Do we need to tell the IO about our annulled marriage?

[atom99 0]

Hi, My wife and I are going to have our AOS interview in early July. I'm a US citizen, she is an overstayed Chinese citizen. All our documents are ready, joint tax return, joint bank account, photos together etc. But we do have a little issue that I'm not sure about, and like to get people's opinion here.

The issue is that we actually married twice! It's kinda long story. We've known each other for a long time, and decided to marry in late 2008. She was married once before, and divorced her ex-husband in 1997 when they were both in California. The only thing is that the divorce was done by representatives(her father and her ex's brother) in a Chinese court. So when we were about to send our I485 application in 2009, we were advised by an experienced attorney that the state of California doesn't recognize the divorce by representatives. So we held back our application, let my wife and her ex did a divorce again in a California court. After that, we annulled our first marriage, and got married again in 2010. Finally we were able to submit our application early this year. When doing so, to simplify the matter, we only mentioned our second marriage in 2010 and my wife's divorce in California court. We did NOT mention our annulled first marriage and her divorce in Chinese court.

Now my question is, should we tell the IO about these details during our interview? I'm afraid that he might ask some questions about this. He might look at the timeline, and noticed that we've been living together since 2008, before she "divorced" her ex in 2009; or why our wedding ceremony was so simple(because that's our "second" one!). We don't want to give him the impression that we have something to hide. We did everything the right way, and really have nothing to hide. So what should our strategy be? we are leaning towards only talking about it if he asks something about the timeline etc, to not complicate the matter more than it should be. But then I was told that we maybe interviewed separately, and am worried that we may answer it differently depending on his questions. In principle, there shouldn't really be that much to worry about, as we did everything according to law, and have proper documents for every step. But still, we don't want to screw it up because of some stupid nuances of California divorce law.

Any of your feedback will be greatly appreciated!

[Darnell 8,479]

IMO, be prepared to show all documentation, when asked - but don't skirt anything.

Think hard about where (and if) along the line there was any misrepresentation with the AOS filing, and then be prepared to cover that in the interview.

[Anh map 2,098]

Not telling all could be seen as a material misrepresentation which carries a lifetime ban.

[xiaozhu 4]

What is the date on your marriage certificate? It should be your offical marriage date. You may want to start the story from there. Answer questions asked by officers at interview honestly. No need to pull everything out without asking, which may cause more questions from the officer.

Edited June 25, 2011 by xiaozhu

[lady26 0]

only answer what the officer ask don't add more details to your answer unless he/she asks.talk to your wife about what you guys going to answer and make sure it match because there is a possibility that you going to have interview separately.

good luck

[atom99 0]

Thanks a lot for all the replies. To sum it up, we plan to only talk about it when asked, with full documentation. That way, we won't make things more complicated, and at the same time, won't be construed as material misrepresentation.

[mof 15]

I would advise you to be honest. My wife had a marriage annulled and even though we had not included it in any paperwork - after all, an annulled marriage means that it never existed - when we were asked if she had been married before, my wife answered affirmatively and explained that the marriage had been annulled. The IO asked if she had any paperwork to prove this and my wife answered No. She explained that she was 18 at the time (she is now in her late 30s) and that she no longer had anything from that time in her life. The IO was satisfied with that answer and there were no more questions about this issue.