dv 2023 winner needs advice

[dk123 1]

So I have a friend who was selected for the DV 2023 lottery but he's in a unique situation and not sure what is the correct approach. So my friend had a pure ceremonial marriage a couple years back, no marriage certificate. When applying for the lottery he entered himself as single because technically he's not officially married. He wants to just finish the visa process as single so as to not complicate the process further. If he was to be approved for a visa he plans on marrying his wife officially after he is settled in the US. Are there any issues with this approach? Also to throw a wrench in it he does have pictures of the marriage ceremony on his social media would he be denied a visa because of this?  He assumed that he would have been in a worse situation if he said he was married but did not have any legal document to prove it. So what do you think he should do? 

Edited May 11, 2022 by dk123

[JeanneAdil 6,539]

What country?

some ceremonial marriages are legal if legal and the norm for the country

 

 

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

This is a pretty grey area, i know of couples who married religiously, entered as married, did a civil marriage after that to comply with legal us immigration rules, and were fine. But I can see a scenario in which your friend would be ok as well if they can argue that they knew the traditional marriage was not legally recognized. I don’t  understand though why your friend would want to complete the process as single. Why not get married now - they will certainly have evidence of a genuine relationship and no concerns about a green card marriage. If they marry now - wife gets a visa/green card with him, cheap, quick and easy. If he marries her afted he settles in the US, it is significantly more expensive, significantly more complicated and significantly more lengthy to bring her over (the fees are a lot higher, he will have to sign an affidavit of support /be earning enough to do that, and wait probably another two years after filing). There is no logical reason for him to wait to marry her until after he has emigrated. 

[dk123 1]

19 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

This is a pretty grey area, i know of couples who married religiously, entered as married, did a civil marriage after that to comply with legal us immigration rules, and were fine. But I can see a scenario in which your friend would be ok as well if they can argue that they knew the traditional marriage was not legally recognized. I don’t  understand though why your friend would want to complete the process as single. Why not get married now - they will certainly have evidence of a genuine relationship and no concerns about a green card marriage. If they marry now - wife gets a visa/green card with him, cheap, quick and easy. If he marries her afted he settles in the US, it is significantly more expensive, significantly more complicated and significantly more lengthy to bring her over (the fees are a lot higher, he will have to sign an affidavit of support /be earning enough to do that, and wait probably another two years after filing). There is no logical reason for him to wait to marry her until after he has emigrated. 

So here's his line of thought. He would like to take route that would have the highest possibility of getting approved for a visa. Yes, leaving her here and sponsoring her later would take longer but at the cost of time he will have more opportunities to try again if she was denied. but with the DV lottery there's no guarantee that he'll ever get selected again and since he has no immediate relatives in the states this is a rare chance that probably would ever come again.

 

but as for your suggest of just getting married now I thought of that as well but there's one unknown for him. Since everyone seems to make a big deal with saying that you're single on the entry form when you're really married is an automatic denial, would him admitting to be ceremonially married prior to entering the lottery would be considered by them as lying on the form? Would he be given a chance to plead his case before them making a decision?  If the answer to that is yes then he would rather go ahead and marry her officially now.

 

There  are some other gotchas if he goes with the married route. She right now doesn't have a passport will he be able to submit a DS-260 for her without one? if not he'll have to wait for her to get her passport before he can submit it would submitting a month or two later cut his chances of getting an interview significantly? His number is 2023AS7XXX

 

 

 

20 hours ago, JeanneAdil said:

What country?

some ceremonial marriages are legal if legal and the norm for the country

 

 

so it's Cambodia but since in Cambodia you can't get any of the marital benefits without a marriage certificate I can only assume it's not legal. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by dk123

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

1 hour ago, dk123 said:

Yes, leaving her here and sponsoring her later would take longer but at the cost of time he will have more opportunities to try again if she was denied

This reasoning makes no sense to me. If she is denied on her own, it doesn’t affect him as he is the selectee. If they are denied for being married then it will not change regardless of whether he tries to get her a visa via DV or spouse visa F2A. 

 

1 hour ago, dk123 said:

There  are some other gotchas if he goes with the married route. She right now doesn't have a passport will he be able to submit a DS-260 for her without one? if not he'll have to wait for her to get her passport before he can submit it would submitting a month or two later cut his chances of getting an interview significantly? His number is 2023AS7XXX

No, a month or two delay in submission at this stage would not have an effect on whether or not he gets an interview.

[Kenyan Couple 21]

On 5/10/2022 at 10:18 PM, dk123 said:

So I have a friend who was selected for the DV 2023 lottery but he's in a unique situation and not sure what is the correct approach. So my friend had a pure ceremonial marriage a couple years back, no marriage certificate. When applying for the lottery he entered himself as single because technically he's not officially married. He wants to just finish the visa process as single so as to not complicate the process further. If he was to be approved for a visa he plans on marrying his wife officially after he is settled in the US. Are there any issues with this approach? Also to throw a wrench in it he does have pictures of the marriage ceremony on his social media would he be denied a visa because of this?  He assumed that he would have been in a worse situation if he said he was married but did not have any legal document to prove it. So what do you think he should do? 

He should not leave his wife behind. Application as a Permanent resident means that he'd have to travel home and marry her legally AFTER getting the visa. We both know it may take years for this to happen, and much longer for him to be able to start a visa process for F2A (wife of permanent resident). I went through the IR1 and it took us over 3yrs due to COVID complications, the f2a (Permanent resident applicants) took much longer. I do not understand how marrying her now will make him get denied, unless he wants to stay single and isn't sure about his relationship.

[dk123 1]

On 5/11/2022 at 9:08 PM, SusieQQQ said:

This reasoning makes no sense to me. If she is denied on her own, it doesn’t affect him as he is the selectee. If they are denied for being married then it will not change regardless of whether he tries to get her a visa via DV or spouse visa F2A. 

 

No, a month or two delay in submission at this stage would not have an effect on whether or not he gets an interview.

Ok so here how we think adding his wife would negatively effect him. Let me know if we what we're thinking is wrong.

If he was to marry his wife now and add her to the application he would have to prove that there marriage is bonified. In Cambodia he seen from others he know is difficult to do especially if all he has are pictures and the official marriage certificate would be dated after his selection.  Now if he was to continue the application as a single person he just needs to only prove he's meets the lottery criteria which he does. To him the probability of him getting approved for a visa as a single person greater vs having to prove that his marriage is bonified.  So if he was approved and become a permanent resident he would come back marry her officially and start the normal process of sponsoring his wife over it would be longer  but he can try to re-apply or he can appeal the decision but both option  would not be available for the DV lottery process if he was denied because they didn't believe his marriage was bonified. 

 

on a different topic I've been meaning to ask someone but can someone explain to me now to read the visa bulletin? Take this bulletin for example https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2022/visa-bulletin-for-may-2022.html.  When it list 30,000 for asia does that mean everyone with a case number less than 30,000 would probably get an interview?  Also what about for the month of June when it lists the region as current? does it mean everyone still has a chance to get an interview?

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

2 hours ago, dk123 said:

Ok so here how we think adding his wife would negatively effect him. Let me know if we what we're thinking is wrong.

If he was to marry his wife now and add her to the application he would have to prove that there marriage is bonified. In Cambodia he seen from others he know is difficult to do especially if all he has are pictures and the official marriage certificate would be dated after his selection.  Now if he was to continue the application as a single person he just needs to only prove he's meets the lottery criteria which he does. To him the probability of him getting approved for a visa as a single person greater vs having to prove that his marriage is bonified.  So if he was approved and become a permanent resident he would come back marry her officially and start the normal process of sponsoring his wife over it would be longer  but he can try to re-apply or he can appeal the decision but both option  would not be available for the DV lottery process if he was denied because they didn't believe his marriage was bonified. 

 

on a different topic I've been meaning to ask someone but can someone explain to me now to read the visa bulletin? Take this bulletin for example https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2022/visa-bulletin-for-may-2022.html.  When it list 30,000 for asia does that mean everyone with a case number less than 30,000 would probably get an interview?  Also what about for the month of June when it lists the region as current? does it mean everyone still has a chance to get an interview?

Where your thinking is wrong is that in both cases he needs to prove the relationship. So the start is the same. If he thinks he’s going to (1) circumvent by lying in your second scenario and pretend he just met her, then guess what he still has to prove it’s bona fide and wow on the face of it to the US embassy that’s totally going to look like a green card marriage and get denied, OR (2) he’s honest and tells them the length of the relationship (being honest is actually the only option), then there is no difference to now other than adding cost and time to the process, and (3) if he tries number one and gets caught lying, he gets his green card revoked and a permanent ban for material misrepresentation on an immigrant application. And his wife might get a a permanent.ban too.  So tell us again what’s the best option? Yes you got it, being honest.

[dk123 1]

9 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

Where your thinking is wrong is that in both cases he needs to prove the relationship. So the start is the same. If he thinks he’s going to (1) circumvent by lying in your second scenario and pretend he just met her, then guess what he still has to prove it’s bona fide and wow on the face of it to the US embassy that’s totally going to look like a green card marriage and get denied, OR (2) he’s honest and tells them the length of the relationship (being honest is actually the only option), then there is no difference to now other than adding cost and time to the process, and (3) if he tries number one and gets caught lying, he gets his green card revoked and a permanent ban for material misrepresentation on an immigrant application. And his wife might get a a permanent.ban too.  So tell us again what’s the best option? Yes you got it, being honest.

I guess think that's where the misunderstanding is. The reason why he's thinking of doing the single route is because he believes it's not a lie. Remember he doesn't think his marriage is legal because he doesn't have a marriage certificate. As for coming back to sponsor her later he was never going to pretend they just met. He will tell them the truth they were together before he immigrated but he wasn't officially married to her. He then return to Cambodia to officially marry her and bring her back.

 

So here's the issue at hand, If not having a marriage certificate means your marriage is not official then if he adds his wife it means he lied on the DV entry, but if a ceremonial marriage is official then going the single route means he's lying. What we want to determine is which route is the route of honesty? He's definitely not trying to circumvent the law he's trying to figure out which route is legally not a lie. 

 

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

3 hours ago, dk123 said:

He will tell them the truth they were together before he immigrated but he wasn't officially married to her.

So there’s no difference. Like i said. All he’s going to do is create huge extra cost and time headaches for himself by sponsoring her later rather than marrying her now.

 

i can’t keep arguing around in circles. Good luck to your friend.

 

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by SusieQQQ

[jan22 3,056]

22 hours ago, dk123 said:

I guess think that's where the misunderstanding is. The reason why he's thinking of doing the single route is because he believes it's not a lie. Remember he doesn't think his marriage is legal because he doesn't have a marriage certificate. As for coming back to sponsor her later he was never going to pretend they just met. He will tell them the truth they were together before he immigrated but he wasn't officially married to her. He then return to Cambodia to officially marry her and bring her back.

 

So here's the issue at hand, If not having a marriage certificate means your marriage is not official then if he adds his wife it means he lied on the DV entry, but if a ceremonial marriage is official then going the single route means he's lying. What we want to determine is which route is the route of honesty? He's definitely not trying to circumvent the law he's trying to figure out which route is legally not a lie. 

 

I'm not sure you understand what others have been telling you -- they are not saying he should file for her as his wife on his DV application based on the ceremonial marriage that he believes is not legal.  The advice is that he marry her now and get the marriage certificate with a current date.  He then shows proof of their lives together previously that proves it's a valid marriage.

 

The DV is not like some of the other immigrant visa categories where you have to be single for the petition and remain single from the time you apply until the time you enter the US.  People who were in long-term relationships all over the world get married after one person in the couple gets selected in the DV lottery so they can immigrate together.

[arken 4,197]

If your friend has not filled out DS260 yet, he could literally marry soon and immigrate together with DV visas for both of them. With such long relationship history, why to immigrate alone and wait 2-3 years for the spouse. If he doesn't want to immigrate together, he can then start F2A process once in the US.
 

For DV visas, the bar for evidences of bonafide marriages is much lower that other family based F2A or IR/CR1 visas. You don't have to deal with i864/i134 either. It is very common in my birth country that people marry that too arranged marriages after getting selected on DV and immigrate together.

[igrant 28]

All the answers are actually wrong here. My relative had the same situation; married religiously, had a big ceremony, and all the other fun stuff, but never thought they needed a marriage certificate from the government. However, when registering for the DV lottery they entered as married since they didn't feel they were singles. They had all the proofs that their marriage was genuine accept for the gov marriage certificate. They even have a child since their marriage. However, the CO denied their visa saying they were registered as officially married  before the selection and that the marriage certificate was received after they were selected. I am not sure how other people with similar situation got their visas. And I am not sure if the applicant can now submit DS-260 as single since they had entered as married before and submitting as married will create issues either. 

[igrant 28]

46 minutes ago, igrant said:

All the answers are actually wrong here. My relative had the same situation; married religiously, had a big ceremony, and all the other fun stuff, but never thought they needed a marriage certificate from the government. However, when registering for the DV lottery they entered as married since they didn't feel they were singles. They had all the proofs that their marriage was genuine accept for the gov marriage certificate. They even have a child since their marriage. However, the CO denied their visa saying they were registered as officially married  before the selection and that the marriage certificate was received after they were selected. I am not sure how other people with similar situation got their visas. And I am not sure if the applicant can now submit DS-260 as single since they had entered as married before and submitting as married will create issues either. 

Actually I misunderstood that the applicant had entered as married. Since he was registered as single then the safest route should be as single, moving forward even if it takes years to later bring the wife. 

[arken 4,197]

46 minutes ago, igrant said:

Since he was registered as single then the safest route should be as single, moving forward even if it takes years to later bring the wife.

Or he can get married asap, submit DS260 for both, and immigrate together with DV visas. There is no safest or dangerous route to compare here. It's just a choice he needs to make.
Below are all safest options:  

1. Marry now and immigrate with the spouse,

2. Marry now, immigrate without the spouse and petition later.

3. Immigrate as single, marry and petition later.

Edited June 1, 2022 by arken