K1 Fiancee Visa Services And Fees
I typically do not ask for a consultation fee from a fiancée visa caller who is interested in hiring me to prepare and file his or her I-129f fiancée visa petition, and act as their attorney of record throughout the fiancée visa process. Give me a call so we can talk about your case and answer any questions you may have about the services I provide (916) 451-4992. Once hired, I will e-mail a questionnaire to you to get the process started.
DOMA and Same-Sex Couples: Note that on June 26th 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional. Since that time I have assisted many same-sex couples with their fiancée based immigration cases. Call my office for a free consultation if you are in a same-sex relationship and are interested in discussing a possible fiancée immigration case.
Services Performed During A Typical Fiancée Case:
• Examine your unique facts in order to identify any "red-flag" issues, and discuss with you the best approach in dealing with any red-flag issues spotted.
• Prepare your I-129f Petition For Alien Fiancée.
• Prepare attorney certified copies of your original documents for submission to the USCIS and return the original documents to you.
• Prepare the petitioner's affidavit of support for the international fiancée to hand carry to his or her visa interview (There is an additional attorney fee to prepare an affidavit for a cosponsor, if needed).
• Prepare your and your fiancée's personal declarations as to your intent to marry.
• Prepare a declaration for you to sign and submit with your case, requesting your case be processed at the swifter California Service Center (since my practice is located in California) as opposed to the slower Vermont Service Center.
• Prepare an attorney cover letter for your I-129f submission and combine it with the USCIS forms, declarations and evidence to create a well-documented submission that avoids beginner mistakes, and submit it to the appropriate USCIS Service Center.
• Make a request with your I-129f submission that the USCIS Service Center send cable notification to the U.S. Consulate upon the approval of your petition.
• Mail the receipt notice to you and show you how you can use the USCIS website to monitor the processing of your case.
• Show you how to use the USCIS processing time reports to determine if your case becomes "overdue".
• Monitor the progress of your petition with the USCIS Service Center and contact them if the processing of your case becomes "overdue."
• Supply you with copies of all correspondence sent to my office from the USCIS about your case.
• Contact the USCIS to resolve any mistakes they might make during the processing of your petition.
• Send the original approval notice to you for safe keeping in your home file for later use when your (then) spouse applies for conditional permanent resident status.
• Upon the arrival of your I-129f approval notice I immediately create the first page of the on-line DS-160 nonimmigrant visa application form (This is a new procedure as of October 7th 2013 for all K-1 fiancée visa cases). I also scan and upload your fiancée's photo into that system to make sure it meets the department of state photo specifications. I provide the petitioner and the foreign fiancée with instructions to access the DS-160 form that I started for the foreign fiancée. I then review the foreign fiancée's DS-160 upon completion by the foreign fiancée (I typically find and correct a few errors each time I review a completed DS-160 for a client). Once that review is complete, I instruct the foreign fiancée to hit the sign and submit button thereby submitting the correctly completed nonimmigrant visa application to the U.S. Consulate prior to the actual case file reaching the U.S. Consulate. I also send to the petitioner and foreign fiancée instructions and relevant links to the specific Consular website pages so they can begin to familiarize themselves with the upcoming Consulate procedures. And of course, I am there to answer the petitioner’s and foreign fiancée’s questions throughout the Consular process.
• Contact the U.S. Consulate to resolve any mistakes they might make during the processing of your fiancée’s application for the K-1 visa.
• Prepare a new declaration for you to sign, which your fiancée will have on hand at the visa interview which states you are still legally free to marry and that you still intend to marry your fiancée within 90 days of your fiancée’s entry into the USA (Some Consulate ask for this signed declaration when the I-129f approval notice 4-month validity period has expired by the visa interview date).
• Supply information and tips to help your fiancée prepare for the visa interview and to help your fiancée avoid making beginner mistakes.
• Be there throughout the entire process to answer your or your fiancée’s questions about the USCIS and/or Consular processing as they come up along the way.
K-1 Fiancée Visa - Full Service Representation:
$2500.00 = The flat-rate attorney fee
$30.00 = Estimated Expense Fee
$535.00 = The current USCIS filing Fee
Total: $3065.00.
If you are seeking a K-2 visa for a child (under the age of 21) of your fiancee, there is an additional attorney fee of $500.00 per child to perform the additional work required for each child's K-2 visa.
Please note that any attorney fee listed in this website is subject to immediate change upon publication of the new attorney fee. Please also note that the USCIS filing fees are subject to change.
Payment Plan Option:
For clients who need it, I am willing to split the attorney fee into as many as five monthly payments however for those cases, at the outset I will need one fifth of the attorney fee, the estimated expense fee ($30.00) and the USCIS filing fee ($535.00) at the time you hire me to work on your case.
Do Not Send Cash:
I will not accept responsibility for any cash payment that is sent and lost or stolen in the mail. Payment is accepted by credit card or personal check. Payment by credit card is preferred. If paying by check, make it payable to Law Office of Matthew Udall.
Click here for instructions about how to send your materials to my office.
Additional Charges For Services Not Covered By The Basic Flat-Rate Attorney Fee:
1. Expenses Which Exceed The Estimated Expense Fee:
Typically the $30.00 “estimated expense fee” covers all of the expenses incurred in a normal case such as delivery costs (U.S. Priority Mail to you, U.S. Priority Mail to submit your case to the USCIS plus my shipment to the U.S. Consulate), long distance telephone costs plus other office expenses such as copying and materials. The client will need to supply additional funds for expenses that exceed the estimated expense fee. For example, if the client wants me to ship forms to the client via Fed-Ex or other premium shipping methods, the client would need to supply funds to cover this premium shipping expense.
2. Additional Affidavit Of Support For A Cosponsor:
I charge an additional fee of $500.00 to prepare an additional affidavit of support package for a cosponsor, if needed.
3. Self-Employment Fee: If you are self-employed, it requires much more attorney time and work to document your current income for your affidavit of support package and there is an additional fee of $600.00 to cover the additional attorney time required.
4. Having To Redo Work Previously Performed:
My flat rate attorney fee is based on the time it takes to prepare the USCIS forms one time. If you lose the forms, list inaccurate information on your questionnaire, or if you or your fiancée move or something else happens that would require modification of the forms, I will modify the forms I have already prepared to reflect the new information if possible; however if that is not possible or if you lose the forms I charge an additional hourly rate fee of $200.00 per hour to perform the work of re-creating your forms and supplying those new forms to you. Therefore it is very important that you double check the information you list on my questionnaire to make sure it is accurate and complete. Note that it typically takes around an hour to reprint and resend forms to a client.
5. RFE Fee: The attorney will use his best efforts to create a well-documented submission in an effort to avoid receiving a “Request For Evidence” (RFE) in your case however it is the client’s responsibility to gather and supply to the attorney the necessary suggested supporting documentation listed on the questionnaire that the attorney will supply to the client. If the client fails to provide the attorney with any of the necessary suggested supporting documentation or any “other” (not listed on the questionnaire) unique supporting documentation identified by the attorney who instructs the client to obtain the unique item for submission with the case and the client’s failure to provide the evidence triggers an RFE, the client agrees to pay the attorney’s hourly rate of $200.00 per hour for the work tasks and time it takes the attorney to prepare the RFE reply and send it to the USCIS. It typically takes 2 to 4 hours to reply to an RFE.
As an example, if the client has experienced certain arrests and/or convictions but does not supply to the attorney either 1) A court certified copy of the arrest record and/or disposition for each incident, or…2) A certified statement from the court indicating that no record exists of your arrest, citation, charge, indictment, conviction, fine or imprisonment and the failure to submit either 1 or 2 causes the USCIS to issue an RFE for this evidence, the client agrees to pay the attorney $200.00 per hour for the attorney’s time in prepareing the reply to the RFE.
6. IMBRA Waiver (International Marriage Broker Regulation Act):
My flat rate attorney fee does not cover any additional time required to do IMBRA related "waiver request" work. An IMBRA waiver request can be required for past criminal convictions or multiple prior I-129f submissions. Any IMBRA related waiver request work will require an additional retainer fee, and that additional IMBRA related waiver request work would be billed at a rate of $200.00 per hour. Note that IMBRA issues are not present in the vast majority of cases.
7. Other Waiver Work:
In the unlikely event the U.S. Consul determines your fiancée is inadmissible to the United States for medical, vaccination or background reasons, you may retain me to prepare a waiver however please note this is not included in my 1st Phase fiancée visa attorney fee. The vast majority of my client’s fiancée’s do not need a waiver so I don’t incorporate the fee to do waiver work into my usual flat-rate fee. The preparation of a waiver of grounds of inadmissibility is an additional service requiring an additional fee. I charge an hourly rate of $200.00 per hour to perform this service.
8. Appeal Work:
My flat rate attorney fee does not cover any sort of appeal work in the event the Consulate denies an application for visa issuance. Note also that there are some types of denials that cannot be appealed. Any sort of appeal work would be billed at $200.00 per hour.
Note About Consular Fees:
Please note that the Consulate charges a fee during the process of applying to obtain a fiancée visa. This fee is paid directly by the client’s fiancée to the U.S. Consulate later on, so there is no need to send this fee to my office.
K-1 Consultation Case Review - Assistance For The Do-It-Yourselfer:
If you don’t want full service representation but you would like me to look over your case before it is submitted to the USCIS, I also offer a “consultation case review” service for the Do-It-Yourselfer.
I’ve done this many times in the past and in doing this work I’ve never failed to spot serious mistakes made on the forms, errors in the type of evidence used to substantiate the case, beginner mistakes and unwarranted assumptions being made by the petitioner about case processing and how the system works, etc.
Click here If you would like more information about my K-1 Consultation Case Review - Assistance For The Do-It-Yourselfer service.
DISCLAIMER: Read the full length disclaimer here.
Matthew Udall is an active member of the California State Bar Association and the Federal Bar Association, and licensed to practice law in California. The information given at this web site is intended as general information only and is not a substitute for the services of an immigration attorney in your specific case. Reading this webpage or website does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and Visa Earth – The Law Office Of Matthew Udall.
Please note that any attorney fee listed in this website is subject to immediate change upon publication of the new attorney fee.
Attorney Advertising: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any testimonials or endorsements which may appear on any page of this website do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter.
