Marrying a US citizen, previously on F1

M

moon138

Registered Users (C)
Hello All,
Happy New year to all of you.

Scenario below need advise from those experienced in similar situations please!

Wife came on F1 visa -student and went to school for 4 years. Before coming to US ,marriage ceremony -only in church was conducted outside US.

Legal marriage was done here in US after I got my US citizenship.

Can AOS/green card be denied based on the fact that entring on F1 was lying and that she didnt inform port of entry that she knew me?


Her F1 is still valid and they are sending her EAD in the mail. Interview is on February.

Thanks for your input.
 
moon138 said:
Wife came on F1 visa -student and went to school for 4 years. Before coming to US ,marriage ceremony -only in church was conducted outside US.
Click to expand...
If that church-only marriage is legally recognized as a marriage in the country where it occurred (even though you didn't formally register it, the church officials may have done so), it means you were legally married back then.

Legal marriage was done here in US after I got my US citizenship.

Can AOS/green card be denied based on the fact that entring on F1 was lying and that she didnt inform port of entry that she knew me?
Click to expand...
Failure to disclose an existing marriage is grounds for denial.
 
Hi,

No it was never registered because of some legal complications regarding marriage of a foriegner (my wife is from another country). They needed some translations done to paers...etc. Bottom line is that it was never registered and we I not even register it from our embassy in the US after I came here back.
 
So even there you both are not considered man and wife?

moon138 said:
No it was never registered because of some legal complications regarding marriage of a foriegner (my wife is from another country). They needed some translations done to paers...etc. Bottom line is that it was never registered and we I not even register it from our embassy in the US after I came here back.
Click to expand...
 
in eyes of law , no

even my wife asked when she returned back to her country if she can be considered legally married and they told her know , because it was not done civil
 
moon138 said:
in eyes of law , no

even my wife asked when she returned back to her country if she can be considered legally married and they told her know , because it was not done civil
Click to expand...

As long as she did not lie on any Immigration forms, I think you will be ok because student come to USA and get married. In some states if couple live together, they are condsidered man and wife through common law.

If there is no proof of marriage in court then just get married here in court and file your case. I believe as long as she didnot lie on any federal form, she will be ok.
 
The normal procedure in my country is that people get married in church and church sends the documents to court, but because she was foreigner there was a different procedure that we didn't know, we had also to go to court and sign the papers there and documents were missing, so they didn't do it and we continued legally single.

She never lied on any form. She applied for F1, got the visa, and really went to school for the last 4 years. When she entered US in 2005 she just didn't mention she was coming to live with me because I was LPR.

Now I'm citizen, we got married in court, I already applied for her GC, and we have interview in Feb. They will ask when we met, and if we tell the truth the answer is that we met in person in 2004 in her country (and the only pictures we have before wedding are those we took there of course). If they ask for pictures of the wedding, we have the ones we took in my country in 2005, before she came here, then it will be obvious that she came to live with me.

So the question is: can they consider that she lied to enter US? And even if they considerer that she lied, is this a reason for rejecting her GC?
 
Triple Citizen, the questions were:
* Why do you want to study English? Travel reasons.
* Where are you going to stay? She gave the hotel name.
* Asked if she was going back. Said yes.
* Asked to see the ticket to come back to her country, which she had.
* Didn't put date to leave US, put D/S (depending on status) on I94, so she was able to renew the student visa for all those years.

She had 2 friends in the school who had F1, got married in US to LPR and applied to GC before their husbands got citizenship (we chose to wait), so they couldn't travel abroad, but they were able to renew their I20 every year for more then 4 years while pending AOS because they were already here, so they couldn’t travel with AOS pending and couldn’t be illegal. But in their cases they really came to study, all the relationship started here, and that is not exactly our case, but my wife did everything she said she was going to do here. The requirements to have F1 are: pay school (double than other regular students), have good attendance and don't work.

This forum is good because with those questions we can think about the answers (and remember everything that happened so many years ago) before interview. We were thinking about getting a lawyer but maybe we will go on our own because she didn’t break the visa.

Thanks to all of you
 
Could you please post your interview experience? a friend of mine has the same issue; he will be applying for citizenship in June, and married his wife, who is on F1. They got a ceremonial wedding back home but no paperwork was issued; and she applied for F1 and got the visa; so they are just wondering if they need to hire a lawyer or they can do on their own in the interview
 
Our interview is next month. We went to an attorney and she said to go to the interview on our own, but each case is different, your friend also should look for one. Sometimes there are things that you didn't even think about that the lawyer has some advice, in our case, for example, we thought that our baby was a strong proof of relationship and she said no, it's not, you still need joint bank accounts, mail in both names (the envelopes with date posted), pictures, etc.
 
Lawyer advised not to lie, to tell the truth when they ask, but answer exactly what was asked (in short sentences) and nothing else. We are taking with us a lot of proof of our relationship here in US and hope they don't ask too much. If they ask exactly the year we met we will say and hope they don't deny. It's wrong to enter US as nonimmigrant with the intent to stay, but we had to wait so long that we didn't have any idea what we were really going to do, if she was coming back and apply for K1, if we would marry and apply for K3, we applied for AOS because we have a baby now. We found a court decision about this online, so why would they deny? "Matter of Cavazos , 17 I. & N. Dec. 215 (BIA, 1980) . In the absence of other adverse factors, an application for adjustment by an immediate relative should generally be granted in the exercise of discretion notwithstanding the fact that the applicant entered as a nonimmigrant with a preconceived intention to remain." in http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/us...7e539dc4bed010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&CH=afm
 
moon138,

Which section of the Adjudicated Field Manuel are you referring to? The link brings me to the home page of the manual.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top