Do i need to divorce my ex-wife again?

[Beth & Achraf 328]

19 hours ago, sonyside said:

I am so devastated. I was married in Africa. Got a divorce and married my current wife in the United States 2 years ago. I applied for AOS. I just found out that my divorce to my first wife in Africa couldn’t be verified. I employed a lawyer to help me verify in Africa (I should have done this before my first AOS application). Now, I submitted a divorce decree for my first AOS application which was given to me by my ex-wife (the officers had no issue about my submitted divorce decree), it was denied for other reasons not related to the divorce.
I plan on submitting another AOS application. I am concerned, they may verify my previous divorce decree this time around. I am not sure what to do next

1. Should I file another AOS application with the previous decree since it wasn’t questioned?.

2. (a) should I get a new divorce from my ex-wife here in the United States. Remarry my second wife again who is a US citizen. And then file another AOS?.
(b) if I do 2a what are my chances?

3. Is there anyone having similar issue? What did you do to resolve it?.

Please, I will really appreciate your feedback or advise. Feel free to private message me if you are not comfortable sharing publicly. I really need your help guys.

Did you maybe have to register the divorce at the Civil Office where divorce took place?     Where in Africa are you speaking of?

 

Reason I ask, I was divorced long, long ago in Egypt, and USCIS wanted a copy of my  of the certificate of my registered divorce, even though I gave them my original divorce paper from Egypt.

[sonyside 1]

16 hours ago, Timona said:

Here's my complete response.  Editing timed out.

 

1. You already said the divorce was not the issue. So why are you divorcing and remarrying?

The bottom part of your first question and your second question, if combined, tells me this has to do with the divorce.

2. Did you come to US on a tourist visa (used marriage to increase chances), then ended up marrying while you were still married back home? Because this is what seems to be the case here.

3. When applying for your tourist visa, what did you put under the question that asked if you were married? 

 

There's something to your story which doesn't add up. The only way to help you is to come out clean. 

 

Anyway, since you claim the issue is not due to the divorce, then best to deal with the EXACT issue. And if it's surely not with the divorce, why do you claim it will pose a risk to re-submit the same divorce paper? This makes me think it all has to do with the divorce. But you know better, so I'll take your word for it.

And getting one question wrong during your interview doesn't result in a denial. I know people who only matched 75% and got approved. Husband is a busy body and couldn't remember most answers succintly.

 

Resubmitting second AOS without finding a solution to the first application will not get you anywhere. They will most probably find your previous AOS and ask why it was denied. They will then deny your second AOS based on the first, which might lead to more scrutiny as they'll ask themselves why you're submitting another instead of fixing the first. To them, it'll look like you're hiding something and hoping to get a different IO who will not realise you have a first AOS which is in limbo. This is where more scrutiny arises and you end up in more mess than you'd wish for. Anyway, even before you get there, I do believe one of the forms asks if you've ever been petitioned before. What will your answer be? 

 

Best answer. Come clean. It can help fix your mess. 

Thanks for taking out time to give a detailed response. We have already figured out what went wrong with the first application.  It's just a stoke interview that went bad because we were not fully prepared for it.  It was our first and only interview.  And it happened to be a stoke interview. They didn't even tell us we were going to have a stoke interview. We just thought since our marriage is legitimate, we should have no issue. We didn't even go with an attorney.  Anyway, lesson learnt, we are more prepared this time. I don't intend to hide my previous application, that would be a stupid thing to do. 

 

Thank you once again for your response.

[sonyside 1]

16 hours ago, Donald120383 said:

Even if you file AOS again, the fact you cant verify the previous divorce means the new AOS will be hanging in the air. Fix the first divorce 

Thanks for your response. I think i will do that.

[sonyside 1]

6 hours ago, carmel34 said:

Not sure why you are concerned about the validity of the divorce decree when it was not the reason for the AOS denial.  Forget about the divorce decree since it was acceptable the first time and work on the reason it was denied.  From your answers it sounds like the reason for denial was the officer was not convinced that your marriage relationship is bona fide.  What documents did you submit with your AOS application to support the bona fide marriage?  Joint lease, bank account, credit card statements, driver's licenses showing the same address, will, living will, power of attorney, beneficiary on life insurance, health insurance, auto insurance, retirement accounts where you are listed as the beneficiary, a few photos, etc?  Focus on a new AOS application with more evidence, and in the meantime, make sure you know everything about each other, to prepare for another possible Stokes interview.  Good luck!

Thanks for your advise. We will be more prepared this time around. We have more documentations now than the last time.

[geowrian 22,338]

So they had a single stokes interview then sent an outright denial? No NOID? No second interview?

That's quite unusual for them not believing there was a bona fide marriage...they must have strongly believed in their decision. I highly suggest making sure to provide plenty of evidence with the refiled packet.

[sonyside 1]

32 minutes ago, geowrian said:

So they had a single stokes interview then sent an outright denial? No NOID? No second interview?

That's quite unusual for them not believing there was a bona fide marriage...they must have strongly believed in their decision. I highly suggest making sure to provide plenty of evidence with the refiled packet.

The whole process was very unusual. At first, i didn't get my Work card until a couple of months after the interview. So, it was a bit hard gathering enough evidence to support our marriage. (it would have been a lot easier if i knew this forum then). They did sent a NOID  after the interview which we responded to on time. And there was no second interview. In the NOID, they contradicted themselves saying they  agreed our marriage was bona fide. And we added a lot more evidence to support our marriage. Still we were denied. Every single evidence we provided in our response to the NOID was disputed.  E.g we provided a joint lease , joint Electric bills, car titles etc  in both of our names, they disputed it by saying,  it doesn't mean anything.  We also provided vacation receipts, tickets and loads of pictures. They disputed all that saying it only shows we were at the same place at the same time.  The whole thing was ridiculous. The reviews and  denial rate during that period was huge, i want to believe we were just a statistics. Probably the officers were trying to make a quota of their denial rate.  We were not fully prepared for the first interview so the NOID was kinda expected but we were prepared for the reply of the NOID.

 

Anyway, we have a lot more evidence to support our marriage this time around. Hopefully, everything will turn out well this time.

[Lemonslice 4,977]

40 minutes ago, sonyside said:

The whole process was very unusual. At first, i didn't get my Work card until a couple of months after the interview. So, it was a bit hard gathering enough evidence to support our marriage. (it would have been a lot easier if i knew this forum then). They did sent a NOID  after the interview which we responded to on time. And there was no second interview. In the NOID, they contradicted themselves saying they  agreed our marriage was bona fide. And we added a lot more evidence to support our marriage. Still we were denied. Every single evidence we provided in our response to the NOID was disputed.  E.g we provided a joint lease , joint Electric bills, car titles etc  in both of our names, they disputed it by saying,  it doesn't mean anything.  We also provided vacation receipts, tickets and loads of pictures. They disputed all that saying it only shows we were at the same place at the same time.  The whole thing was ridiculous. The reviews and  denial rate during that period was huge, i want to believe we were just a statistics. Probably the officers were trying to make a quota of their denial rate.  We were not fully prepared for the first interview so the NOID was kinda expected but we were prepared for the reply of the NOID.

 

Anyway, we have a lot more evidence to support our marriage this time around. Hopefully, everything will turn out well this time.

Oh, good.  Do you have more copies of your divorce documents ready to submit with your second  Adjustment of Status?