So you have met the love of your life— ONLINE.
You both are single. She is wonderful; she feels the same about you. You have the same likes AND dislikes. You have similar life plans and you are sincerely attracted to each other. She might be “the one.” MeetYourMatchWorldwide.xyz* was spot on!
You are an American citizen living in Scottsdale, Arizona and it so happens that she is a native and resident of Kiev, Ukraine.
After a year and a half of online chats, Skyping, telephone calls, emails, texts (and that one letter that you actually placed in the mail), the two visits that you made to Kiev to meet and visit your foreign love and your job promotion—you both have decided to marry. Congratulations!
The mutual decision has been made for the future Mr. and Mrs. to make Scottsdale home.
After consulting with me, Jamene Christian of FianceSpouseVisaLawyer.com, you are reassured; you are now confident that you are
eligible to file the K-1 visa (in spite of a few “pink-flag” concerns in your petition that were discovered and neutralized by me BEFORE those concerns morphed into red-flag issues in the eyes of the USCIS) without the need of a waiver.
I ask you: “How did you meet your fiancée?” You proudly respond: “We met on MeetYourMatchWorldwide.xyz over a year ago.” Unknown to you, that red-flag response opens up a whole new line of questions by me and most importantly by the USCIS.
There is nothing wrong, dishonest or even unusual about meeting the love of your life online. You know that. I know that. And the U.S. government is in agreement. However, since the passing of the 2005 International Marriage Broker Regulation Act and the recent enforcement of the Act, meeting your foreign fiancé on an online dating site has become a cause of concern and inquiry for USCIS and by extension, me.
The purpose of IMBRA is to prevent violence against foreign fiancés, spouses and their children by informing the fiancé/spouse of a U.S. citizen petitioner’s criminal convictions for specified offenses BEFORE they [the fiancé or spouse] enter the United States. “Good law” in my book, by the way.
So how did online dating sites get caught up in IMBRA? Foreign fiancés and eventual spouses were being harmed and even killed by their U.S. citizen petitioners. The government determined that often the initial contact between the U.S. citizen and the foreign fiancé/spouse victim was made via online mail-order-bride websites. The government refers to theses services as “international marriage brokers.”
You don’t want to have your K-1/Cr-1 unnecessarily delayed because you met your fiancé or spouse on an online dating site. So now what?
You want to “Get Out in Front of Your Petition” to avoid the USCIS’s dreaded RFE. So if you met online, check back with the online site to determine if the site falls under the oversight of IMBRA. If so, make sure that site is IMBRA compliant.
By the way, most well-known sites do not fall under IMBRA. But be advised, USCIS is not going to do a Google search to determine if your site is IMBRA regulated/compliant. That’s your job. Here is the best advice I can offer: If you are considering using an online dating site to meet the love of your life, check to see if the site is IMBRA regulated/compliant. If after reading the site’s terms of service or speaking with the site’s administrator and you are still not sure, don’t click on—move on!
If you have IMBRA concerns due to past legal issues with the courts, send me an email at Jamene@fiancespousevisalawyer.com and let’s talk.
*MeetYourMatchWorldwide.xyz is a fictitious site.
Many thanks,
Jamene Christian
The Fiance Spouse Visa Lawyer
www.fiancespousevisalawyer.com