My husband and I were married in Morocco in December 2006 and applied for a CR-1 Visa. He was approved and arrived in NY last week. When we went to the county office to register our marriage, we were told that NYS does not recognize marriages that took place outside the country. This does not make sense to us since his Visa was based on the fact that we ARE married. But, to appease the state, we were going to have a civil ceremony tonight, just for the paperwork but now I wonder if that will in any way affect his visa status in the future. I am thinking maybe we will just 'go through the motions' since my family was not with us in Morocco when we married, and simply not process the paperwork. Any suggestions on this situation???

I live in NJ, but I would be very careful before you go and remarry since you ARE already technically married. Your husband's file is forever in the INS system with your original married date. Keep asking around....and good luck.

Answer

(Indiana)

I don't live in NY; but I am going to butt in anyhow.....

Try contacting http://www.moroccanconsulate.com/main_activities.cfm and asking.

It sounds wrong....what you are describing. Do not marry again till you get some straight answers as I do believe this will screw up some future USCIS things for you.

I would be getting a second opinion.

Why do you need to register your marriage at the county office?

Yes, it sounds stange that NY would not recognize your marriage license. There are tons of people who married outside of NY and move there, do they all have to get remarried for NY?

I called an immigration attorney in Albany and he said to go ahead and marry here in NY. He felt the only time a second marriage certificate would be of concern is when my husband has his interview to have his conditions removed (it's a CR-1 Visa), BUT explaining to them how things work here in NY would be more than adequate. DMV and many other NY based offices will NOT accept a foreign marriage certificate, so by marrying here again in NY, it will give me the paperwork I need. If NY wasn't do damn complicated and money hungry, I wouldn't have to pay to do this all again.

I am curious too. I want to change to my married name but I have been unable to since my situation is complicated. I have discussed it in other threads. I had a complete legal name change(first and last) 6 years ago but did not change my name on my passport for various reasons. When we did the court marriage in Nepal all I had for ID was my passport, so the marriage certificate shows my birth name, but all of my work records, SS card, etc. have my new legal name. So really at this point I do not know what to do. My idea too was for us to get married again once he comes to NYC and I would use my new name to register for the marriage license so then I could legally change to my married name. Maybe this is not possible???

Wow, that is interesting. Everyone takes our word for it here that we are married.

Colorado's DMV doesn't accept foreign marriage certificates but all we had to do is sign a "Common Law" document so that I could legally change my name. But just because they didn't accept our Colombian marriage certificate, that does not mean we are not married in the state of Colorado or in the entire US. We are still married.

The lawyer you filed gave you wrong information. You don't have to marry again since your marriage is valid in the country, otherwise the embassy wouldn't have given your husband his visa. When you file to Remove Conditions you do the same thing you did when you filed for his CR1 visa which is send a copy of the Moroccon marriage certificate with its translation, that's all.

I'm pretty sure that there's a ton of people who marry outside of the country and live in NY who don't have to re-marry.

Diana

But that makes no sense! I'm from NY and I've never heard of such a thing. NYS is huge, but in NYC alone there have got to be tens of thousands of people who got married in other countries.

Sounds like the person you spoke to is an idiot.

It doesn't make sense. We got married in Peru and I came here with a Spouse Visa (CR1), and we never had any problem, .
We live in NYC

Please go to this link for more informationan:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...p;#entry1829042


BTW I called several county clerks offices across all of NY and got the same answers every time. The only exception was NYC, and they were of no help at all.