K1 visa for Vietnam

[sealedkiss 1]

My girlfriend and I first knew each other 4 years ago, but only met in person the first time in Vietnam last year. This summer, she is here in the US for 4 months (July - October 2006) on a J1 visa (without the 2-year rule). She works in a different state than mine, but we will manage to meet about 3 times in the US.

I am a US citizen and want to file for her K1 visa soon, but got worried over a few things:

1. There was a fiance visa fraud scheme for Vietnamese people discovered (I am very mad at these people). According to this article (Jun 30, 2006), http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/st...p-7811897c.html , during the investigation the US stopped issuing K1 visas from Vietnam, which resulted in a three-year backlog of applications? Any first-hand experience on this? Did anyone get their K1 visas from VN recently? How responsive are they in resolving backlogs?

2. Our other option is to get married in the US and file for adjustment of status. That will run the risk of her being accused of having dual intent when applying for her J1. We did not intend to do that, but this article forced us to consider this option. We are not quite ready to get married yet, but it can be done if it saves us a lot of headache down the road.

3. If K1 visa process for Vietnam is still going smoothly, we will do this option. Then, is it possible to file for her K1 (I-129F?) while she's still here in the US? She will return home, of course, before her interview takes place.

Thank you very much for any experience or advice you could share.

[KarenCee 3]

IF I remember correctly: if you marry here and try to adjust status you might have to prove that she didn't have the intent to marry for the intent to immigrate...in other words, the burden of proof would be on you that you had NO intent to marry. To intend to marry here for the purpose of immigrating constitutes marriage fraud. I'm not saying that's what you two are doing though. Hope all that made sense. If you do marry here, then the proper thing would be to file a K-3, but she would still have to go to Vietnam for the interview.

ACK....that sounded weird...hope I didnt confuse you

Maybe go to the Regional Forum and find the one for Vietnam...I'm sure you would find an answer there.