Request for more information / proof of no marriage?

[To_the_moon 94]

1 minute ago, Lucky Cat said:

So, he will get a certificate of no marriage from every country of the world?  There is no world registry. As I stated, he can only show there is no record of a marriage in a particular state or country.  

He will get that from his country of citizenship, which is prevailing if that's where they're filing for his visa. Why would USCIS care about any other country? Also, if you are trying to say that they could have been married in any other country and there is no way to check that, in most countries outside the U.S., you have to provide a certificate of no marriage BEFORE you get married, so the embassy will know it anyways. 

[Crazy Cat 41,980]

7 minutes ago, Husky_Rescue said:

Why would USCIS care about any other country? 

People marry in third countries often......ever heard of a destination wedding?   I am not saying the OP has been married.  I am saying that a person cannot prove, beyond any doubt, that a marriage never took place outside his country.  Maybe USCIS will accept his statement.....maybe they won't.  

Edited May 23, 2021 by Lucky Cat

[mapo 12]

The county searches a federated database for marriage records and sends you a notarized letter stating that they didn't find a prior record.

 

My fiance's country has a similar process.

 

It's good enough for the lawyers, so it's good enough for me.

[Crazy Cat 41,980]

1 hour ago, mapo said:

It's good enough for the lawyers, so it's good enough for me.

Good luck.  You might be surprised at how much bad information we see from attorneys here.    Like I said, people marry outside their own countries quite often.  Any "national" search within a single country would not detect the marriage outside those countries searched.  Hopefully, USCIS will accept your evidence.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Lucky Cat

[Boiler 45,662]

52 minutes ago, mapo said:

The county searches a federated database for marriage records and sends you a notarized letter stating that they didn't find a prior record.

 

My fiance's country has a similar process.

 

It's good enough for the lawyers, so it's good enough for me.

There are 195 countries, you just have records from 2 of them, what about the others?

[Crazy Cat 41,980]

15 minutes ago, Boiler said:

There are 195 countries, you just have records from 2 of them, what about the others?

51 individual searches within the US, alone......😃

Edited May 23, 2021 by Lucky Cat

[Nitas_man 3,100]

I’m interested in the outcome here

 

K1 applicants suspected of marriage rarely overcome this. 

[HRQX 4,145]

On 5/22/2021 at 2:54 PM, mapo said:

The downside is that because of covid, the certificate of no record will take 4 - 6 weeks to receive, and they will close our case if they don't receive a response after 7!

Is that counting the 60-day extension? https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-extends-flexibility-for-responding-to-agency-requests-4

Quote

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is extending the flexibilities it announced on March 30, 2020, to assist applicants, petitioners and requestors who are responding to certain:

• Requests for Evidence;
• Continuations to Request Evidence (N-14);
• Notices of Intent to Deny;
• Notices of Intent to Revoke;
• Notices of Intent to Rescind;
• Notices of Intent to Terminate regional centers; and
• Motions to Reopen an N-400 Pursuant to 8 CFR 335.5, Receipt of Derogatory Information After Grant.

In addition, USCIS will consider a Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion or Form N-336, Request for a Hearing on a Decision in Naturalization Proceedings (Under Section 336 of the INA), if:

• The form was filed up to 60 calendar days from the issuance of a decision we made; and
• We made that decision anytime from March 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021.  

Notice/Request/Decision Issuance Date:

This flexibility applies to the above documents if the issuance date listed on the request, notice or decision is between March 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, inclusive. 

Response Due Date:

USCIS will consider a response to the above requests and notices received within 60 calendar days after the response due date set in the request or notice before taking any action. Additionally, we will consider a Form N-336 or Form I-290B received up to 60 calendar days from the date of the decision before we take any action.

 

We will provide further updates as the situation develops. Please visit uscis.gov/coronavirus for USCIS updates.

[mapo 12]

How to Respond to Request for Evidence of No Marriage: "No Record Letter" / "Certificate of Non-Impediment" / "Certificate of No Marriage"

 

Here's my follow up:

 

I was distraught for a while. I thought the Request for Evidence (RFE) meant that I had done something wrong, but I have since learned that they're doing this to everyone now.

 

They asked me to prove that my partner and I are not married, but they also refused to offer any guidance regarding what kind of forms would constitute proof of non marriage, which was frustrating.

 

They also insisted that I provide the evidence requested, even if it's in response to an error.

 

I ended up sending them the following things:

• My partner's Cenomar (Certificate of No Marriage) from the Philippines
• Letter attesting to No Record of marriage for myself from the New York City Clerk (AKA No Record Letter)
• No Record Letter for myself from New York State Department of Health
• Signed and dated cover letter with a list of the items enclosed, with a brief statement that I am not married, along with an explanation of the mistake I made on the I-129F, asking to amend my answer to "I am not married, I have no spouse."

There's a lot of bad information floating around. The exact documents that you need to prove non-marriage have different names depending upon where you and your partner are from!

 

There is no national US registry of marriages, so you need to follow the process for each state where you have resided since you were of marriageable age. Each state has a different process, and uses different terminology, which can be very confusing.

 

New York separates the state from the municipality of New York City, so I had to follow this process for each one.

 

In addition, some US States and countries do not offer any such proof, and consider a signed and notarized letter from the marriage applicant to be sufficient. This had me worried, because I was a Vermont resident for many years, and they are one such state. I didn't mention them in my letter to avoid weakening our case, but I did attest that I wasn't married in a signed and dated document, and USCIS approved us!

 

I did not apostille any of the documents. This is another point of confusion. If you're getting married here in the US, you don't need an Apostille stamp. The Cenomar and No Record Letters came to me pre-notarized, and that was sufficient for the K1.

 

There's also a lot of confusion around "Certificate of Non-Impediment" vs. "No Record Letter." Every state is different. In New York City, Certificate of Non-Impediment is used for people getting married out of the country, and the No Record Letter is used for people getting married in the US.

 

If you're filing the K1 Visa, that means you will be getting married in the US, even though your documents are being sent to the US Consulate abroad. They respected my documents from the City of New York. Most communications that you will receive from the state will have a round stamp on them. That's a notary. That's all you need!

 

This entire process took about one month of scrambling to get the documents together. The state is super slow, especially because of covid, so I recommend you hustle. I was actually a couple days late, but in my letter, I invoked the Covid extension mentioned earlier in this thread, and they accepted my documents anyway.

 

Getting a no-record letter takes at least a month. It's slow enough that you need to IMMEDIATELY drop everything and apply for them as soon as USCIS sends you the RFE. If you slack off, and miss the deadline for the RFE, they will close your case, and you'll have to start over!

 

Once I sent the RFE Response, I received an Approval after about three weeks! I believe my partner should be receiving her Visa application any day now.

 

I just hope this post will help anyone freaking out about the RFE like I was. I have found that my state, city, and federal government and my fiance's national government do not speak the same bureaucratic language, and they don't agree on timeframes or how documents should be used!

 

All in all, it's been a frustrating and stressful journey, but I am over the moon that we have finally been approved after about a year, and I just hope that this can clarify the process for some of you who are stuck on the RFE and overwhelmed like I was!

 

In closing, I'd just like to emphasize more than anything else: don't slack off at all on the RFE. You have to be super proactive and prompt, otherwise they're going to close your case.

 

Thanks for all of your help!

[Chancy 6,241]

On 8/20/2021 at 10:57 PM, mapo said:

Once I sent the RFE Response, I received an Approval after about three weeks! I believe my partner should be receiving her Visa application any day now.

 

If your fiancee is in the Philippines, do not expect that your case will be forwarded to the embassy in Manila soon.  Wait time of 1 year from I-129F approval to interview would be optimistic.  USEM just recently scheduled K1 interviews for those with petitions approved in 2019 and had interviews cancelled in March 2020.

 

At least you were able to address the RFE.  Congratulations on the petition approval!

 

[mapo 12]

6 hours ago, Chancy said:

 

If your fiancee is in the Philippines, do not expect that your case will be forwarded to the embassy in Manila soon.  Wait time of 1 year from I-129F approval to interview would be optimistic.  USEM just recently scheduled K1 interviews for those with petitions approved in 2019 and had interviews cancelled in March 2020.

 

At least you were able to address the RFE.  Congratulations on the petition approval!

 

Whoa! thanks for the update!

 

This is wildly inaccurate vs. the timeline on VisaJourney.

 

I will wait as long as necessary.

 

My understanding is that there was recently a class action law suit about this, which USCIS lost. They're not allowed to intentionally drag their feet anymore, and are obligated to process people promptly.

 

We'll see if those processing times decrease. I sure hope so.

[HRQX 4,145]

2 hours ago, mapo said:

My understanding is that there was recently a class action law suit about this, which USCIS lost. They're not allowed to intentionally drag their feet anymore, and are obligated to process people promptly.

Looks like in response to the lawsuit NVC is treating the expired I-129F petitions as actually expired which differs with how those cases were treated before the pandemic.

 

The initial validity period is 4 months from the NOA2.

Edited August 25, 2021 by HRQX

[Chancy 6,241]

7 hours ago, mapo said:

This is wildly inaccurate vs. the timeline on VisaJourney.

 

VJ's estimates are based on members' historical data.  Since Manila stopped processing routine K1 cases for more than a year, very few members were able to add their timelines for K1 approved at USEM in the past year.  I suspect the estimate you see is still largely based on pre-COVID data.

 

7 hours ago, mapo said:

My understanding is that there was recently a class action law suit about this, which USCIS lost. They're not allowed to intentionally drag their feet anymore, and are obligated to process people promptly.

 

There's no lawsuit decision against USCIS that affects K1.  You probably mean the group Mandamus lawsuit against the Department of State.  @HRQX posted the tragic outcome of that.  You would not want that outcome for your case.  Anyway, it's good that you're willing to wait a year or more for your fiancee's visa from Manila.

 

[mapo 12]

7 hours ago, HRQX said:

The initial validity period is 4 months from the NOA2.

So you're saying if we don't receive papers 4 months from NOA2, our application might expire!?

[HRQX 4,145]

5 minutes ago, mapo said:

So you're saying if we don't receive papers 4 months from NOA2, our application might expire!?

The NOA2 has always had a listed initial validity period (see below; "Valid from 06/30/2018 to 10/29/2018"):

 

But at the visa interview the Consular Officer would extend the Validity period: https://fam.state.gov/fam/09FAM/09FAM050207.html "you [i.e. the Consular Officer] may revalidate the petition any number of times for additional periods of four months from the date of revalidation, provided you conclude that the petitioner and the beneficiary remain legally free to marry and continue to intend to marry each other within 90 days after the beneficiary's admission into the United States."

 

Seems that in response to the Mandamus type suit NVC is not forwarding the "expired" petitions of the lawsuit's Plaintiffs.