K-1 K-3 or green card for dual Thai-Cambodian citizen?

[farangkiinok]

My wife to be is a dual Thai-Cambodian citizen and carries a Thai passport. I'm a US citizen. We plan to get married soon and apply for either a K-1 or K-3 visa or a marriage based green card. I don't meet the minimum income requirements since I only receive social security and haven't had a US based income in quite a while. We currently live in Cambodia but I plan on returning to the US to work for two years to become financially eligible. I also have an opportunity to work in the legal marijuana industry so I would like to know if that would adversely affect our chances for approval. So we're not sure whether to get married before I leave and then apply for a K-3 once I met the income threshold or apply for a K-1 first. Or would it be better to just apply for the green card? Any advice or suggestions are highly valued. Thanks.

[GinBoy2]

Thats an interesting one.

 

Regardless of what visa you go for, you need to be able to pass the support threshold, either through income or assets.

 

After that you can go down the 90 day fiance route and go for a K1, or get married in Thailand and do a CR-1

 

 

[farangkiinok]

Thanks for the advice. But I need to decide whether we should get married first before I go back. Or should we go the K-1 fiance route? It seems like that's just a needless extra step and cost. Also, does the K-3 have any advantages over the marriage based green card? 

[GinBoy2]

On 1/26/2020 at 12:52 AM, farangkiinok said:

Thanks for the advice. But I need to decide whether we should get married first before I go back. Or should we go the K-1 fiance route? It seems like that's just a needless extra step and cost. Also, does the K-3 have any advantages over the marriage based green card? 

There used to be a huge advantage of going down the CR-1 route if you were married in Thailand, in as much that it cut down the time considerably as it was processed locally in Thailand.

With the closure of USCIS in BKK, thats gone and all processing has to be down in the US.

 

Now you are down to cost, I think. 

 

Regardless of what you do you will need to get an adjustment of status. With CR-1, your lady enters the US as a permanent resident, green card & SSN show up in 2 weeks and she's good to go, but it'll take time.

I believe the latest processing time is close to 12 months, in our new legal immigration world!

 

In the K-1 route, you can get her in sooner, but then after your '90 Day Fiance' thing, you still have to apply essentially for the same thing you would have done with the CR-1 in Thailand to get her a green card, and the costs escalate 

[farangkiinok]

Thanks for your input / advice. We're going to try the K-1 route. Does anyone think it would be a problem if my job is in the legal marijuana industry?

[GinBoy2]

12 hours ago, farangkiinok said:

Thanks for your input / advice. We're going to try the K-1 route. Does anyone think it would be a problem if my job is in the legal marijuana industry?

They don't care where you work, so long as you can report sufficient income on the affidavit of support (I-864)

 

Now you can do that a couple of ways. Either show, I think it's 3 years as I remember, of 1040's, or a combination of income and assets.

 

So as long as you were filing your W2's from the marijuana industry on your 1040, you should be OK.

 

If thats an 'issue' you can substitute assets for income.

 

So the basic requirement is that your annual income is 125% of the Fed Poverty Guideline, which for 2 people is $25K.

 

Or say you own a house with equity in it, so long as you can show assets, which could be liquidated, of 3x the $25 you can use that.

 

Or, if you have a willing family member, who would agree, you can have a co signer on the I-864 to meet the requirements

Edited February 5, 2020 by GinBoy2