dk123

Well to give everyone some final details of what happen. He decided the safest route is 3 because he doesn't have to make any modification to his application and avoid having to answer questions about his marriage which might or might not cause him to get denied. So as a result he passed his lottery interview and received his visa. He mentioned that having a relative already in the states and sponsoring him through i-134 really help. After making sure he had the required documents they only were interested in confirming that he had a relative and they were willing to support him. The people who worked at the embassy said his was one of the fastest interview approval they've seen. So now after he get settle in the states he'll just wait until he's eligible to sponsor his wife over. His family is excited for him especially since this is the only possible scenario he could have ever come to the US because he doesn't have any immediate relatives there.

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.

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?

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 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.

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?