Is it possible to put a K1 visa on hold?

[Austin+Paula 0]

My fiancee (Brazilian Citizen) and I (American Citizen) are currently in the process of obtaining a K1 Visa for her to come to the US. We're at the Consulate interview stage and she needs to submit a DS-160. However, we've recently been talking about me moving to Brazil for a couple years instead (she just got a full ride for her masters in Brazil), and then coming back to the states when she completes her education.

Is it possible to put the visa on hold at all? We got lucky and went from the initial petition to this stage within a couple months, so I would hate to throw this away. All help is appreciated - this forum has been an incredible resource for us.

[KayDeeCee 4,893]

Up to a year, perhaps. Two years, most likely not. You can withdraw and re-file when you are actually ready to use the K-1 visa.

(Previous location: 9 FAM 41.81 N6.2; CT:VISA-2165; 08-21-2014)

(b) Validity of a K-1 Petition: An approved K-1 visa petition is valid for a period of four months from the date of USCIS action and may be revalidated by you any number of times for additional periods of four months from the date of revalidation, provided the officer concludes that the petitioner and the beneficiary remain legally free to marry and continue to intend to marry each other within 90 days after the beneficiary's admission into the United States. However, the longer the period of time since the filing of the petition, the more you must be concerned about the intentions of the couple, particularly the intentions of the petitioner in the United States. If the officer is not convinced that the U.S. citizen petitioner continues to intend to marry the beneficiary, including instances where no action has been taken on the application for a year (while refused under INA 221(g)), the petition should be returned to the approving office of USICS with an explanatory memorandum. (See 9 FAM 502.7-5(B) paragraph b(5) for revalidation procedure.)

https://fam.state.gov/fam/09FAM/09FAM050207.html

Edited March 7, 2016 by KayDeeCee

[Georgia16 2,858]

Just an idea. Instead of a K-1 then marry down there are since you'll be there a couple of years you can do the IR-1 then she get the 10-year green card and you guys can skip the AOS and the ROC. I don't know if there are DCF from Brazil? ...

[pantonia 39]

there is no real practical way to pause or delay this process, as far as I know (even the suggestion above sounds tedious and unpractical)

options:

• Do you NEED to marry in the US?. If not, you can cancel your fiance petition and just marry in Brazil and once you are ready to move to the US together, you can file for a spouse visa.
• If you do wanna marry in the US and then leave to brazil, you can also cancel the k-1, have her come as a tourist, get married and then she leaves (proving that she didn't intend to immigrate, which would be visa fraud) back to brazil. You'll have to do the spouse visa process anyway later on if she wants to immigrate with you to the US.
• If you don't wanna "waste" the time and money invested on the k-1, you could go ahead with it, get her here under a fiance visa, marry her, but then she'll have to still leave before the 90 days are up if she doesn't intend to file for AOS. If she does file for AOS, she HAS to stay in the US until she gets her green card (takes months) and then I don't think she can leave the US for more than 1 year anyway or it gets revoked (don't quote me on this because I don't remember where I saw it. I'm still pretty sure it's true, especially for the first green card, which is a 2 year conditional one). Or if she marries and DOESN'T file for AOS, she has to leave before the 90 days are up, her AOS option will be considered abandoned and the whole k-1 visa process will have been for nothing.

I recommend to just abandon the k-1 option. I'm sure it sucks to waste that money, but you'll be saving yourself further expenses (for the interview there is also a fee that you might still save yourself) and trouble.