... in response to Cancellation of K1, posted by Watcher on Oct 23, 2002I have direct experience with this situation from about a year and a half ago...
To cancel a K1 visa, it depends on how far along you are in the process. If you have not yet recieved your approval notice, you must send a signed letter to the INS (same office you sent the petition to) along with a copy of your reciept document requesting that the petition be withdrawn. Include the case# in the letter. They don't need to know why you are withdrawing it, just mention something like "The nature of our relationship has taken a new course" or something like that. They should 'hopefully' be able to find the petition and send it back to you before it is even reviewed. Keep in mind though that the letter you send to the INS requesting this will probably just get thrown in a pile somewhere and not even looked at for several weeks. It's even possible that they will approve your petition during the time that your withdrawal letter is still waiting to even be opened (this happened to me last year, and it was a huge headache).
However if your petition has been approved, it becomes more complicated and time consuming (which is what happened to me). You must send this letter to the INS, and also to the consular office at the embassy where the petition was forwarded to. In the letter to the consular, you need to request that they send it back to the INS office. Once they have the letter, the petition will be sent back, and finally removed from the computer at the INS office after they have it.
In my case, it took them about 10 months to get the petition officially withdrawn and removed from the INS records. You may want to call the INS right after you mail the letter and see if there is any way the withdrawal can be expedited.
As for what you can tell your former fiance' and her family, I can't really offer much advise. My breakup was due to a scam situation on her part, and I had to end our relationship in a very discrete and quiet way (I sent her an e-mail with a concocted story and never spoke to her or anyone else associated with her again). The way you deal with this will depend on what your situation is.
P.S. To anyone reading this posting, I don't particularly care to discuss the intimate details of what happened to me. I'll just say that I got involved with someone who had been entirely dishonest with me and had highly alterior hidden motives. I found out in time before it was too late (and there was absolutely no question about what was really going on).
