K1 India and EO

[harkirath 2]

As the Indian consulates start to reopen for some visa processing, I decided to reach out to them to try and get a date for when they might resume K-1 visa processing. I got the following response

 

Quote

Thank you for writing to the U.S. Visa Service Desk.

We understand that you would like to know whether you can apply for fiancée visa (K visa).

In response to your question, we would like to inform you that the United States Embassy and Consulates in India remain closed for routine consular services at this time including K visas. Embassies and consulates have canceled all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments as of March 20, 2020 but will continue to provide emergency and mission-critical visa services as resources and local conditions allow.

The Presidential Proclamation 9994 details the suspension of entry for immigrants applies to people who do not have an immigrant visa that is valid on April 23, 2020 and on certain visa classes.

I was under the impression, and based on the previous statement by the State Department, that K-1 visas would be processed as high priority and they were not impacted by the Executive Orders.

[powerpuff 6,708]

They would need to be labeled as "mission critical" in order to bypass the EO's. There's currently a lawsuit pending regarding that, we'll have wait and see what happens. 

[SalishSea 17,837]

6 hours ago, harkirath said:

As the Indian consulates start to reopen for some visa processing, I decided to reach out to them to try and get a date for when they might resume K-1 visa processing. I got the following response

 

I was under the impression, and based on the previous statement by the State Department, that K-1 visas would be processed as high priority and they were not impacted by the Executive Orders.

If you read the pertinent update to this on the DOS site, it states that they 'authorize' K-1s to be processed as high priority, not 'require.'  There is a lot of discretion at the consulates.