Questions about the separation sheet and citizenship application

[iloveusa07]

I am new to this forum and I have some questions regarding to my GC and citizenship application. Actually I am not eligible to apply for citizenship right now because I was out of US for 6 mths in 2005 and possibly breaks the continuous residency, so I have to wait for another 5 yrs to apply it.

I got my conditional GC based on marriage in Jan 2002 and then unconditional GC in Nov 2004. After getting my permanent GC, my husband and I broke up in 2005 and lived separately. I went back to my home country for 6 mths and in the mean time; I filed a separation sheet and stated that we no longer lived together. However, this separation sheet that was issued from my home country was not filed by the court but by the law firm only. Basically the separation sheet, whether issued by the law firm or not, is not necessary before divorce in my home country. In fact, there is no such a legally separation agreement (filed by court), what required is the divorce decree only. Besides, we have never filed any legally separation agreement as well as divorce decree in the United States. Now, I am living in US and thinking about divorce in here. By the time I can be eligible to apply for citizenship, should I state that the marriage come to an end is the date I finally divorced in the United States when I fill out N-400? Since that separation sheet is not a legal document, I cannot use this to file divorce in US, so does it mean that it is also irrelevant to citizenship application?

Many Thanks!

 

[takadigi]

I would strongly recommend seeking legal help from an immigration attorney. Your case is not one of the straight forward cases that folks on this forum can respond with straight forward accurate information. You will be way better off consulting a good immigration attorney.

 

[Huracan]

Agreed, you'll probably just get speculation here about your case. So, my speculation is that in the eyes of immigration they want to know if your marriage was a fraud or not, so they look at how long you lived together as a married couple and what you did and had together. My guess is that in their eyes your marriage ended when you went back to your country and separated. However, I don't know what the effect of all this would be on naturalization. I guess for filling out the naturalization forms what counts is the divorce date. Tricky, isn't it. You put official dates in your form, but the immigration officer during the interview can decide to look deeper into the inner workings of your marriage.

PS: I seem to recently see a rash of posts of divorces that take place right after obtaining unconditional green cards.

 

[iloveusa07]

Thank you takadigi and Huracan for the quick reply. Actually I did not want to file separation or divorce in my home country because I misunderstood that when a couple get married in country A, for example, they should file their divorce in country A also. In fact, I was wrong. I can file the divorce in country B where I live. My husband and I got married in my home country.

Meanwhile, my marriage is bonafide. We lived together for more than 3 yrs with jointly tax return, jointly bank and credit card accounts and jointly lease agreements. We took a lot of photos when traveling together. The reason I leave him because I do want to have baby but he doesn't. We have a big argue on this issue. Now I have a boyfriend who is a US citizen. That's why I came back to US. If I dont have boyfriend, I would return to my home country and never stay in US. I dont care much about my citizenship at this moment. What I want to do right now is to stay with my boyfriend and eventually marry him. Therefore, I am planning to file my divorce in 2008 or 2009. Well, I dont have enough money to pay for attorney's fee right now.

I am still holding a GC and will eventually apply for the citizenship. I hope my case will not affect my resident status here with my boyfriend.

Huracan, I agree with you that the divorce date is so tricky here. Dont you guys think that the IO will ask my past marriage and divorce in details after getting permanent GC in 4-5 yrs later?

 

[Huracan]

That's what I think depends on the immigration officer at time of interview. You can have people who migh get grilled about their past marriage, and people who aren't asked any tough questions, depending on the immigration officer.

Other point is that you don't need to convince us You need to convince the immigration officer who might be tougher or gentler than us. I think you have your ideas clear. Keep those pictures from your marriage, common account information and things like that handy for the interview.

When I said it is tricky is that unless you have a finalized divorce you are still married, so at the time of filing out the N-400 you have to put the information that is current for you. However, for interview purposes the immigration officer could like to ask you questions about how long you lived together and things like that. I am not an expert on this area so I cannot advise you whether it is better to divorce now or later. My guess is that it doesn't matter much anymore as you are no longer living like a married couple with your husband.

I also don't think your situation should affect your current U.S. boyfriend. My take in your case is that you can continue with your green card happily, divorce when you think it's convenient and you'll probably won't have issues during naturalization if you do your homework and have information to backup your bona fide marriage. Perhaps the issue won't even come up during the interview, who knows.

The problem is that a lot of people post questions about divorce, but very few come back later to share their interview experiences so people like me who at best are amateur immigration aficionados don't have much visibility in real cases.

My 2 cents

 

[iloveusa07]

Can anyone post your interview experience who got the GC based on marriage and then divorced before naturalization? I am wondering what questions will be asked during the interview so that I can prepare it well before.