Big red flag?

[Pupsik 4]

so our stuff has been accepted for review and now we just sit and wait for any notification. Our only real concern is about my wifes previous marriage. We know that they will most likly ask about it since the times are rather close together, but how much do you think they will dig into this?

-she came to USA Jun-2009

- she met #1 Jul-2009

-Filed for tourist visa in Sep-2009 with lawyer

-Oct-2009 J1 expired

-Never had contact with lawyer until Dec-2009 at which point she was required to produce more information. She abandoned the application and moved

-Mar-2010 she married #1 who was a permanent resident, not a citizen (almost instantly things went down hill for her. He had repeatedly applied for citizenship but had not been granted. She found out that he had 2 children from a previous relationship, he had not been paying taxes (which she began to pay for him), he also began drinking and became abusive both verbally and physically)

-she got out of that mess Jun-2010 and began trying to file for divorce but he would not grant her anything or give her copies of anything (real nice guy)

-we met Aug-2010 and instantly hit it off (you all know the feeling when you find the one!)

-Oct-2010 she saved $ and filed for divorce by herself(this was an added expense to have him not involved in the process)

-Feb-2011 we were told by her lawyer that he finally signed the paperwork and we just had to wait for the courts to process and appear before a judge. i proposed a couple days later

-Feb 28 2011? i believe was the date that the divorce became official. don't have the ppwork in front of me

-Apr 17 2011 we were married

[ceadsearc 516]

It's hard to say how much you will be scrutinized. Is there any record of her being legally separated before the divorce? It's definitely a red flag. I can only tell you that in my case, my first husband and I had been separated 2 years, and our divorce was finalized three months before I remarried (only due to the fact that my state has a 1 year waiting period for filing for divorce). I am the USC, and I was heavily scrutinized for it and so was my current husband and our relationship. I imagine that her being the immigrant, she will probably be more heavily scrutinized.

[Pupsik 4]

It's hard to say how much you will be scrutinized. Is there any record of her being legally separated before the divorce?

i dont know what evidence she could produce. maybe the lawyer would be able to say when she came to him about the divorce. she also had a different address and was working for cash so i dont think she would be able to prove that she lived and worked somewhere else.

i know that the landlord she had was a witness to some of his outbursts. she has been trying to get in touch with her to see if she can write a statement about his behavior to show that she was in an abusive relationship

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

i dont know what evidence she could produce. maybe the lawyer would be able to say when she came to him about the divorce. she also had a different address and was working for cash so i dont think she would be able to prove that she lived and worked somewhere else.

i know that the landlord she had was a witness to some of his outbursts. she has been trying to get in touch with her to see if she can write a statement about his behavior to show that she was in an abusive relationship

It wouldn't help if she could prove where she was working because she wasn't authorized to work in the US. This violation won't be held against her because she's adjusting status as an immediate relative of a US citizen, but there's no point rubbing the IO's nose in it.

Let's go back to the beginning. Did she enter with a J-1 visa? Did the visa have a two-year home residency requirement? If so then that's a dead stop - she'd either need to get that requirement waived or return to her home country for two years.

Why did she file for a tourist visa if she was already in the US with a J-1 visa? Was it because she wanted to stay in the US with her boyfriend?

Yeah, I think the timeline might look suspicious. She enters with a J-1 visa. Within a month she's got a boyfriend. Two months later she's trying to get a tourist visa, presumably because her J-1 is going to expire soon. The following spring she marries her boyfriend, and then three months later she leaves him and attempts to divorce him - at this point, she'd been his girl friend about three times longer than she'd been his wife. Two months later she hooks up with you. Two months after that she files for divorce from husband #1. The divorce is final 4 or 5 months later, and within another month and a half she marries you.

If you write all this out in a bullet list then it looks like someone who came to the US with intention of finding a husband, getting married, and staying here.

The abuse from the previous relationship might be relevant, but an IO could also interpret the timeline as an indicator that she bailed on the relationship when she realized she wasn't going to get a green card through him.

[Pupsik 4]

im assuming that they will know she applied for a tourist visa as well, correct? she doesn't know how far along she was with the whole process since she had limited contact with the lawyer she was working with. she had no phone for a while, she moved and he was frequently on "vacations".

she says that she was worried about staying here illegally after her J1 expired. she thought she had to file for a tourist visa or she would get in trouble. after she found this to not be the case (and not having the $ to apply) she stopped going further with it.

and there is no 2 year requirement

Edited August 11, 2011 by Pupsik

[ceadsearc 516]

i dont know what evidence she could produce. maybe the lawyer would be able to say when she came to him about the divorce. she also had a different address and was working for cash so i dont think she would be able to prove that she lived and worked somewhere else.

i know that the landlord she had was a witness to some of his outbursts. she has been trying to get in touch with her to see if she can write a statement about his behavior to show that she was in an abusive relationship

Well, she may not have a ton in the way of evidence, and it doesn't sound like they were actually separated that long. In my case, I had been separated a year before even filing for divorce (as required by law) and there was a legal court document showing that.

[Pupsik 4]

yeah the separation was short i suppose. she moved away from him in June 2010 and the divorce was finalized Feb 2011

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Hypothetically speaking, what do you suppose husband #1 would say if an immigration officer from USCIS decided to give him a call and ask him about his marriage with her? Any chance he'd imply she married him for a green card?

[Pupsik 4]

i have no idea what this guy would say but i guess anything is possible. she would only be able to do an AOS if he passed his citizenship test though correct? she couldn't have done it since he only had a GC right?

we are trying to track down some other people who could verify their relationship was real until he became abusive and have them write letters for us to have at the interview if needed.

dont really know what else we could get to help support us through this.

[ceadsearc 516]

No, she could have adjusted status as the wife of a permanent resident as well, but she would have had to waited for a visa to become available as they are not immediately available to spouses of LPRs like they are to spouses of USCs.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Overstay is not forgiven for LPRs, so no AOS from overstayed visas.

[ceadsearc 516]

Oops, misread, sorry - I thought she had successfully gotten a different visa prior to her J1 expiring. In that case no, she could not have adjusted with her previous husband.

[Pupsik 4]

Overstay is not forgiven for LPRs, so no AOS from overstayed visas.

is this going to have an impact on our aos? or is it just going to make them scrutinize her first marriage?

[ceadsearc 516]

is this going to have an impact on our aos? or is it just going to make them scrutinize her first marriage?

You are a citizen, correct? Overstay is forgiven for spouses of citizens as long as they did not EWI.

[Pupsik 4]

i am a USC and she entered with a J1