How to File Marriage?

[rboston 1]

Ugh, sorry one more thing. I really cannot stress enough: adjusting status from a B2 is more work than applying for the CR1 and has serious downsides, not the least of which is that planning to do so is fraudulent and because she'll be waiting a year for a green card (whereas with CR1 it is automatic).

Thanks. Yeah, the other (now closed) thread eventually made it clear that AOS is more expensive and more paperwork. The USCIS site made it sound like it would be a better option.

There is a chance (you'd have to check with recent CR1 filers from Costa Rica to verify) that you do NOT have to have translations done if you apply for the visa. We didn't. We got a different visa though.

Which visa did you use? K1? Did you have your ceremony in the US?

You can get legally married in North Carolina while she's visiting on the B2, she goes home within the limits of her B2 while/after/before/whatever you file for the CR1 for her. Simple, easy, legal.

That's probably what we'll end up doing. It makes her uncomfortable doing things in that order, though.

[rboston 1]

So what will happen if you get married in Costa Rica is that you go down to the Registro Civil, ask for your marriage certificate, and go pick it up when it's ready. Ask other Costa Rican CR1 filers if this was difficult (we got married in the US so I don't know myself), my guess is no. It probably takes a few weeks after the marriage to be ready, though, which is similar here.

Come on, you should know about "tico time" by now.

[Pennycat 880]

It appears to be the same here :/

They will know how?

I haven't told anyone that they're wrong. Since the third or so post, it's been clear to me that NC expects licenses to be for ceremonies in NC. Everyone saying I have to use it in NC is factually correct, as has been documented by several people.

They will know, because they will see the date of your marriage certificate and the dates of her entries and exits to the US. They will clearly see that she was not physically present in the US on your alleged wedding date. Plus pictures, which I'm going to guess now you'll ask but how will they KNOW it was a church in CR and not NC? They may not. But you are jumping through hoops upon hoops trying to avoid the very clearly laid out, well-trodden path available to relatively quick and easy legal immigration. In my 2+ years on this board, the only people doing that are trying to get away with something shady, or are just stubborn about the US government telling them what they can and cannot do. It doesn't end well for any of them.

You have told people they're wrong. Someone rightly told you that what you were proposing would be immigration fraud and you told them no it wouldn't, even though it would. Not the AOS question, but this wacky idea of getting a NC licence signed in CR. That is not a legal marriage, and claiming to be legally married for the purposes of immigration, when you are not in fact married, is immigration fraud. People *are* attempting to prevent you from digging yourself into a hole that it may be impossible to get out from-- you're just not listening.

[Pennycat 880]

Come on, you should know about "tico time" by now.

That doesn't necessarily apply to the Registro Civil. My husband got his documents from there in an afternoon. Not sure about a marriage certificate though-- those can take a while in the US, and I imagine it's the same or longer in CR. But either way, you've got a full year and this is all very much par for the course for international marriages.

[Pennycat 880]

Thanks. Yeah, the other (now closed) thread eventually made it clear that AOS is more expensive and more paperwork. The USCIS site made it sound like it would be a better option.

Which visa did you use? K1? Did you have your ceremony in the US?

That's probably what we'll end up doing. It makes her uncomfortable doing things in that order, though.

Yes, we did K1 and therefore our ceremony was in the US. I haven't recommended that to you though because you already need to be apart for a year so you may as well get the visa that comes with a green card, rather than need to go through AOS and wait a year for it in the US. The K1 is basically the same thing as coming on a B2 and adjusting, except the key difference is that you are *allowed* to do so with the K1, and are not with a B2. Those take 6 or so months to get, then you must be married within 90 days, then apply for AOS, and wait a year for your green card (you can get a temporary work authorization while you wait). It's an option for sure, but I fail to see any upside to it in your situation.

How is doing things in that order any different from getting married in Costa Rica? You're getting married, then separating for her last year of school, then she moves to the US. The only question is where the marriage physically takes place. If she wants a wedding in Costa Rica (and I don't blame her), do it. There is plenty of time and it's really not as difficult as you're making it out to be.

[rboston 1]

They will know, because they will see the date of your marriage certificate and the dates of her entries and exits to the US. They will clearly see that she was not physically present in the US on your alleged wedding date.

That's not really an issue for us. We're just going to tell them we had our wedding in Costa Rica on our wedding date. We'll wait until we got to NC to have a "civil ceremony", which will consist of five people signing a sheet of paper over a course of three minutes. The religious ceremony in front of family is the one that matters to us, so that's what we call our wedding date.

That is not a legal marriage, and claiming to be legally married for the purposes of immigration, when you are not in fact married, is immigration fraud.

I apologize if I sound stubborn, but I don't even begin to understand this.

Consider two situations:

1) I get a form from NC, I go to Costa Rica and have a wedding, witnesses and minister there sign it there, I come back to NC and submit the signed marriage license.

2) I get a form from NC, I go to Costa Rica and have a celebration with friends and family that consists of my bride and I saying vows of our love to one another, witnesses and minister get on the plane with us and fly to NC and sign the form here saying we were married (and promptly all leave), and we submit the forms in NC.

The only real difference I can see between 1 and 2 is about $2000 of plane tickets and some extra hassle.

[JFH 12,189]

It might have, yes. But you are also apparently from the UK. People there speak English natively and the government has a reputation for being punctual and proper. My fiancee is from CR, where things are different. Just mailing a letter to her can take a month to arrive, and only makes it to her door 30% of the time.

That it would be on the order of four or fives months, we read on a visa help forum. I'm pretty sure it was this forum, actually. Can't find the specific thread at the moment. In it, the questioner was advised to get married in the US, because the process of USCIS interacting with the Costa Rican government takes a really long time, allegedly.

I think you are confused with what documents are needed and when.

I'll break it down simply for you.

- get married and obtain marriage certificate. Translate if necessary (I.e. If not in English). You should get the marriage certificate while you are in Costa Rica shortly after the wedding. Bring it back to the USA with you.

- file I-130. For this you need a completed I-130 (completed by you, not your wife - you are the petitioner). Download this from USCIS website, your proof of US citizenship (copy of your birth certificate or a copy of your passport), the marriage certificate (photocopy) and translation, a completed G-325A for each of you (download from USCIS website before you go to get married, take with you and have her complete and sign, bring it back with you and the marriage certificate), passport-sized photo of each of you. Get hers done when you are in CR getting married and bring back with you. You also need evidence of a bona fide relationship.

You send all this to USCIS and wait about 5 months for them to adjudicate.

So you can see in the first five or so months all your wife needs to do is complete a form you have downloaded, have a passport photo taken, and get married to you. You don't have to send anything to her.

Whilst waiting for USCIS to adjudicate the I-130 she can gather up the civil documents to send to you for you to send to NVC when the time is right or she can send them herself. Depending on how badly she wants this will influence her decision as to how much she is willing to pay for faster mail delivery. I could have sent my stuff by regular mail for a tenth of what I paid to UPS for 2-day shipping. But I wanted it there as fast as possible. And I wanted it tracked all the way.

Yes, I'm in the UK but I have lived overseas and hold dual nationality. I have had to get a police certificate from a non-English speaking country and get it translated. You have a good five months while you wait for USCIS to get all that stuff done. You need to be pro-active in this.

In all of this, my husband has had to send one thing to me - the completed I-864 and his tax transcript. That's some thing you need many months down the line so plenty of time to get it to her if you start working on it now. Abd if you are going to be the one sending stuff to NVC then you won't even need to send her that.

Edited September 16, 2016 by JFH

[rboston 1]

K1 definitely won't work for us. We're past the deadline on it. K3 is still on the table, but probably more hassle. I think CR-1 is the way to go.

How is doing things in that order any different from getting married in Costa Rica? You're getting married, then separating for her last year of school, then she moves to the US. The only question is where the marriage physically takes place. If she wants a wedding in Costa Rica (and I don't blame her), do it. There is plenty of time and it's really not as difficult as you're making it out to be.

I mean the order of wedding and signing. She prefers to sign immediately after the wedding, rather than waiting.

The wedding is definitely taking place in Costa Rica. Already have the venue booked and all. Getting all of her family tourist visas and plane tickets was going to be impossible.

[JFH 12,189]

You are very unlikely to get a K-3. By all means apply for it if you wish, there's nothing to stop you. But prepare yourself for a 99% chance of it not happening.

[JFH 12,189]

That's not really an issue for us. We're just going to tell them we had our wedding in Costa Rica on our wedding date. We'll wait until we got to NC to have a "civil ceremony", which will consist of five people signing a sheet of paper over a course of three minutes. The religious ceremony in front of family is the one that matters to us, so that's what we call our wedding date.

I apologize if I sound stubborn, but I don't even begin to understand this.

Consider two situations:

1) I get a form from NC, I go to Costa Rica and have a wedding, witnesses and minister there sign it there, I come back to NC and submit the signed marriage license.

2) I get a form from NC, I go to Costa Rica and have a celebration with friends and family that consists of my bride and I saying vows of our love to one another, witnesses and minister get on the plane with us and fly to NC and sign the form here saying we were married (and promptly all leave), and we submit the forms in NC.

The only real difference I can see between 1 and 2 is about $2000 of plane tickets and some extra hassle.

Neither is legal. A North Carolina licence must be used (in other words couple must get married) in North Carolina. Nowhere else. Pretending that the marriage happened in North Carolina when it didn't is fraudulent.

[Pennycat 880]

That's not really an issue for us. We're just going to tell them we had our wedding in Costa Rica on our wedding date. We'll wait until we got to NC to have a "civil ceremony", which will consist of five people signing a sheet of paper over a course of three minutes. The religious ceremony in front of family is the one that matters to us, so that's what we call our wedding date.

I apologize if I sound stubborn, but I don't even begin to understand this.

Consider two situations:

1) I get a form from NC, I go to Costa Rica and have a wedding, witnesses and minister there sign it there, I come back to NC and submit the signed marriage license.

2) I get a form from NC, I go to Costa Rica and have a celebration with friends and family that consists of my bride and I saying vows of our love to one another, witnesses and minister get on the plane with us and fly to NC and sign the form here saying we were married (and promptly all leave), and we submit the forms in NC.

The only real difference I can see between 1 and 2 is about $2000 of plane tickets and some extra hassle.

Ok. So you're proposing to apply for a spouse visa when you've only had a religious ceremony in Costa Rica? And you think that you "telling them" that you got married on such and such a date is sufficient?

Because that doesn't work like that. That's a religious marriage, not a civil marriage, and you don't "tell them" anything, you provide them a legal document that proves you are married. That legal document is a marriage certificate. You must provide the marriage certificate as part of your visa application package. No certificate, no spouse visa.

In your other two situations, I don't know how many different ways we can all say that's not a legal marriage. Your ceremony must take place in the state in which the licence is issued for the marriage to be valid. Not where someone files paperwork for you. You're talking about flying your wedding party and marriage licence down to Costa Rica, performing a ceremony there, but filing it in North Carolina. We all get that. We're all saying that's not a legal marriage. You have to be together, in the state the licence is issued to perform the ceremony. Your officiant will tell you the same thing. The only way for you to be married in the US is to get married IN THE US.

Your options if she wants to have a ceremony in Costa Rica are:

1. Do it all, civil and religious in Costa Rica and then apply for a CR1 visa. It is Not. That. Complicated. You are really going to have to get over your fear of paperwork and the Costa Rican government if you're going to go through any of this.

2. Apply for a fiance visa, have a civil wedding in NC, go back to Costa Rica to have a religious ceremony (this is what we're doing. This makes no sense for you, timeline-wise, but if it makes sense on a personal/relationship level, go for it)

3. Before you ask if you can have a religious ceremony first and then use the K1 and have a legal ceremony in NC-- that is considered risky here because there have been cases of people having non-legal ceremonies, and when that information comes out at the K1 visa interview, they consider you "too married" for the K1 and they get denied. This seems to be limited to a handful of strict embassies in countries with different marriage traditions than the Americas, but it's my opinion to err on the side of caution. Not for nothing, they *did* specifically ask us about parties/ceremonies at our K1 interview. No clue what would have happened if we'd had a ceremony.

[rboston 1]

Neither is legal. A North Carolina licence must be used (in other words couple must get married) in North Carolina. Nowhere else. Pretending that the marriage happened in North Carolina when it didn't is fraudulent.

The second one is totally legal. North Carolina doesn't define a wedding, beyond having a minister and two witnesses signing a sheet of paper. If I have a minister and two witnesses sign a sheet of paper in North Carolina, then I was legally married in North Carolina.

[Pennycat 880]

K1 definitely won't work for us. We're past the deadline on it. K3 is still on the table, but probably more hassle. I think CR-1 is the way to go.

I mean the order of wedding and signing. She prefers to sign immediately after the wedding, rather than waiting.

The wedding is definitely taking place in Costa Rica. Already have the venue booked and all. Getting all of her family tourist visas and plane tickets was going to be impossible.

"Past the deadline"?! What in the world are you talking about? Have you not seen her for 2 years? It doesn't mean that you have to have met for the first time in the past two years. It means that you have to have been physically present with each other at least one time in the past two years......

K3 is effectively non-existent. I don't know why they live that information up. It was from a time when the spouse visas were taking 2 or more years, they made the K3 so the spouse could wait in the US. Now, the I-130s (petition for the CR1) are "beating" the I-129fs (petition for K3) to NVC, and so the State Department proceeds with the I-130 and administratively closes the petition for K3. Forget it exists. Plus.......you have to be apart for a year anyway so...makes no difference.

Just get religiously and civilly married in Costa Rica then. How is this so difficult to grasp?

[rboston 1]

Ok. So you're proposing to apply for a spouse visa when you've only had a religious ceremony in Costa Rica? And you think that you "telling them" that you got married on such and such a date is sufficient?

No, that isn't what I mean at all. Obviously we're going to have a wedding certificate. I meant in terms of explaining why the photos are all in Costa Rica, despite the marriage certificate saying we were married later in a different state.

I do believe you yourself suggested (this thread or another) having the religious ceremony in CR and the civil ceremony in NC.

[JFH 12,189]

The second one is totally legal. North Carolina doesn't define a wedding, beyond having a minister and two witnesses signing a sheet of paper. If I have a minister and two witnesses sign a sheet of paper in North Carolina, then I was legally married in North Carolina.

But you are asking those witnesses and minister to lie to say they witnessed the ceremony in North Carolina. Which they did not.

Also, your "wife" would need to sign it in NC too. All, of you sign a marriage certificate - bride, groom, minister, witnesses.