years preceding the filing of the fiancé petition. For example, if you filed a petition for your alien fiancé on June 11, 2003, then you and your fiancé are required to have met during the period that began on June 11, 2001 and ended on June 11, 2003.
There are two exceptions to this rule, but they are difficult to prove. Pursuant to the Code of Federal Regulations, a petitioner may be exempted from the requirement for a pre-engagement meeting if it is established that compliance with the requirement for the meeting would:
(1) Result in extreme hardship to the petitioner, or
(2) Compliance with the requirement for a meeting would violate strict and long-established customs of the beneficiary's foreign culture or social practice, as where marriages are traditionally arranged by the parents of the contracting parties and the prospective bride and groom are prohibited from meeting subsequent to the arrangement and prior to the wedding day. In addition to establishing that the required meeting would be a violation of custom or practice, the petitioner must also establish that any and all other aspects of the traditional arrangements have been or will be met in accordance with the custom or practice.
The regulations do not define what may constitute extreme hardship to the petitioner. Therefore, each claim of extreme hardship must be judged on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all of the petitioner's circumstances. Generally, the immigration service will look at whether the petitioner can demonstrate the existence of circumstances that are (1) not within the power of the petitioner to control or change, and (2) likely to last for a considerable duration, or the duration cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.
In one recent case, a petitioner submitted a letter from a priest at his mosque stating that, according to the Islamic faith, the parties to be engaged are not allowed to meet without a chaperone. He also submitted a letter from another religious expert that stated that the petitioner was a member of his (the expert’s) mosque, and that engaged couples did not meet until the day they are married. The letters, however, did not state that a meeting between the petitioner and the beneficiary is prohibited. Therefore, the petition did not meet the requirements for the second (“long-established customs”) waiver.
The immigration service has experience with applications similar to the above example, and relies on information provided by the Imam Islamic Foundation of North America. According to the Islamic Foundation of North America, Islamic Law and practices provide that adult Muslim men and women are not allowed to date or meet their future spouses before marriage. However, for finalizing the decision to marry, it is permissible for both to see each other in the presence of their families. It appears, therefore, that it is not specifically prohibited for the future spouses to meet before their marriage. A skillful immigration attorney would have pointed out this flaw before the application was filed. Luckily, however, the immigration service allowed another petition to be filed which contained sufficient evidence for an exemption to the prior-meeting requirement.
In another recent case, a petitioner never met her fiancé because he lived in Lebanon. She provided evidence that Lebanon was an unsafe place, and that she was therefore unable to travel there to meet her fiancé. However, her argument failed because she could have met her fiancé in a neutral country, but chose not to do so. Regulations do not require that the petitioner travel to the beneficiary’s home country; but the petitioner must demonstrate that he/she and the beneficiary explored options for a meeting beyond the petitioner traveling to the beneficiary’s home country. These options may include the beneficiary traveling to meet the petitioner in the United States or a bordering country. The petitioner in the Lebanese case also argued that traveling to meet her finance is prohibitively time-consuming and expensive, and is therefore an “extreme hardship”. However, the position of the immigration service is that the financial and time commitments required for travel to a foreign country are not “extreme hardship” such as to support a waiver of the prior-meeting requirement.
Petitions for fiancés whom the petitioners have never met have been approved, but the law is complicated and the services of a competent immigration specialist should be sought as early as possible in these cases.
About the author: Kathleen Lord-Black is a U.S. immigration lawyer.
Her offices are located in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has served
as Immigration Consultant for the San Francisco Public Defenders Office,
2005 Chair of the Immigration Section of the Barristers Club of the Bar
Association of San Francisco, and former Congressional liaison for U.S.
Representative Farr. Ms. Lord-Black is an active member of the
American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Civil
Liberties Union. Her articles regularly appear in the Bay Area
Arabic-language newspaper, Alra’i Alarabi. Ms. Lord-Black can be
reached via email at kathleen@kathleenlord.com; and by telephone at
(604) 605-7012 and (604) 352-2006. www.immigration-etats-unis.com
