99% Married with a pending K1 Visa: will they deny?

[Culino 0]

Hello friends.

I am in a problematic situation and need your help.

I am an American with a foreign fiancé in Morocco.We applied for the K1 fiance visa and just received our NOA2 in January 2015. So she will have the consulate interview very soon.

The problem is, last year, while our K1 visa was pending, we took steps to get married abroad in her country Morocco. We got almost all the paper work done with the exception of generating the marriage certificate and signing it.

So basically, I'm definitely in a lot of "the books", but technically not completely married. We never finished because of the lack of time. Hence, I'm 99% married.

I did some research on this site last night and discovered this was not a good idea. I learned the foreign fiance cannot be "married" when entering the US on a k1 fiance visa. Sounds obvious in hindsight.

Also, we were planning on having a wedding "ceremony" abroad in Morocco before she comes to the states with the K1 visa.

So my question is, will this be enough cause for denial? Like I said, there is no actual marriage certificate yet.

When she has the interview with the consulate, should she just be completely truthful and tell them the situation? I.e. that we realized mid way in the process that we were making a mistake, and decided to stop short of getting "legally" married, so that we would not void our k1 visa.

There doesn't seem to be much information out there for people in my situation. I'm hoping not to have to go the route of withdrawing the k1 visa and restarting with a spousal visa.

I am forever grateful to any advice anyone could give.

Thank you!

Edited February 16, 2015 by Culino

[aaron2020 11,651]

Yes, the U.S. Embassy can deny based on your 99% marriage.

If she enters the U.S. married, then it's visa fraud.

You are not the first to go down this road. Use the search function and you can see the advice given to others.

[Pitaya 2,577]

Telling the truth is the best action when dealing with immigration officials.

[Cody and Daisy 373]

You are either married or not.

You can not be 99% married.

Were you before someone who could legally marry you? Did you say I do?

Did you previously apply for a licence and hand it in before getting married?

What do you mean there is no marriage certificate yet?

There either is one or isn't.

Sounds like you've put yourselves in a very bad position.

My advice would be to finish whatever marriage you believe this is or isn't and then apply for a spousal visa.

Edited February 16, 2015 by Cody and Daisy

[KayDeeCee 4,893]

Are you legally married or not?

Yes, always be honest.

If they should happen to deny the K-1 because they believe you are married and ineligible, then you will need to legally marry and file for a spousal visa instead.

[Jabl2rom 54]

If they don't ask, don't tell.

[Culino 0]

You are either married or not.

You can not be 99% married.

Were you before someone who could legally marry you? Did you say I do?

Did you previously apply for a licence and hand it in before getting married?

What do you mean there is no marriage certificate yet?

There either is one or isn't.

Sounds like you've put yourselves in a very bad position.

My advice would be to finish whatever marriage you believe this is or isn't and then apply for a spousal visa.

Thank you for the quick response!

To clarify, there is no marriage certificate. We did not sign any contract saying we are married. We are not married.

All we finished was most of the paper work to get "permission" to marry. In Morocco, a foreign male needs permission from the government to get married to a Moroccan female

Edited February 16, 2015 by Culino

[Hypnos 6,576]

As stated, marriage is binary. You are either married or you are not.

[Cody and Daisy 373]

Thank you for the quick response!

To clarify, there is no marriage certificate. We did not sign any contract saying we are married. We are not married.

All we finished was most of the paper work to get "permission" to marry. In Morocco, a foreign male needs permission from the government to get married to a Moroccan female

Question is though will this be seen as a marriage to the states?

Does not matter what technicalitys there are in Morocco because it is the states you are moving to.

You can try and be extremely honest with the CO and hope they believe you aren't married. Do not lie at all!

If you are denied on the basis that they believe you are married (and your situation has happened a lot and people are denied for this, some are denied for having pictures in wedding dresses when they just had the ceremony and not the legal wedding) then you can still just apply for the Cr1 spousal visa.

Edited February 16, 2015 by Cody and Daisy

[Boiler 45,322]

Begs the question why you applied for a K1?

Seems the intent was to marry first.

[Sekhvaruli 74]

To me 99% married sounds you are simply preparing for marriage. You can say, you were considering getting married and then changed your mind, decided to postpone marriage until the fiance's arrival to the US. Which is true.

[Culino 0]

Begs the question why you applied for a K1?

Seems the intent was to marry first.

Great question. Like most other people on this site, our goal is to be together as soon as possible. That is why we applied for the K1 Fiance visa. Intent was to follow k1 visa modus operandi and just get married in the states.

However, her father, a traditional Moroccan father, wanted something to show for, before she left her home in Morocco. In their culture, the proper thing to do is to get married before leaving the house. I thought we would be able to just get married abroad there, and then get married the states within 90 days.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have pushed back a little bit. I did not know it would cause this serious of a problem.

[sma1488 155]

If you do plan on going to the K-1 interview and seeing what happens, I would definitely hold off on that "wedding ceremony" you mentioned. I realize you have family pressures weighing on you, but you're playing with fire when you do things like that, especially in non-Western countries.

[Culino 0]

Question is though will this be seen as a marriage to the states?

Does not matter what technicalitys there are in Morocco because it is the states you are moving to.

You can try and be extremely honest with the CO and hope they believe you aren't married. Do not lie at all!

If you are denied on the basis that they believe you are married (and your situation has happened a lot and people are denied for this, some are denied for having pictures in wedding dresses when they just had the ceremony and not the legal wedding) then you can still just apply for the Cr1 spousal visa.

Thank you for the reply. I guess we will see how the interview goes. We would never try to deceive anyone. We would always tell the truth. I'm just worried about repercussions of a denial.

If they deny the visa, how soon after can we get married and apply for the spousal visa?

Would it be wiser to withdraw the k1 visa now vs waiting to getting it denied?

Does getting denied risk future visa applications?

[Boiler 45,322]

Yep you have dug a deep enough hole.

Having said that if you are not legally married unless they do some digging difficult to see where it would come up.