rboston

If they ASK if she is coming to get married then she says "Yes, i am coming to get married but then leaving to complete school and file for CR1" if they dont ask, then no, she doesnt need to bring it up! it isnt that hard. ask the questions she is asked and offer no more information then needed..

Okay, great! We'll probably do more coaching on that when she's not as busy with school.

i am not sure how she got the tourist visa, but hopefully she didnt lie on that. it just seems fishy she got denied and then approved for a visa when nothing substantial in her life changed. i dont know much, i dont know her, but that isnt normal. i wonder if she gave 'misleading' information on her B2 applicaiton to get it. if that is the case,y hen you will have problems in the future and you put yourself in a bigger mess.

It's all a matter of how you handle the interview. In part it was the consulate officer - people familiar with the US Embassy in Costa Rica probably know exactly which consular officer she got her first time. It was also that we expected the officer to be neutral, and not completely hostile. The second time she also kept the interview focused on her ties to the country; when asked a question, no matter what it was, she would find an excuse to mention needing to go back to Costa Rica to finish school. She also kept her reasons for visiting to things that had nothing to do with me - for instance it was my sister's wedding when she visited, so she said she was attending a wedding of friends she knows and staying with them.

Never lied once, and she's never lied to any immigration officer. She has been honest, frank, earnest, upright, etc. etc. with all immigration or CBP officers she's ever dealt with.

You really should have done the K1 vias.

Maybe, but that isn't an option for us anymore. It wasn't going to work for us for a variety of reasons, and we can't change things now.

How can my fiancee respond to a CBP officer asking her questions for her visit where we plan to have a civil wedding in the US in a such as way as to answer them honestly, but also be allowed in?

With the TRUTH!!! Seriously, do you want her to lie to immigration?

Right. So, just to clarify, "truthfully" and "honestly" mean the same thing. When I say we intend to answer "honest", that means the same thing as "we intend to answering truthfully."

That is, we intend to answer with the truth, and intend to not lie. Nor will we fib, nor dissemble, nor misinform, nor perjure, nor foreswear ourselves, nor be fraudulent. We will not be mendacious.

We will instead be honest and tell the truth. We will be forthright and frank and earnest. We will be sincere and candid and ingenuous and upfront and aboveboard.

We will speak with a verity. It will be legit. We will keep it kosher.

We will not lie to the CPB officer. We will answer the officer truthfully.

As far as what to say, I'm not sure about that. I know many of the members here have gotten married in the US while on their visitor's visa, but I believe they've all been under the VWP which is a different situation. They all stated to the CO that their purpose of the trip was to get married and return home.

Thanks. Yeah, I've heard from some people from VWP countries about entering the US in some other threads, but as you probably know, for Central America it is lamentably a different issue :/

She will be here for almost a whole month. There's a lot we can do in that month. She's going to visit me, she's going to visit my family, she could look at schools, or go sight-seeing. Is there any reason listing any of those as her reason for travel would cause an issue?

Obviously if specifically asked if she's going to get married, she'll have to say yes; hopefully she won't be asked that.

A similar thing happened in the visa interview for B1. Initially she told them she was coming to the US to visit her boyfriend, and five minutes later she left the embassy denied. We practiced how to honestly answer questions without mentioning me at all, and she was approved the second time.

Just be honest and say she is going to get married but then must return back for school; bring evidence of that, too. Evidence of returning home from previous visits is good, too. That's the best you can do. If you lie and then file for CR-1 later, that could have negative consequences during your application process as well since they look at all your previous entries into the US. There is absolutely nothing illegal about getting married in the US on a visitor's visa as long as you don't have immigration intent and plan to adjust status, so just try!

I know it's not illegal. But we have limited ability to prove we're not just going to file AOS the moment after she signs. We'd rather avoid mentioning the civil ceremony, if at all possible. We have no interest in lying to officers, and plan to answer all questions honestly. We're asking how to best answer the questions without being fraudulent.

May I ask what you found to be difficult about the marriage process in Costa Rica? From what I can tell it seems pretty straightforward but I'm curious to know if you've found something different.

It takes at least another month, maybe six months, after signing there for the marriage certificate to be available, and then we have to translate it. We also have to pay several hundred in lawyer fees. We've explored it.

Wait wait wait... Also, why do you need to get married in November?

It's a long story that I exclude here for the purpose of keeping replies topical. If you'd like to know all the details, you can PM me.

What's wrong with doing the fiance K-1 visa?

It's more money and takes longer, but we're also getting married in November. There isn't time to get the K-1 approved. She also needs to return immediately after the civil ceremony, because she's still in school - on a K-1, she'll have to stay in the US until the AOS is cleared.

A lot of people here have advised us - CR-1 is definitely the best visa for our situation.

Then I'm afraid that is highly unlikely to be good enough. Has she travelled to the US or different countries before without overstaying? It can help to have a "good tourist" record.

As I said in the OP, she's been to the US before, often enough to know the typical questions she gets asked by CBP. She's been here twice already just this year, and I think four times total (maybe five). So she definitely has a "good tourist" record.

With such weak ties to Costa Rica, I'm bewildered how she was able to get a temporary visa to come to the US.

She got denied first time, we did a lot of reading and coaching, and she got it the second time. But it was a process.

So what rationale was she planning to supply as not having intent to stay? Her word?

That's why I'm asking.

What ties does she have? We know nothing about her situation/job/family life.

I'm not sure what all could be considered ties.

She doesn't own property or have a lease or pay bills anywhere - the custom in her country is to live at home until you get married.

She doesn't own a car - public transport is more widely used in her country.

She doesn't have a job, because she's been in school.

She is in school, which is a tie, but getting a verification of matriculation will be tricky (for reasons I can explain later).

Apart from that, I'm not sure what else could be considered a tie.

Just have her tell the truth and have with her evidence of her ties to her country.

What evidence could she bring?

I'm not sure what your question really is.

How can my fiancee respond to a CBP officer asking her questions for her visit where we plan to have a civil wedding in the US in a such as way as to answer them honestly, but also be allowed in?

We don't want the officers to suspect her of having immigration intent, and saying she's going to get married will definitely make them suspect she has immigration intent.

Truthfully

Hey everyone, I have a question.

My fiancee and I are planning on getting married later this year. She is in Costa Rica, I'm in US. We are going to file civilly in a courthouse here in the states (doing things there is much more difficult, and isn't an option - we've researched it). She will go back to CR by January of next year and we'll fire CR-1 (no immigration intent).

What worries me is that she will have to cross border control, and they always ask her why she is coming to the US. She has had several near-misses already, where the officers were already suspicious.

How can we answer the border officers in a way that is not fraudulent, but also so that she will be allowed in. They usually ask the following questions:

• Why are you coming to the United States?
• Do you have any family here?
• Who are you coming to visit?
• Who is your boyfriend? (They know she has a boyfriend here, or she tells them when they ask)
• How long have you been together/how many times have you seen him?

She has actually been asked by a border officer if I was planning on proposing anytime soon (this was before I had, so she said that she didn't know).

Thoughts?

This thread is ridiculous.

.... then why are you continuing to comment in it... ?

P.S. Read my very first post here. I think third sentence in.

Try and check with other CR1 filers from CR (the portal has a list of members from Costa Rica and you can see who applied for which visa) and see how long their certificate took to get from Registro Civil. It wouldn't be relying on the mail there-- you can go pick it up. If it's not as long as you're worried about or have heard from sources you don't remember, you really may want to weigh the risk at the border vs the few extra steps of being legally married in CR.

My wonderful and beautiful fiancee has helped me locate some of the information we were going off of. These are websites for lawyers who specialize in marrying gringos, but it's the same principle:

http://costaricamarriageofficiants.com/costa_rica_marriage_faq.html

http://www.therealcostarica.com/travel_costa_rica/getting_married_costa_rica.html

http://gocentralamerica.about.com/od/costaricaguide/p/CRMarriageLaws.htm

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/costa-rica/735861

Across all of them, getting the signed license to be in the Registro Civil takes anywhere from a month and a half to 6 months. Then we'd have to ask for the certificate, and who knows how long that will take to receive. Then we'll have to translate it. The standard process, in Costa Rica anyway, is for official translators in the federal offices to translate and stamp them, which adds more time. The lawyer fees are several hundred, and additional fees could probably bring it up to $1500.

Given it's for destination weddings, but it's the same process of filing a civil marriage in CR and getting the certificate to the offices in the US.

She only needs to say she will be getting married when she arrives at the border if she is specifically asked that question. Only answer the question that is asked and never volunteer additional information.

Keep the answers brief and to the point.

I've made over 40 successful entries both before and after marriage. Only been sent to secondary once (and that was right at the beginning of our relationship).

I'm glad you've made it through multiple times, but, again, you are coming from the UK. It's a bit of a different issue coming from Costa Rica. The attitude of immigration policy towards countries in the Anglosphere is a lot more relaxed.

At every single trip she has made, the officer has asked "Why are you coming to the United States?" How is she supposed to answer that?

(side note: while a "proxy marriage"-- a marriage that occurs when one half of the couple is not present is legal in some states, USCIS does not accept them for immigration purposes. So forget about that affadivit for her absence-- you really are looking for any way possible to go "off script").

Proxy marriage never even crossed our mind. In NC, both parties have to go to the records office to request the license itself. If one party can't (e.g. if one party is in a foreign country at the time), you need an affidavit of absence to request the license. That isn't about proxy marriage, though, that's about picking up the license.

It unfortunately doesn't matter if one is married in the ''eyes of god'' and how real that is to us, when it comes down to the state - what matters is the paperwork and process being done in the manner they want it to. I sincerely hope the OP does realize how important it is.

Which is exactly why they won't care and it won't be marriage fraud that we had a ceremony in CR if we don't file any paperwork there, contrary to what multiple people have asserted.

Somewhere in the middle of this, and without making it clear, OP changed the idea. Now he's wanting to have a religious ceremony/ celebration of love/ whatever in CR, then fly to the US with the fiancee who already has a B1/B2 visa (for Christmas if I recall correctly) and take care of the civil there, file for the CR1 visa and wait for it while she finishes her last year of medical school. Not sure how this all went down the rabbit hole, but I'd say that's a fairly straightforward path that lots of folks have been on. The key, I think, is that OP may consider the religious part the "real" part and the civil part as the necessary paperwork (and I think a lot of us feel this way), but for the purposes of immigration it's the exact opposite but the way he talks about it, plus the original idea that was never clarified made this whole thing a mess.

This whole time the minister was going to be his own minister-- not a Costa Rican one (which is good because last I checked-- which admittedly was a long time ago-- only Catholic priests and lawyers and judges can perform marriages in Costa Rica, and the use of "minister" makes me 99% sure it's not Catholic).

Thank you for helping to clear this up with people.

No, we aren't Catholic. If we were, this whole thing would be a lot simpler. The minister lives in my home state (NOT North Carolina). Most people here probably don't know this, but Costa Rica is an officially Catholic country; the only church with weddings officially recognized by the state is the Roman Catholic Church. For two Protestants to get married, it can only be a civil service; we'd have to go through the additional hassle of judges and lawyers from there, in addition to translation and mailing issues (and the CR post office is practically nonexistent - some companies employ their own in-house couriers to deliver bills).

That's obviously not how it works in the US. Any minister (priest/pastor/imam/yogi/boddhisttava/even atheists) can officiate, all you need is some signatures, and you turn in a form, and that's it. It's such an easier process.

Our original plan was to get a NC marriage license, fly there, have the ceremony, sign the piece of paper in CR, fly back, hand them the piece of paper in NC. It's the simplest because we already have a minister, all he needs to do is put his signature on a sheet of paper.

Right, right, TOS and all that. I did just call the County Clerk, has to be in North Carolina. No doubt exists in my mind (nor has it since page 1 of this thread) that that isn't how marriage licenses work.

The County Clerk did say we can go there and it's an extra $20 on top of the license fee to get everything signed in front of a magistrate. Which is a lot easier actually than the original plan (I was going to need an affidavit for her absence). Barring simpler alternatives, that's what we'll do.

What worries me about this is when she enters the country. I'm worried about her getting denied at the border. She's had some near-misses when coming here before. At that point we won't be "officially married" and we won't have any of the CR-1 paperwork started. She'll need to say that she intends to get married inside the US, and that's going to throw up red flags. She might be able to prove she'll be in school, but I don't know if her school will give her that form (issue with matriculation dates).

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

Let me repeat scenario two:

Get a form from NC.

Go to Costa Rica.

Have a "celebration of love" which consists of my bride and I saying vows of love in front of friends and family.

Fly back to NC with minister and two witnesses.

In NC, have the wedding, which will consist of minister, two witnesses, wife, I, signing a sheet of paper.

Handing that piece of paper to a clerk.

"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......

Our wedding is in late November. We don't have time to apply for and receive a K1 by then. It won't work anyway, because she needs to go back in January, and by the time she can come to stay we won't be fiancees anymore.

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.

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.

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.

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.