Hi, there,

INS notified me about my naturalization oath ceremony – Nov 22. I
assume that I will become a U.S. citizen the same day.

My girlfriend in Indonesia (an Indonesian national) is 1,5 month
pregnant. We intend to get married and to start a family.

There are two options: one is to sponsor her for fiancée visa (K-1) or
to get married in Indonesia and apply to sponsor her to come to the
U.S. as a spouse of a U.S. citizen (I-130 or I-129F).

There are several  questions: 

1. Which option is better in terms of bringing her to the U.S. sooner,
preferably before the child is born?

2. How long will it take at this time for her/my petition to be
approved by the INS in case of K-1 or I-130-I129F?

3. How long will it take after the INS approval for her to actually
obtain the visa from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta?

4. Is there a better option than these two that I, without being an
attorney, have determined to be the most beneficial?

5. Is an attorney any help, is it worth spending $1-2K or more for
her/his services, can he/she somehow speed up the process?

Thank you!

---

Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 06 Dec 2002 23:18 PST

Hi! I would just like to ask if you're still interested in an answer
for this question? I maybe able to find some info. Just let me know.
:)

Hi bibbule,
You can find excellent guides to these matters at the INS website:
http://www.ins.gov/graphics/howdoi/fiance.htm
http://www.ins.gov/graphics/services/residency/family.htm

While the INS website presumably provides definitive guidance on
current law (and the current interpretation of the law), it is very
hard to get definitive answers to your concerns about timing. The INS
pretty much gets to do things however they want to, and at the moment
they are prone to causing unreasonable delays for no good reasons. It
is possible, in many cases, to "expedite" the process by paying extra
"fees." I am more familiar with a recent case where the goal was to
simply get a visa for some musicians to perform in the US and get paid
for doing so. To get the visa in a timely manner required an extra
$1000 fee! This was all nominally above-board--it was not the
under-the-table bribe common in many other countries, but it sure
looked a lot like a bribe to the organization that had to come up with
the extra $1000 at the last minute to meet the scheduled event timing.

Since your timing is partly based on the anticipated birth of a child,
you will also want to consider where you want the child to born. Since
you are now a US citizen, presumably your child can be a US citizen no
matter where it is born. If you want it to have the option of dual
citizenship, you may want to look into how the place of birth would
affect that. If necessary, you may want to consider getting your
fiance into the US at an appropriate time on a tourist visa (at least
as a back up plan if other visas are delayed) just to make sure she is
in the US at the time of birth (assuming that is your preference).

A good immigration attorney or agent MIGHT be worth paying for. They
are most likely to be up to date on current actual delays and
expediting methods that actually work. It might be worth at least
having a free intitial consultation with one or two to see what they
think they could do for you. As with any bureaucracy, you may not have
to have help to work your way through your fiances INS battles, but
sometimes, the right knowledgeable assistant can help you save time by
working the system in the right ways.