Get Divorced to Remarry in NY State due to ON certificate wait time

[codybanks 1]

We got married in late June and I applied for the marriage certificate 8 weeks after. When I did get it, I seen that our marriage was indeed registered just over 2 weeks after our marriage. You can try and request it just over 2 weeks, if you want too. They told us it took 10-12 weeks to apply. Yes, that part of the wait is long, but you have a lot longer of a wait when it comes to apply for immigration.

[JlovesA 109]

Question --- don't you need your marriage certificate to initiate a divorce?

Haha, never even thought of that...you most definitely do.

[LIFE'SJOURNEY 970]

You need more patient just to remain married. So, if this is getting to you, then you are in for a long ride in the state of being married.

[Krikit 1,163]

As you can see, we're a very supportive group here on VJ. Even if it's just to tell you to get a grip!

Question --- don't you need your marriage certificate to initiate a divorce?

[lgg 2]

We waitied for 9 weeks for our Ontario Marriage certificate. Plus all the other immigration waiting, that's just a drop in the bucket. I'm in the US now, it's all done for now so... may as well just wait it out and get used to it -- you'll get there, promise.

Hi -

We got married in late August. I no longer have any remaining patience for the Ontario wait time to get a marriage certificate and would like to "remarry" in NY State so we can get the certificate more quickly. Do we need to get divorced in Ontario before we can legally do this?

-Adam

[She_Fitz 0]

I will most definitely get flamed for this but I am sharing my experience any way..

For the initial paper work I submitted the piece of paper signed by the pastor at the service.

By the time I had to fill out the DS-230 I had the full certificate.

I did not receive an RFE and I have been living in the US for the last 5 months. I am not saying you should do this but I did not have any problems doing it myself.

[prakriti 0]

- I've already heard from the Consulate that they want the long form certificate and I just submitted the I-130 two weeks ago.

- This has nothing to do with my patience for being married or my patience with the immigration process itself. I'm aware of what the wait times are. I simply do not want to add unnecessary weeks to the wait time. I'm all business about this, this is not an emotional decision. Before we even got married I discussed this with a prominent immigration attorney in Toronto and she told me to just get married in Ontario and wait. I'm disgusted with myself for following her advice when I didn't absolutely have to. I'm willing to scour the earth for ways to shave days from this process, specifically because it takes so long. The only thing I'm not willing to do at this juncture is enter for tourism + adjustment of status. Everything else is on the table.

- The person who said it should be registered after a couple weeks is correct. Certificates Express claims I will have the certificate by Friday. The cost was around $260 all inclusive.

- My lack of patience for this kind of thing plays a large part in my decision to leave Canada (I am American and sponsoring my wife). I could understand a wacky delay if this were a federal govt but at provincial level they should be able to produce a certificate in a matter of hours or at most a couple days if that's what I need.

[prakriti 0]

Also, I wonder if USCIS/NVC/etc are aware that they're motivating people to enter for tourism + AOS due to their wait times, and in doing that exposing themselves to fraud.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Hehehe, they don't view that as exposing themselves to fraud - they view that as people deciding for themselves to commit fraud.

Ontario has had a problem with issuing vital statistic records in a timely way for several years now - ever since the former government (PC) decided to do mass lay offs of public service employees, drastically undermining many of their service sectors who were still dealing with massive and increasing amounts of paperwork but with fewer people working fewer hours. It created a backlog and slow down that the current government is still trying to play catch up dealing with it. If it is any consolation they similarly destroyed the Education system at the same time.

The best advice I can give you to shave the maximum amount of possible time off of the process is to make sure you do everything right. Double and triple check all of your work - or if you hire someone (no need to do so, btw, you should be able to do this yourself and that will be faster) -double check their work as well. Make sure you have all of the documents required. Make sure you file the different documents at the correct time with the correct process. Submit originals where they call for originals and copies of everything else. Don't question a demand that they might have for certain documents, nor think that they don't really need access to something you think they shouldn't need. Keep copies of everything you submit so if something gets lost, you can send in another copy when requested. Try to make it as easy for them to say yes as you possibly can. You have the right idea of approaching this all in a business like way.

That being said, there is going to be the inevitable wait. Much of the wait is because Montreal is short-staffed and dealing with a large work load. The actual time to process the application is minimal - especially if your application is complete and organized. The majority of the wait will be just that - waiting until your application gets to the top of the pile and actually makes it to an immigration officer's desk.

Good luck - and remember, good things are worth waiting for .

[FireKari 4]

- I've already heard from the Consulate that they want the long form certificate and I just submitted the I-130 two weeks ago.

- This has nothing to do with my patience for being married or my patience with the immigration process itself. I'm aware of what the wait times are. I simply do not want to add unnecessary weeks to the wait time. I'm all business about this, this is not an emotional decision. Before we even got married I discussed this with a prominent immigration attorney in Toronto and she told me to just get married in Ontario and wait. I'm disgusted with myself for following her advice when I didn't absolutely have to. I'm willing to scour the earth for ways to shave days from this process, specifically because it takes so long. The only thing I'm not willing to do at this juncture is enter for tourism + adjustment of status. Everything else is on the table.

- The person who said it should be registered after a couple weeks is correct. Certificates Express claims I will have the certificate by Friday. The cost was around $260 all inclusive.

- My lack of patience for this kind of thing plays a large part in my decision to leave Canada (I am American and sponsoring my wife). I could understand a wacky delay if this were a federal govt but at provincial level they should be able to produce a certificate in a matter of hours or at most a couple days if that's what I need.

You should have read the wiki's first, as most of them have stated it is easier to marry in USA then proceed from there. =)

Most of them also say lawyer = waste of time and money.

It's ok though, some of the time can be recovered if you use the electronic processing and ditch the lawyer

[unless of course you have an unusual case and not something pretty straight forward.]

We are here for ya, and here to help you.

But please, read the wiki section, it was our bible for our process, and we got through it all in 7 months.

Most of the people IN the consulate that I was talking to, I would ask them how long, and they mostly answered year and a half or more.

The one lady I was talking to hired a lawyer to take care of her WHOLE case, she showed up with one slip of paper, and none of the evidence or anything that made her seem prepared for her interview, and she also said her process has taken her nearly THREE YEARS. I was horrified.

Our NVC Bibles [save these somewhere for your use]:

http://www.visajourney.com/wiki/index.php/IR1_and_CR1_Immigrant_Visas

http://www.visajourney.com/wiki/index.php/LingChe_NVC_ShortCut

http://www.visajourney.com/wiki/index.php/NVC_Electronic_Processing

Edited September 30, 2010 by FireKari

[prakriti 0]

I'm not consoled. The process of producing vital statistics certificates should be completely automated and should not be significantly impacted by employee layoffs. "That's not how it works" also does not console me. Either we got married or we didn't, and if we did I should be able to click on their website and download what I need as a PDF. For that matter anyone else should be able to too, since marriages are public record. The education system is different, it's not something that can be fully automated by a machine.

I'm not going to hold up the process if I get an RFE but if I run into roadblocks I'm going to find the people who can get rid of them and pay them what they need to do that. I may refer to this forum in the future if I need to do that.

Thanks for your help.

[prakriti 0]

Thanks, I used the "Guides" not the "Wikis". Not sure why they are separate.

I didn't know about this site before we got married, but I did know there could be a delay with ON marriage certificates and made the mistake of getting married in ON anyway. I won't make a mistake like that again.

In retrospect I could have filed the I-130 without the certificate immediately after getting married and followed up with the certificate 2-3 weeks later after it's registered in ON by having Certificates Express use the emergency window (I'm not sure what they do that I couldn't do but apparently they do it). I would have lost at most 1 week that way.

After we file the DS-230, I plan to petition all 100 US senators to inquire with NVC about the status of my application. I'm hoping at least one of them does so.

Edited September 30, 2010 by prakriti

[FireKari 4]

Every RFE you get will hold up your process by 1-3 weeks at least.

Best plan of attack is to tripple check and avoid them at all costs.

The record for the NVC electronic is 11 days, recently you are looking at a very realistic 20-30 days.

You are better off doing this yourself then with a lawyer.

Make sure you have the OPP clearance and LONG form birth certificate ready to go.

Edited September 30, 2010 by FireKari

[prakriti 0]

The woman who got held up for 3 years should be able to sue her (ex) lawyer for malpractice.

What the hell is electronic and how did I not hear about it? What is a long form birth certificate, we have one birth certificate from China and that's all we get.

Edited September 30, 2010 by prakriti

[FireKari 4]

I know right, horrible lawyer.

Electronic processing is where you scan and email all the documents to the NVC rather then paying for postage and waiting for them to arrive physically at the building. This can shave A LOT of time off the process if used right.

BUT -- you will have to bring every document you scan with you to the interview [which is no big deal]

It's all in the links I shared =)