original US divorce decree

[bobo 2]

I have my interview in 2 days and while preparing my documents I realized that I don't have my husband's original divorce decree, it was retained with our application for marriage license back in Sept. 2005. I have plenty of simple photocopies, and also a photocopy is part of our original long form marriage certificate. I have the Property Settlement Agreement between my husband and his former wife (RIP, she died in 2008), but in that document they are referred as husband and wife since it was prepared 1 month before their divorce (they were divorced in US - Pennsylvania, if this matters).

From your experiences, the officer is always asking to see the original of the divorce decree?

What originals they usually want to see?

Thank you!

[v333k 59]

I have my interview in 2 days and while preparing my documents I realized that I don't have my husband's original divorce decree, it was retained with our application for marriage license back in Sept. 2005. I have plenty of simple photocopies, and also a photocopy is part of our original long form marriage certificate. I have the Property Settlement Agreement between my husband and his former wife (RIP, she died in 2008), but in that document they are referred as husband and wife since it was prepared 1 month before their divorce (they were divorced in US - Pennsylvania, if this matters).

From your experiences, the officer is always asking to see the original of the divorce decree?

What originals they usually want to see?

Thank you!

Normally, you send in copies with the application - not originals. However, during the interview, the IO sometimes wants to see originals but they are the ones that decide and ask for them. Many people have received (most probably including you) a yellow paper with some request for additional evidence to bring with you to the interview - and not always they asked to see them, just be prepared.

I think if your husband can obtain new original copies from the local court house, but in my opinion, they are more interested in you and not your husband (since he is already a USC) so I don't think they are going to ask for it. If they do and you don't have it, they won't immediately deny your application for naturalization.

Have your husband check with the county clerk and see if he can find out if they are willing to produce a new original copy of the divorce decree - most probably he can get it on the same day....

[NickD 203]

All I ever received from my courthouse was a copy of my original divorce decree, they no longer certify the copy and what distinguishes the only original decree from any copies is that my ex, our attorneys, I, and the judge signed the last page of that rather long document and just that one last page was signed. So my original is also just a copy and was mailed to me in a brown envelop with the courthouse return address on it.

My wife's divorce paper was the same with just copies of the original decree signatures, but they had a bunch of original courthouse stamps all over the place, even on blank pages.

Can only share our experience on this, wife said her IO was really interested in seeing that brown envelop from me, the sponsoring USC and didn't really care to read of 50 pages of it typed on both sides, but she did want to see her original divorce decree. Matter of fact she wanted to keep my wife's original decree, wife said no way, would cost her a small fortune to replace it, so the subject was dropped.

It also sounds like your have a death certificate to boot for further evidence. Wife said her IO wanted to see the original copy of our marriage certificate, wife told her she already has an exact original in that huge stack of evidence, and hers was exactly the same, but she pulled it out anyway.

My head spins on this subject, how in the hell did we get through AOS and the I-751 if we weren't legally married? And why did I have to prove USC again? Its not like you walked into the same field office the first time.

And if you dig deep enough into this subject, your USC certificate is not engraved in stone, if even years down the road they found where you lied or misrepresented yourself on the N-400, can be taken to court, USC removed, and you can get deported. Read on the net about some odd 5,000 cases like this pending in the courts for some kind of a lie.

I don't feel your copies will be a problem and my wife really had a hardass type of an IO.

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

You can get a certifed copy from the court where the divorce was granted and there is a fairly good chance they will want to see it at some point during the process

[NickD 203]

You can get a certifed copy from the court where the divorce was granted and there is a fairly good chance they will want to see it at some point during the process

Perhaps what this country needs is a federal marriage license, when I was looking into this, 50 different states have 50 different rules, and each county in my state had different requirements and rates for a marriage license. My county has one of the rates in the state, but by state law we had to get our marriage license from them. Otherwise our marriage would be considered void if we got our license and married someplace else.

Could only wonder if the intended partners from different states had that same ruling, one of them would have broken the law. We both had to bring in our divorce papers plus wait two weeks for them to do a background check before we got the final approval, but then again for the AOS and the N-400. Our courthouse does not issue certified copies, just copies, but at least the USCIS did not question me on that. Didn't help either that our field office is located in a different state with different marriage and divorce laws.

Still very easy to get married, but divorce can be quite lengthly and very expensive, but my wife and I wanted to be darn sure of our commitment. Really only that commitment counts as we would get the burden of responsibility in the event of a divorce. Don't even understand why the USCIS gets involved with this, they don't have any responsibility. Took me eight years of hard work after my divorce to get back where I was. Marriage during that time was out of the question for me. Besides. the USCIS wants a big chunk of change to do whatever it is they exactly do.

[joetruk 0]

I think It really depends on IO. My IO requested for certified copy of marriage and divorce decree of my husband's previous spouse. It's always good if well prepared. Or you need to submit RFE later on and the waiting game is not fun at all . Your husband can take the copy and request a certified copy from the court where the divorce was granted in 5mn if no waiting .

Edited May 11, 2010 by joetruk