islamic marriage with proof, use this or not for K1 ?

[Moki1984]

Good morning everyone. First post! Let me explain situation. I am an American Muslim (convert), he is an Egyptian muslim. We have known one another for over a year online (met via a fanpage for a history channel TV show we are both super into lol) after over a year he tried for a tourist visa to meet my family and me and have a vacation but was denied. So I traveled to Egypt. I spent little over 2 weeks in Egypt. In person our connection was even better and the family is completely involved and loving. We did a religious Islamic marriage, we have an Islamic marriage contract with family as witnesses signed on it, we also had a huge celebration with hundreds of family, dress/suit, the whole thing. We did not do a US embassy married (legal marriage by country standards here) because I needed a paper from the U.S I did not have and did not know I would need.

Now that we are back in the USA, a friend (who is an immigrant herself and so is her husband) told me that K1 visa is much faster and easier than the marriage visas are, K1 being 6 months average which marriage being 1-2 years. She told me do not tell them you are married, just show them everything else but keep the marriage between you two and when you come to the USA do the civil ceremony here at the courthouse of course. We have hundreds of pictures from the wedding celebration and many of them show us with family which we thought was more proof of our love and commitment and that family is involved and loving. We are thinking should we tell them we had an Islamic marriage and ceremony with family to prove our legitimacy or is it better to not show them that at all?

Also we thought should we hire an immigration lawyer to help us or is that wasted money for him? Thank you!

[rayb]

For starters, do not even consider not telling of the Islamic marriage. Though not recorded as a civil occurrence, failure to report it when using a K1 visa could cause you problems later on.

My advice is to do a spousal visa, based on the Islamic marriage, and expect the processing to be 10-12 months (not necessarily 1-2 years).

--Ray B

Good morning everyone. First post! Let me explain situation. I am an American Muslim (convert), he is an Egyptian muslim. We have known one another for over a year online (met via a fanpage for a history channel TV show we are both super into lol) after over a year he tried for a tourist visa to meet my family and me and have a vacation but was denied. So I traveled to Egypt. I spent little over 2 weeks in Egypt. In person our connection was even better and the family is completely involved and loving. We did a religious Islamic marriage, we have an Islamic marriage contract with family as witnesses signed on it, we also had a huge celebration with hundreds of family, dress/suit, the whole thing. We did not do a US embassy married (legal marriage by country standards here) because I needed a paper from the U.S I did not have and did not know I would need.

Now that we are back in the USA, a friend (who is an immigrant herself and so is her husband) told me that K1 visa is much faster and easier than the marriage visas are, K1 being 6 months average which marriage being 1-2 years. She told me do not tell them you are married, just show them everything else but keep the marriage between you two and when you come to the USA do the civil ceremony here at the courthouse of course. We have hundreds of pictures from the wedding celebration and many of them show us with family which we thought was more proof of our love and commitment and that family is involved and loving. We are thinking should we tell them we had an Islamic marriage and ceremony with family to prove our legitimacy or is it better to not show them that at all?

Also we thought should we hire an immigration lawyer to help us or is that wasted money for him? Thank you!

[daggit]

Now that we are back in the USA, a friend (who is an immigrant herself and so is her husband) told me that K1 visa is much faster and easier than the marriage visas are, K1 being 6 months average which marriage being 1-2 years. She told me do not tell them you are married, just show them everything else but keep the marriage between you two

Don't ever, ever try to hide a fact when seeking an immigration benefit just because it's "easier". Do things the right and legal way, like most other couples with an overseas spouse. They all wait out the process while building their relationship. You two should be no different.

And about that friend, get rid of her. It's ironic she's an immigrant herself (Egyptian?) and she's on a path to get you in trouble. In a worse case scenario, your husband could end up being barred from the US for misrepresentation.

[Moki1984]

For starters, do not even consider not telling of the Islamic marriage. Though not recorded as a civil occurrence, failure to report it when using a K1 visa could cause you problems later on.

My advice is to do a spousal visa, based on the Islamic marriage, and expect the processing to be 10-12 months (not necessarily 1-2 years).

--Ray B

I don't think I can do that. it is not recognized legally at all. it is not even able to be verified by Egyptian authorities beause they don't have all of my paperwork necessary to do that . from what I read when someone does an Islamic marriage, they should also do the civil so they can apply for spousal visa because a K1 visa with a religious marriage can cause issues for the authorities as you are married but not married. but we could not do a civil marriage cause I didn't have things like my previous divorce decree translated into Arabic and documentation from U.S embassy in my country saying I was allowed to marry, so our marriage is not recognized by Egypt or by America, only by our faith, legally speaking.

I would have said spouse visa from the get to BUT....we could not legally marry only religiously so I don't qualify. so we are trying to figure outwhat we do for the k1 visa. so yes we are different cause we are not legal at all and it cannot become legal until he gets here and we go to a courthouse

[rayb]

I get your drift okay...but the only way you can make a K1 visa petition work is by having credible proof that your religious marriage is not legally valid to civil authorities.

A friend of mine went through the spousal visa (I-130) process with a religious marriage certitificate from Pakistan with both Pashto and Arabic pages, and the usual official notary stampsf for witnesses from that part of the world. It was accepted by USCIS and the Embassy. But when the Afghan bride (they married in Pakistan) arrived and they went to an SSA office to apply for her SSN (which had not arrived in the mail), the SSA people refused to accept her religious marriage documentation, even with the certified Pashto and Arabic translations done by a recognized translation agency here. They went down to the city hall and married again (in Connecticut) and have lived happily ever after.

--Ray B

I don't think I can do that. it is not recognized legally at all. it is not even able to be verified by Egyptian authorities beause they don't have all of my paperwork necessary to do that . from what I read when someone does an Islamic marriage, they should also do the civil so they can apply for spousal visa because a K1 visa with a religious marriage can cause issues for the authorities as you are married but not married. but we could not do a civil marriage cause I didn't have things like my previous divorce decree translated into Arabic and documentation from U.S embassy in my country saying I was allowed to marry, so our marriage is not recognized by Egypt or by America, only by our faith, legally speaking.

I would have said spouse visa from the get to BUT....we could not legally marry only religiously so I don't qualify. so we are trying to figure outwhat we do for the k1 visa. so yes we are different cause we are not legal at all and it cannot become legal until he gets here and we go to a courthouse

[Moki1984]

So I still feel like now I don't know so I apply for k1 and they might say no no you have marriage , or apply spousal and they say no no it's not legal even in Egypt . If we pick the wrong starting point we will lose even more time 😞I never even considered for a second spousal visa till this board cause it's not legal so I thought country won't recognize it so we have do k1. Now I don't know what we are supposed to do . I think we need to get a lawyers help

[rayb]

Well, you have three choices:

1. Submit a fiancee visa application, and have proof that your religious marriage was not legally recognizable;
2. Submit a spousal visa application, and be prepared to defend your religious marriage proof;
3. Pay an attorney $2,000 to $3,000 and let him decide which way to go, which may or may not get more complicated.

--Ray B

So I still feel like now I don't know so I apply for k1 and they might say no no you have marriage , or apply spousal and they say no no it's not legal even in Egypt . If we pick the wrong starting point we will lose even more time 😞I never even considered for a second spousal visa till this board cause it's not legal so I thought country won't recognize it so we have do k1. Now I don't know what we are supposed to do . I think we need to get a lawyers help

[Moki1984]

Well, you have three choices:

1. Submit a fiancee visa application, and have proof that your religious marriage was not legally recognizable;
2. Submit a spousal visa application, and be prepared to defend your religious marriage proof;
3. Pay an attorney $2,000 to $3,000 and let him decide which way to go, which may or may not get more complicated.

--Ray B

Was looking at some legal websites and found this, "To qualify for a marriage-based visa or green card, you must be legally married. A legal marriage is one that is officially recognized by the government in the country or state where you were married. This usually means that an official record of your marriage has been made or can be obtained from some public office." I think this means if the marriage were able to be recognized by Egypt even though not the USA, it would qualify, however.....I already know it is not. The whole reason we did not marry at the embassy there and did a religious event was because I did not have all of the documentation we would need to do this.

I think I will wait to talk to him later on today and ask him to speak with the one who actually did our Islamic marriage as well since that person has some legal knowledge of Egyptian marriages. Figure out which one is most likely to be approved essentially and go with that one becsause I think the issue is with K1 they may say you are married (but we are not according to the countries) and with spousal they may say you are not actually legally married in Egypt and then kick us back to k1. We see :-)