At a K-1 fiancé visa interview at the U.S. Embassy, your case could be denied even if you have all your paperwork together and are truly planning to marry a U.S. citizen for all the right reasons (that is, for love or to establish a life together, not as a fraud to get a green card). Sometimes, the U.S. embassy officer just isn't convinced that it's a real relationship.
Here, we'll discuss how this could happen, and whether you can appeal or somehow get a second chance at the interview?
If your K-1 visa has been denied, you are facing the same situation as many applicants have, and it might not be entirely your fault. If you are from a country where many people have filed fraudulent fiancé visa petitions (Form I-129F) in the past, the U.S. State Department official who met with you might simply have taken a harder look at your application than is usual, and remained unconvinced.
Unfortunately, you cannot file an appeal (for a K-1 or any other type of nonimmigrant visa decision). There is just no procedure for this.
One possibility is that the U.S. embassy that denies the K-1 visa could send the I-129F petition back to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). USCIS then would send the U.S. citizen fiancé a "Notice of Intent to Revoke" the petition and afford an opportunity to overcome the basis for the visa denial overseas. If successful in overcoming the basis of the denial, there eventually will be a new visa interview.
The timing of this can be unpredictable. It might be several months or up to a year or longer before hearing from USCIS and then several more months for the new interview.
Starting from the beginning with a new I-129F fiancé petition is a possibility. You would need to redo all the same paperwork and pay a new set of fees. This would, of course, lead to another visa interview, probably at the same U.S. embassy as before.
And no matter what embassy or consulate you are scheduled to go to, a record of the denial will remain in your file, possibly leading to another denial. So this strategy might or might not work.
For some applicants, the best thing to do is to get married overseas and apply for an immigrant visa. An actual marriage shows a higher level of commitment by both the would-be immigrant and the U.S. citizen, and is harder for U.S. State Department officials to dismiss when making the visa decision. Besides, more time will have passed by then, making your case look more convincing. (See the articles in the Marriage-Based Visas and Green Cards section of Nolo's website for more on this.)
If you had your heart set on a wedding in the U.S., there is nothing to stop you from having a big ceremony there even after you have already legally married in your home country.
You might wish to consult with an experienced immigration attorney for a full analysis of what went wrong with your case and how to correct it and succeed in your request for a U.S. visa. The attorney will know the approach taken by the officials at the U.S. embassy you visited, and may be able to spot problems in your application of which you were unaware.
Need a lawyer? Start here.