question about religious Ceremony.

M

meek1234

Registered Users (C)
Hi guys,
My friend have interview next-month and he has a question regarding 'Religious Ceremony'(shaadi).
Here is detail.

He(H1) met his wife(USC) around mid-2004 in USA. dated 6 months. Decided to marry in FEB-2005 back in home
country. they perform religious ceremony(indian wedding) and have lots of family pictures during that ceremony.
They came back to US in March-2005. and officail married in US(court) in May2005. Since then They
are living together.

So he has question that he should told immigation officer during interview that they had
kind of religious ceremony before they got marreid in USA.

He is thinking all this things dosent confuse officer if he tells him.

other-wise this thing make case more stronger according to my view as he has lot of
both-side family pictures from that ceremony while during court marraige very few pictures
with 2-3 witnesses.
So i am saying tell everything but he wants others viewes as well?
So i decided to put it in this forum.

What do you suggest guys?
 
Their official wedding date should be the one when they first had a marriage that was legally recognized in the locality where they got married. If this was not a legally recognized ceremony, I suppose it doesn't hurt showing pictures of it. But they should be ready to defend their stated wedding date if they show pictures of their ceremony predating their wedding. (If it was legally recognized, I'm not sure why they'd get married again in the US anyway?)
 
I am afraid, in 2005 his category changed grom H1 to Spouse of USC and he could not enter the US as H1 , but had to stay in his country and wait for visa to come .
Am I wrong? In his situation I would definitely discuss it with the immigration lawyer.
 
Kaunas, H-1B is a dual intent visa and marriage to a USC has no influence on someone's ability to return in H-1B status. However, the question of his legal marriage date is still important, because he shouldn't unnecessarily misrepresent facts about his marriage.
 
austriacus said:
However, the question of his legal marriage date is still important, because he shouldn't unnecessarily misrepresent facts about his marriage.
Click to expand...

I think the only time this might be an issue is if he had to get a new H visa stamp and did not mention the marriage on the DS-156. There's no requirement otherwise to proactively mention one's marital status.
 
TheRealCanadian said:
I think the only time this might be an issue is if he had to get a new H visa stamp and did not mention the marriage on the DS-156. There's no requirement otherwise to proactively mention one's marital status.
Click to expand...

How about for "date and place of present marriage" on I-130? If they got married in both countries, in your opinion can they pick either date and not disclose that they had been married before (if the first marriage is legal)?

(If the first marriage is legal, I'm not sure why they would ever want to pick the second one, it wouldn't work to their advantage.)
 
Only one date in US May2005. on all documents.

"So it has been verified that the religious ceremony did not make the marriage legal in the eyes of the local jusrisdiction?" - I guess if you dont get cirtificate it wont
 
meek1234,

I've heard others claim this (we didn't get a certificate, hence were not legally married) but I don't know if this logic is true. Just because someone doesn't have proof that something happenend, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I suppose the way to think about it is, in the locality where they had this religious ceremony, customarily is that all someone would have and did they follow all the steps someone would usually follow to get married in that place? Or did they leave out a certain portion that someone would go through to be legally married there? With the religious ceremony, can they enjoy government benefits for legally wedding couples, do marriage property rights apply to them?

For instance, let's say I get a religious wedding in Austria; in Austria, a priest cannot legally wed a couple. The religious wedding is preceded or followed by a visit to a registrar's office where the couple is legally wedded by the registrar. If I were to only get a religious wedding ceremony in Austria, I wouldn't be legally married and couldn't use it as wedding date on an I-130.

However, for instance here in Texas, for the same religious wedding, the priest would be ordained by the State of Texas to legally officiate a marriage, and the religious wedding would be legally binding.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What interview are they going to? Did she apply with 130 like he is a spouse of USC? In this case what date of marriage they put in to paperwork? 2005 or 2006
in USA?
 
""What interview are they going to? Did she apply with 130 like he is a spouse of USC? In this case what date of marriage they put in to paperwork? 2005 or 2006
in USA?"" ---- I guess they are going for I485 interview. They put May2005(US) marraige date.Kaunas thanks for ur reply.


Austracious thanks for ur reply. Basicaly he is from india(same as me). As far as i know
we all always go thru religious ceremony. where priest perform all retuls.
Now question is weather it is legal or not. well it is legal only when you get certificate from registrar office.
Generaly people dont care about it because they dont need in routine life. Whenever they need they filled form and put detail of their marraige(date,place,who was priest etc) and husband and wife have to be physically present at the office.

In my friend's case both(he and his wife) came US within week after their ceremony. To get certificate they had to go again, So they married here in US.
 
meek1234, I'm curious since I don't know much about how your legal system works, why would people not routinely get a marriage license there (which in your description is the way to make their marriage legal) - perhaps there are no relevant laws applicable to marriage that one has to deal with like in the US? (Property, estate, taxes, etc.)

The way you describe it, they can go back later and get a certificate for their marriage performed on the original date. In my opinion that makes the marriage legally binding, if you can get a document later that shows a date of the original legal marriage to be the original wedding date. Or when they go back for a certificate, it would show the wedding date as the date when they obtained the certificate? In any event, since the two dates are pretty close together, and they would have no advantage from hiding their original wedding, I don't think it will become an issue.
 
Austracious,
People their dont need marraige certificate for most of legel use. When they need they can get with original date of marraige.
 
meek1234, according to your description I would assume that the first marriage is legal, and they just didn't request proof of their legal marriage. If it were any other way (i.e. 30 years later they could go back and have "legalized" their marriage for the last 30 years) it would open up all kinds of legal issues.

But, the interesting thing is that I-130 asks for date and place of their present marriage. Perhaps it's true that they can claim their present marriage was in the US and happened in May 2005, since, after all, this is the later date of their two marriages. In any case, I'm guessing USCIS is much more concerned about whether the marriage is real than if they had been married earlier.
 
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