I have written a lot of articles about immigration issues and processes for U.S. Citizens who are engaged to or married to foreign nationals. I was reviewing the articles on my site the other day and it occurred to me that the majority of the articles I have written are intended for international couples who have already decided to get engaged, married, and live their lives together in the U.S. And in most cases, these articles assume that my audience has already decided which immigration process to pursue.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record saying this but K1 visa applications are won and lost based on the strength of the supporting documentation. One of the most common reasons for the denial of K1 visas at the consular level is failure to establish that the relationship between the U.S. Citizen petitioner and the foreign national fiance or fiancee is bona fide. In simple terms, this means that the applicant didn't convince the consular officer that the relationship was legitimate and not simply for the purposes of obtaining a visa to the U.S.

Although the K1 fiance visa is a non-immigrant visa, in many respects it is treated as an immigrant visa. U.S. immigration law requires that all applicant's for immigrant visas establish that they are not likely to become a public charge. In plain language this means, that the immigrant has to establish they will not require government support such as welfare. K1 visa regulations require that an applicant for a K1 fiancee visa establish that the applicant would be eligible to receive an immigrant visa.

Members of the American Immigration Lawyers Assocation, or AILA, recently reported some outstanding statistics about denial rates for visas to the U.S. In fiscal year 2009. The Department of State (the government agency responsible for adjudicating visa applications) denied and returned over 54,000 visa applications to the USCIS for revocation. Although no case specific date was presented, AILA experts believe that a majority of these denials were marriage-based immigrant visa petitions or fiance visa petitions.