Does a I-130 filing require an accompanying K-3?

[SMV]

I am wondering - it seems that if a USA citizen marries a foreigner outside the USA, then all he has to do to sponsor her for immigration is to file the I-130.  Then after it is approved, she is given the (conditional) permanent residence, and can enter the USA as any permanent resident could.  There does not seem to be the requirement of a K-3 (although typically folks do file it as well), and hence no necessary compliance with IMBRA.

If this is accurate, then this begs the question as to what is the purpose of a K-3 visa.  Of course the big reason to avoid the K-3 visa is to not have to deal with the assinine IMBRA law.  In fact, it seems that if the citizen had met the foreigner through what would be legally regarded as an "International Marriage Broker", and did not follow the rules of doing the background check, etc., then that citizen would be barred from sponsoring his spouse!  (Of course, I would find it incredibly hard to believe that if a man had married such a woman that the government would flat out deny her immigration - couldn't you see the family values crowd holler about the fact that the government would not be allowing the family to be reunited - especially if there were children involved?)

[SMV]

This should probably be moved to the "Visas, Legal Paperwork and Other Documentation" forum.

[flatlander]

The instructions for the I-130 are here: http://www.uscis.gov/propub/DocView/afmid/dat/I_130.PDF . I would assume it is like the I-129 f and after approval the alien goes to an Interview where the Visa will be issued.

[skiingandrunning]

This site seems to provide a good outline.  I have seem several other outlines for both the K-1 & K-3 visas.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?autocom=custom&page=k3guide