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DV2015 and marriage challenge

S

Sabal

New Member
Hello

My wife was selected for DVEU201500000xxx, but we have a problem and we want to get some advises from you her in the forum.

Back in the summer 2013 we got married in United States. We have much of our family there, and combined that with a big family vacation that was a good choice for us. When we came back to our home country we sent the marrige documentation to the goverment in our home country, and we also joined the lottery in october 2013 as married.

After a few weeks I talked to the goverment bekause the marriage certificate have not arrived by mail to us, but they said that this can take more time. After few more weeks, around december 2013 I called them again, and they said that they did not get our documentation (probably lost in the mail system). And they said that we can wait little more, or just take a speed marrige(just formal, with no sermony) bekause we have our sermony in United States, and we waited a little more, and the documents never came to them. And in february we orderd a time for this speed marrige at the goverment. and after about 8 weeks we got this marrige in our home country.

As you understand, we didn`t think so much about the DV lottery in this process, bekause chances of winning is so small, but it actually happend, so here we are, and I feel that this is little out of our control.

So here is the thing:

- entered the lottery as married
- got marriage certificate with a date after entry of the DV lottery
- On the DS260 we used the latest marrige (from the our home country) but we have lots of photos/ also movie from the sermony in United States.
- We have proof of relationship over the past 8 years, own our house together/ bank statements.


My question is: Should we cancel our interview, bekause of high risk of disqualification?
Or is the interview officers people that can understand this situation?, and take a invidual decision?

Thank you in advance for all your help.
 
When you got married in the US back in the summer of 2013, did you apply for a marriage certificate and is this the document you sent to your home government which is now missing?
 
Surely they can get a duplicate copy of the documentation from the US? I don't know how the system works there but there must be a way to do this?
 
SusieQQQ said:
Surely they can get a duplicate copy of the documentation from the US? I don't know how the system works there but there must be a way to do this?
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Yes they can, if they obtained a marriage license prior to the wedding and they registered the marriage after the ceremony they would have been issued with a marriage certificate. Which means a replacement certificate can be requested for (although some counties require one to make this request in person, but that's a different discussion for now), hence my asking them in my previous post if the US issued marriage certificate is what got lost in the mail. The OP should clarify precisely what he means by 'marriage documentation'
 
Before a marriage can be hold in my home country, you need to apply. Then approval-document will come and that is valid for 3 months. This is the document our goverment need back to aprove and give us the license. Since we had the marriage abroad, the document was prepared to marriage with English translation, and this document was signed by witnesses and the one who married us. The document was also notarius stamped after the wedding. so everything was good prepared. When we came home, we sent this document to the government here in our home country, but it never came to the goverment. (lost )

We dont obtain a marriage license from US, because this was arranged with documents from our home country. We asked the one that married us about a copy or something, but for this case in the US it was more like a traditional wedding since we had the documents for our country.

And we did not think about things like : lost in the mail system and other challenges. and i always think about why we did not fixed a copy of the document.. :(
 
Sabal said:
Before a marriage can be hold in my home country, you need to apply. Then approval-document will come and that is valid for 3 months. This is the document our goverment need back to aprove and give us the license. Since we had the marriage abroad, the document was prepared to marriage with English translation, and this document was signed by witnesses and the one who married us. The document was also notarius stamped after the wedding. so everything was good prepared. When we came home, we sent this document to the government here in our home country, but it never came to the goverment. (lost )

We dont obtain a marriage license from US, because this was arranged with documents from our home country. We asked the one that married us about a copy or something, but for this case in the US it was more like a traditional wedding since we had the documents for our country.

And we did not think about things like : lost in the mail system and other challenges. and i always think about why we did not fixed a copy of the document.. :(
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Are you saying that you did not have an official, legal marriage ceremony in the US? I don't quite understand why the person who married you can't provide proof of marrying you, especially as you say the document was signed, notarized etc. Surely a copy /record must exist somewhere? Were you married in a religious institution?
 
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Sabal said:
Before a marriage can be hold in my home country, you need to apply. Then approval-document will come and that is valid for 3 months. This is the document our goverment need back to aprove and give us the license. Since we had the marriage abroad, the document was prepared to marriage with English translation, and this document was signed by witnesses and the one who married us. The document was also notarius stamped after the wedding. so everything was good prepared. When we came home, we sent this document to the government here in our home country, but it never came to the goverment. (lost )

We dont obtain a marriage license from US, because this was arranged with documents from our home country. We asked the one that married us about a copy or something, but for this case in the US it was more like a traditional wedding since we had the documents for our country.

And we did not think about things like : lost in the mail system and other challenges. and i always think about why we did not fixed a copy of the document.. :(
Click to expand...


I got married in Hawaii as a non resident alien. I can tell you categorically that a legal US marriage is not dependent on paperwork/license from your home country. So - if you did a legal marriage in the US - that is all you need (and the state where you got married can provide copies of the marriage cert).

So - did you marry legally in the US or not?
 
We marry legally in the US, so based on what you say, I need to take a call on monday and check. Do you know where to ask? city hall in the county?

If we can get this license it`s very good :)
 
Sabal said:
We dont obtain a marriage license from US, because this was arranged with documents from our home country. We asked the one that married us about a copy or something, but for this case in the US it was more like a traditional wedding since we had the documents for our country.
:(
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Sabal said:
We marry legally in the US, so based on what you say, I need to take a call on monday and check. Do you know where to ask? city hall in the county?

If we can get this license it`s very good :)
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Based on these quotes, you're basically saying two different things I'm afraid. If you never applied for and obtained a marriage license from the US before the marriage ceremony was performed, then you're not considered to have legally gotten married in the US. Which means you do not have a US issued marriage certificate, and the US does not have records of your marriage so a replacement marriage certificate from the US cannot be requested since one was never issued to start with.

What you did could be considered a traditional marriage ceremony which took place in the US based on your customs and traditions from back home. If the person that officiated the ceremony issued you with any form of document stating they performed the ceremony, then get in touch with them to find out if they're able to provide you with a notarized copy of the same document. You may be able to use this to convince the CO of the fact that you guys where indeed married prior to the eDV application. If you can also get notarized statements from both parents confirming the traditional ceremony did take place, that would also help. At the time of your interview you will present these documents, and evidence of the ceremony itself which you already have, to the CO and explain that you guys did not register your marriage before, hence the later date showing on the marriage certificate itself.
 
I would like to add something that may not get 100% agreement here. It appears that while leaving off derivatives is a definite disqualification, that adding in a spouse before you are legally married is not necessarily one. Even if you cannot get a copy of the original documents, in your situation I personally would still take the chance of going for the visa, taking all the evidence of the relationship you've spoken about, including the movie etc of the wedding in the US.

Edit: ah, I see this echoes some of what mom said.
 
SusieQQQ said:
I would like to add something that may not get 100% agreement here. It appears that while leaving off derivatives is a definite disqualification, that adding in a spouse before you are legally married is not necessarily one. Even if you cannot get a copy of the original documents, in your situation I personally would still take the chance of going for the visa, taking all the evidence of the relationship you've spoken about, including the movie etc of the wedding in the US.

Edit: ah, I see this echoes some of what mom said.
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Surely, both mom's and your advice is sound, and this, undoubtedly, is the way to go under these rather unfortunate circumstances - it's probably the one and only chance they got. However, as we are all aware, this is precisely one of the areas CO's have been asked to focus on, in order to combat DV fraud, out of good reason. Fact is that the ceremony supposedly took place somewhere in the US, hence expectations of the CO in terms of valid documentation and legal compliance will be higher. Even if one decides to marry in Las Vegas, without prior planning, at a minimum one will receive legal documents that proof the "deed", including those cases all participants may wish to forget about later. Purely based on the information provided, it may well be possible that the marriage has no legal standing, neither in their European home country nor, obviously, here in the US. Again, no intention to object to your very sound advice above, yet there should be no surprise from OP side if and when his argumentation will run into problems. Good luck, in any case to them!
 
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EURO2014 said:
Surely, both mom's and your advice is sound, and this, undoubtedly, is the way to go under these rather unfortunate circumstances - it's probably the one and only chance they got. However, as we are all aware, this is precisely one of the areas CO's have been asked to focus on, in order to combat DV fraud, out of good reason. Fact is that the ceremony supposedly took place somewhere in the US, hence expectations of the CO in terms of valid documentation and legal compliance will be higher. Even if one decides to marry in Las Vegas, without prior planning, at a minimum one will receive legal documents that proof the "deed", including those cases all participants may wish to forget about later. Again, no intention to object to your very sound advice above, yet there should be no surprise from OP side if and when his argumentation will run into problems. Good luck, in any case to them!
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I'd agree with this. To me it is very simple. If you get married legally in the USA, there is no need for worry since you will have (or can obtain) the marriage cert. If however that did not happen then yes, Mom and Susie have covered that well (of course!!)
 
Okay. Based in the information above, our wedding was a traditional wedding., so we need to try one more time with the one who married us. One thing I did not understand:
If you can also get notarized statements from both parents confirming the traditional ceremony did take place, that would also help.
 
EURO2014 said:
Surely, both mom's and your advice is sound, and this, undoubtedly, is the way to go under these rather unfortunate circumstances - it's probably the one and only chance they got. However, as we are all aware, this is precisely one of the areas CO's have been asked to focus on, in order to combat DV fraud, out of good reason. Fact is that the ceremony supposedly took place somewhere in the US, hence expectations of the CO in terms of valid documentation and legal compliance will be higher. Even if one decides to marry in Las Vegas, without prior planning, at a minimum one will receive legal documents that proof the "deed", including those cases all participants may wish to forget about later. Purely based on the information provided, it may well be possible that the marriage has no legal standing, neither in their European home country nor, obviously, here in the US. Again, no intention to object to your very sound advice above, yet there should be no surprise from OP side if and when his argumentation will run into problems. Good luck, in any case to them!
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It sounded as if in any case they will have a legal marriage by the time of interview, so the only issue is : is it a real relationship? And the answer is yes. There is also precedent in some countries that if a traditional marriage predates a legal one the date of the traditional wedding can be used. I do not think this is a lost case by any means, yes they will have some explaining to do, but I think they will be ok.
 
Thank you for all information. Just as you know, we have a legal marriage from april this year. And we will also try to get a copy from the traditional wedding. And then we hope that honesty will help us thru the interview.
 
SusieQQQ said:
It sounded as if in any case they will have a legal marriage by the time of interview, so the only issue is : is it a real relationship? And the answer is yes. There is also precedent in some countries that if a traditional marriage predates a legal one the date of the traditional wedding can be used. I do not think this is a lost case by any means, yes they will have some explaining to do, but I think they will be ok.
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Hello SusieQQQ,
It certainly would help to know which European country we are exactly talking about, i.e. if European Law is applicable. Generally speaking, across European countries it is the state which determines whether a marriage exists and has legal standing! The fact that an official, state sanctioned ceremony was conducted subsequently in April 2014 and authorities did not issue a marriage certificate before that date, would speak to the strong argument that the marriage has became legally recognized by the home country effective 04/2014. Obviously, marriage vows were not effectively exchanged/documented based on US law.
The CO in the home country consulate will undoubtedly have a good understanding of applicable marriage laws in the specific EU country we are talking about and presumably work from the official marriage certificate presented at the interview. There are many more knowledgeable people in this forum to understand what the resulting discrepancy between original DV application and effective date of marriage will mean for this case - I truly hope the resulting issues can be effectively overcome. Best!
 
EURO2014 said:
Hello SusieQQQ,
It certainly would help to know which European country we are exactly talking about, i.e. if European Law is applicable. Generally speaking, across European countries it is the state which determines whether a marriage exists and has legal standing! The fact that an official, state sanctioned ceremony was conducted subsequently in April 2014 and authorities did not issue a marriage certificate before that date, would speak to the strong argument that the marriage has became legally recognized by the home country effective 04/2014. Obviously, marriage vows were not effectively exchanged/documented based on US law.
The CO in the home country consulate will undoubtedly have a good understanding of applicable marriage laws in the specific EU country we are talking about and presumably work from the official marriage certificate presented at the interview. There are many more knowledgeable people in this forum to understand what the resulting discrepancy between original DV application and effective date of marriage will mean for this case - I truly hope the resulting issues can be effectively overcome. Best!
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Well, there has been a direct link on the forums before to a US consular official saying that stating married when not legally married is not a disqualifying factor. And I repeat, there is also precedent for consular officials to take the earlier of a traditional or legal date.
I am not sure where you are from, but Western Europeans sometimes forget how wide is the variety of cultures that falls under EU for DV purposes.
 
We are born and live in a northwestern country in europe (one of the small nordic countries) and we do not have traditions with traditional marriage, but it's no problem to get married abroad. And if the documents not have been lost we never had this situation we have here.
 
Sabal said:
We are born and live in a northwestern country in europe (one of the small nordic countries) and we do not have traditions with traditional marriage, but it's no problem to get married abroad. And if the documents not have been lost we never had this situation we have here.
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I'm very confused then as your comments were about a traditional wedding in the US? Who married you exactly?
Anyway I still don't think it's a deal breaker but you need to get something legal and be able to properly explain the date discrepancy to the CO.
 
SusieQQQ said:
Well, there has been a direct link on the forums before to a US consular official saying that stating married when not legally married is not a disqualifying factor. And I repeat, there is also precedent for consular officials to take the earlier of a traditional or legal date.
I am not sure where you are from, but Western Europeans sometimes forget how wide is the variety of cultures that falls under EU for DV purposes.
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:) Right. Yes, I do remember that our understanding on what constitutes a marriage differed in another thread, that one was for Africa. There are no legally recognized forms of traditional marriages in EU law. One may have a wedding abroad recognized, based on well defined criteria and documentation requirements.
But let's compare two cases:
Case 1: married, seperated from spouse since several years, no legal divorce decree at time of DV application, files as Single - Result: Disqualification (at least this is what I learned from you guys in this forum).
Case 2: single, no legal marriage certificate at time of DV application, files as Married - Result: ?
As said above, I truly hope this specific case can be resolved based on the misunderstanding of their legal date of marriage.
 
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