KevinH

I'm considering sending a letter to the USCIS really soon now. Basically saying that I have been abandoned and will not be pursuing an adjustment of status because of pending divorce.

My question is, thats final right? It sounds rather final anyways. If she should in the future decide to come back after I've sent a letter to the USCIS that she has abandoned me and we're getting divorced, if we decide to reconcile is it going to be nearly impossible to do that with the USCIS being notified of the divorce/abandonment in the letter?

What do you care what happens with USCIS? The immigration stuff is based on allowing your wife to be with you. If she leaves, it really isn't your problem.

Doesn't even matter if the AOS hasn't happened yet. For a K-1, it is not possible to file/interview an AOS without being married to the petitioner. Marrying someone else won't work either. VAWA is the only form of relief to seek, so be careful. The abuse needs to be documented somehow (police reports, DVIs, etc). Not filing for an AOS/ I130 etc *can* be viewed as abuse, if the reason for failing to do it was to control one's spouse. (In your circumstances, that clearly is not the case).

I would file for a divorce immediately. If you don't know where she is, you won't be able to serve papers to her. This can take a while - there will probably need to be notices in the paper and such. I would do it soon, see a lawyer. A divorce can be stopped or put on hold up until the last minute (2 hours in my case).

Well my thought was that ... yeah she has a file with the USCIS and she's messing up up her record, but I have a file too. And if I ever apply for another K1 visa for any lady in the future, it would somehow mess me up if I didn't notify them of what was going on in this situation. I don't know, I thought that the government ... after 9/11, would be like hugely interested on what was going on with immigrants, and if they don't know where one is at any time that creates a crisis that they are going to pursue and I'd be an accomplice if I didn't go out of my way to let them know what was going on. If that's not the case then great, you're right it isn't my problem.

Unfortunately, I just moved to Michigan about 4 months ago and Michigan has a 6 month residency requirement before a divorce can be filed, so I'm stuck until about December for being able to file.

I've never used the internet as a dating device but how about trying to meet a lady who lives in the USA but also has a deep interest in Russia like yourself?

I wish you all the best for the future and don't let this experience put you off women as please remember that 99% of women would never dream of behaving in this way

Thanks for your concern and advice.

I haven't had alot of luck with American women, my first wife was actually alot more horrible than this situation if you can believe it. Basically this same deal, then throw in emptying my bank account and bouncing 25 grand worth of checks in my name, destroying my business, she even put my pets to sleep.

Next time around I'll be alot more picky, expecting and assertive ... I agree that being a push-over is quite undesireable to gals.

Yes, that is true as it applies to the OPs case...his wife would have to qualify for VAWA. He asked about Good Faith Marriage Waiver in general, but I should have been more specific to state that my answer was a general one, and not necessarily related to the matter his wife would be facing. Thanks for the clarification.

So the only way she gets to stay is if she says she was battered by me? That worries me, her entire future, her entire life ... whether she stays in America with a man she thinks she loves, or whether she returns to Belarus which is not a fun place ... is all wound up on whether or not she would say that I beat her. Honestly I wouldn't give her the benefit of the doubt that she would lie with all she has to gain from it.

Essentially, she files the form I-751, just as you would normally do together, accompanied by the evidence to show you mingled your lives. If the evidence is sufficient, she would be approved, if not, then there would likely be an interview...or an RFE for more corroborating evidence. You need to evaluate what it is she has, to get an idea of if she would prevail.

Tax forms

- no

bank statements

- no

insurance policies

- maybe 2 months of being on insurance, purchased in her maiden name

birth certificates of children

- no

photos of the couple taken during the marriage

- not many and I don't think she bothered to take any

declarations of persons having knowledge of their marriage

- all our friends know that she left without good reason after a short time, I can't think of any who would say that we had a long lasting serious marriage

other documentation establishing a bona fide marital relationship

- can't think of any

There's also the time factor, married 5 months before she left (2 of which she was conducting an affair)

Essentially, she files the form I-751, just as you would normally do together, accompanied by the evidence to show you mingled your lives. If the evidence is sufficient, she would be approved, if not, then there would likely be an interview...or an RFE for more corroborating evidence. You need to evaluate what it is she has, to get an idea of if she would prevail.

Also there is the fact that, because its only been 5 months since being married, that she would have to wait one year and seven months before she could even get this adjustment of status hearing? Assuming we're divorced within a few months, she would be conducting this meeting for adjustment of status after a year and a half of being out of status and legally having to go home? Or there is no time limit for her to file this kind of waiver?

Have a question if anyone knows. I read a little bit about a waiver ... "Good Faith Marriage Waiver.", basically if she says she entered our marriage under good faith, but it disolved, does she qualify to pursue a greencard if a waiver is awarded to her?

***The petition must be accompanied by evidence that demonstrates they entered the marriage in good faith. Examples of such evidence include proof of joint ownership of property, commingling of finances (e.g. tax forms, bank statements, insurance policies), birth certificates of children, photos of the couple taken during the marriage, declarations of persons having knowledge of their marriage and other documentation establishing a bona fide marital relationship. If the USCIS determines that the qualifying marriage was entered into in good faith, it will approve the joint petition, remove the conditional status, and grant the non-citizen permanent resident status.***

So basically is she entitled to say ... "when I got married I meant it to last forever. But we're divorced now, things just didn't work out. Please give me a waiver that allows me to get my greencard."?

I'd have a pre-nup signed by her. She may be offended by it, and maybe she should have been told about it before she came here, but you can't 100% rely on the fact the marriage will last forever.

My experience was everything in the world was great until one day my soon-to-be-ex just up and said she found someone else on the internet and she's leaving me for him. No ... this is a problem and we have to fix it, no ... I'm going to leave if you don't do this and that. Had nothing to do with me, said I was just fine, she just loved this other man better. She's Christian, reads her bible, by all appearances we had a wonderful marriage. Made no sense whatsoever to me, still doesn't.

I wasn't going to have a pre-nup signed with her, fortunately I didn't have to (she left before I filed the I-864 ... after only 4 months of being married). She was naive and entirely propelled by selfishness, what if she was a little more cunning and pulled that after she had her greencard? Two more years of life wasted and many more years being responsible to support her.

My advice ... apologize to her, say you should have told her about this sooner before she made the decision to come to this country, however it is necessary and if she decides that it is not acceptable, you'll pay for her expenses to go home.

Based on what you said, you should not reconcile with her. She will leave you again. She is not even grateful to you that she is in the USA because of you. You should not let her come to your house again, as she can call the police and claim that you threatened her or something. If that happens, you will be in problem, even if she tells a lie to the police. So becareful. You should not even keep in touch with her. Start the divorce process immediately, notify USCIS everything including her failure to fill our AR-11 to change her address. It will be uptp the USCIS what they will do. You may not like what I am suggesting, but this kind of things happen when someone enters into a marriage solely to come to USA. I hope, she is not pregnant. You should see immigration and divorce lawyers.

She believes its entirely arbitrary that I was born in the US and she was born in Belarus. Any reference made that she should be appreciative because citizenship would be available because of me ... that I've provided for her ... that I went through alot of work to bring her here, just seems to push her hot button. To her, I could have been born there and she could have been born in the US and ... see how I like it. Something I wish I would have known before going through all the effort. Entirely self centered, slightly cute until it rears its ugly head against you.

This is her. Basically asking how far the marriage certificate she has from me will allow her to operate in the US as she's living with another man. I don't know if I'll try for another foreign bride, seems next time around I'll be overly cautious and it'll be interpreted as no trust whatsoever. Blah.

First of all I'm so very sorry that you have to go through this.

Second of all though, why on earth, after your new wife has left for only three weeks, would you even consider going through this process again with someone else who lives outside of the US? I only ask because for me, if my relationship does not for whatever reason work out, there ain't no way in heck I'm going to even talk to anyone outside of the US since it's just too darn difficult!!!

I love the russian people, fascinated with the culture, and started learning the language long before this last lady ever contacted me (wasn't even looking when she contacted me). I was a little too eager, little unwise (I'm 35, she's 25 ... 10 years is a huge difference). The next time around I'd be more discerning.

I have no intentions of considering pursuing another girl now with the potential of her returning, but I certainly don't want to do anything right now that would jeopardize my possibilities in the future.

I don't associate this with being a typical scenario, I think I've read less than 50% of american marriages remain married, and its more than 70% when it comes to a foreign marriage, so my chances are still better at looking abroad.

KevinH,

She's approaching a deadline right now of declaring her change of address. 10 days is the requirement for an alien. I suspect she won't file it, so as to not draw attention to her activities, but, nonetheless, it is a violation of the statutes. Now, USCIS do not ordinarily enforce failure to alert a change in address, but there are penalties and it is a violation of the INA.

Yes, she could remain, as an out of status alien. Aliens are deported, but there's a chance she'd run under the radar for quite some time, as typically being out of status, in and of itself, is not generally enough to make the USCIS remove a person from the United States.

So these penalties she's accruing to herself, for being out of status and everything else, and I don't tell the USC until many months after the fact ... lets say two years from now I'm divorced and I want to initiate the process again with another girl ... are they going to look at my record, see that I petitioned before, see that not only did she mess up but I went a long while without notifying them that she messed up ... could they potentially refuse my process or require alot of extra legal runaround before they'd consider another petition from me?

Thanks so much diadromous mermaid for your replies.

At this point you, as the USC, have no responsibility to do anything and given the circumstances you've shared there's no way tht I can see, that you are in any risk of being found to have engaged in fraud. If her plan was to do what she's done, she has misused the K-1 visa and deceived you.

It is your choice to report her departure, or not. Obviously, if you hope to reconcile, the best thing to do is wait. Frankly, her plan to remain in the US and adjust is foiled, if that is what she intends to do. She could marry this other bloke, if she divorces you, but she'd be required to return to Lithuania to begin the petitioning process all over again as a spouse of a US citizen, and the longer she waits to do it, the more out of status time she accrues and then there's no assurance that USCIS may not find her first marriage in question. All very 'iffy" if you ask me.

But the USCIS wouldn't force her to leave the US if she was actually married to this guy after our divorce, correct? If this guy offers to take care of her indefinitely and she finds under-the-table work, she's pretty much guaranteed able to stay in the US indefinitely?

I'm curious, if during our divorce, if I were to notify the USC of whats going on and they knew where she was located at, if she would be in danger of being deported. Also curious whether if she stays hidden until divorced, then marries the same day, if she's able to stay indefinitely ... perhaps not legally but then again not under risk of being deported.

I promised her parents that I would wait for her, so I'd probably give her a good many months if it is possible.

OK. So at this time, although you married within the 90 days, her status has expired. If she leaves and your marriage culminates in a divorce, she will be unsuccessful adjusting status with another USC. The statutes prohibit adjustment of a K type through anyone other than the original petitioner. The I-134 is not binding, and if you feel the marriage has no chance of reconciliation, you could alert USCIS to her departure and put it on record that you will not be pursuing adjustment of status due to the impending divorce.

If you have reason to believe that the marriage was entered into solely as a vehicle to permit her to gain entry into the USA, you could mention that in your letter. If the other man is a USC, I'm not sure how that would be viewed by USCIS. The position could be that he could have petitioned her himself. UNLESS he is only an LPR.

Yes, we were married within 90 days. Her status has expired. I think her strategy is that she is going to try to wait it out inside the country until a divorce has been finalized, then instantly marry this new man and sort it out after that ... her feeling that as long as she's married to him they won't make her leave.

I'm not trying to be vengeful, if she would eventually come back on her own I'm not in an extreme rush to mess up her chances at reconciliation if I don't have to ... not that I expect it but its only been like 3 weeks now since this issue has occured so I wouldn't entirely rule out that she'd be willing to reconcile.

Am I liable if I wait it out another couple weeks without notifying the USC? I'm not wanting to do anything like commit fraud or mess up my chances at ever taking another lady through this process in the future, but on the other hand I think after 2 1/2 years that it'd be silly to trash everything without giving her a little more opportunity to resolve things.

I don't know if she entirely plotted to do this for certain on the day of our marriage, or if it was more of a ... "you're good enough for now, but if I find something better eventually I'm leaving", but doing that only after 3 months to me seems rather convincing that it was her intention.

All paperwork leading up through marriage was completed. Anything thereafter hasn't been filed yet. In regards to the affidavit of support, I supplied the original for the fiance visa, I believe called I-134. I did not supply the I-864 yet.

We've been having alot of issues since marriage, financial, her medical, and relationship based, I haven't pursued filing more paperwork yet since after we were married. We haven't taken any steps towards her greencard since then.

Sorry about posting this here, I didn't see any other topic this question would seem to fit under.

About 2 1/2 years ago, my current wife and I started an online relationship. Shortly thereafter, I began supporting her and planning that we would someday marry. I visited her in Lithuania the Christmas before last Christmas, and generally spent alot of money on her and her family (probably over $40,000).

She came to the US in March of this year on a fiancee visa, we married in May. A couple weeks ago, she told me that she had met another man (on the internet), and she left me for him. She had told me that her relationship with him began months before she left, so to the best of my knowledge, she was pursuing another relationship within 3 months of being married.

I haven't heard from her in over a week. At this point, being almost past the point of horrific shock, other concerns are setting in.

My first concern is that I swore to the government that she resides with me during this conditional residency before her greencard, I should most likely contact them as soon as possible to discover whether my affidavit of support could be revoked and what my liabilities are in regards to her, taking into consideration she abandoned me and it was beyond my control.

I wasn't abusive, even as she was leaving I was calm and tried to talk things through with her. I honestly believe at this point, that she contemplated doing this on the day that we were married, pursuing another relationship as soon as she was here. I wonder if that would qualify for an annulment or if I should pursue divorce.

I'm wondering if anyone else out there has any advice or has had something similar happen to them, I'm to the point now where I don't believe things are fixable and I'm concerned about making sure my responsibilities to the governement are resolved.