Divorced petitioner needs advice!

[batman]

Please finish reading before you judge.

My wife and I have a legit marriage, she is Chinese and applying for a green card. When I was in the military I married a girl in the state of TX and divorced her very soon after (young & stupid thing), it honestly couldn't have been more than a week of psuedo-relationship, then about 8 months of nothingness where we didn't speak to each other before I finally paid for a divorce. Our intentions were definitely, at least in part, to marry in order to get a housing allowance which wasn't normally allowed without marriage. So that one could arguably be called a bull **** marriage.

When I was dating my wife I didn't tell her about it, I didn't consider it to be an honest marriage and never realized the consequences it could have here. My current wife and I got married in a different state than TX and since marriage licenses are done by state, I signed the marriage license saying I had no previous marriage (that was the first time it had ever even come up, and I again didn't realize what an issue it would cause further).

What I need help with is this:
1. If I submitted the petitioner documents as if this was my first marriage, do they survey all 50 states to find out if you have previous marriages? And is that grounds for denial?
2. If a green card application is denied, do they give the specific reasoning?
3. If I were to provide our attorney with my divorce decree and I updated my current marriage license, is he obliged to keep it to himself if I ask him to?
4. If I tell my wife everything, and update all documentation and such, does having a bulls*** previous marriage (divorce finalized only days before my current marriage) hurt her chances?

I'm sure everyone will think I should've told her the truth in the beginning, yeah I'm past that now. I'll tell her if I must, but I want to know what is and isn't possible before I do. My current marriage is absolutely genuine, but the circumstances will obviously hurt my credibility and I don't want it to hurt her. I need to decide if it's best to keep my mouth shut and hope for the best or update documents quietly or what. I'd appreciate minimum judgment, I clearly recognize I made mistakes here and I just don't want my wife to get screwed for my poor choices.

Thanks in advance for any info/advice.

[rayb]

There is no national database of divorces and prior marriages in the U.S., and checking various local and state databases, or paying third-party services to do searches is not something that USCIS normally does.

Having said that, however, failure to report your prior marriage and divorce on your I-130 and G-325A is material misrepresentation and failure to disclose factual information. I just experienced someone whom I had assisted put on Administrative Review and possible denial because her fiance-petitioner failed to report two of his three prior marriages on his petition and biographic form.

Getting your attorney involved with this can open up a "can of worms" of ethical concerns for him, and compromise his principles. I've seen attorneys either encourage clients to report everything or discontinue the client-attorney relationship if the client is asking the attorney to withhold the information.

The best and safest thing you can do is tell your wife everything and make sure your petition paperwork reflect your prior marriage and divorce.

--Ray B

Please finish reading before you judge.

My wife and I have a legit marriage, she is Chinese and applying for a green card. When I was in the military I married a girl in the state of TX and divorced her very soon after (young & stupid thing), it honestly couldn't have been more than a week of psuedo-relationship, then about 8 months of nothingness where we didn't speak to each other before I finally paid for a divorce. Our intentions were definitely, at least in part, to marry in order to get a housing allowance which wasn't normally allowed without marriage. So that one could arguably be called a bull **** marriage.

When I was dating my wife I didn't tell her about it, I didn't consider it to be an honest marriage and never realized the consequences it could have here. My current wife and I got married in a different state than TX and since marriage licenses are done by state, I signed the marriage license saying I had no previous marriage (that was the first time it had ever even come up, and I again didn't realize what an issue it would cause further).

What I need help with is this:
1. If I submitted the petitioner documents as if this was my first marriage, do they survey all 50 states to find out if you have previous marriages? And is that grounds for denial?
2. If a green card application is denied, do they give the specific reasoning?
3. If I were to provide our attorney with my divorce decree and I updated my current marriage license, is he obliged to keep it to himself if I ask him to?
4. If I tell my wife everything, and update all documentation and such, does having a bulls*** previous marriage (divorce finalized only days before my current marriage) hurt her chances?

I'm sure everyone will think I should've told her the truth in the beginning, yeah I'm past that now. I'll tell her if I must, but I want to know what is and isn't possible before I do. My current marriage is absolutely genuine, but the circumstances will obviously hurt my credibility and I don't want it to hurt her. I need to decide if it's best to keep my mouth shut and hope for the best or update documents quietly or what. I'd appreciate minimum judgment, I clearly recognize I made mistakes here and I just don't want my wife to get screwed for my poor choices.

Thanks in advance for any info/advice.

[batman]

I really appreciate your advice!

I just experienced someone whom I had assisted put on Administrative Review and possible denial because her fiance-petitioner failed to report two of his three prior marriages on his petition and biographic form.

May I ask how the 2 unreported marriages were discovered? I am willing to fix all the paperwork and report/document my previous marriage if I must, but it'd be a last resort and I'd like to fully understand the possibilities before I decide on something. If I keep my mouth shut about it all, how would they go about finding out? Would it happen simply as a result of me admitting to it during the interview or what?

Thanks again.

[rayb]

Good question, and it has caused some confllict between petitioner, fiancee and me.

The visa applicant says that the Embassy asked her about her fiance's earlier marriages, and she had brought an amendment and copies of divorce documents in case this came up. She gave the interviewer the additional documentation and he seemed reasonably positive and said she would "hear" from the Embassy.

That's when I lost contact with both the applicant and the petitioner. I think she was put on Administrative Review, and I believe it was more "complicated" than I was aware, since I know the petitioner had petitioned at least one other fiancee and cancelled the paperwork within last couple of years (so he told me casually).

So, in answer to your question...either the visa applicant told the reviewer her fiancee had two additional marriages and divorce not reported on his petition, or the reviewer noticed that the Naturalization Certificate copy of petitioner reported "divorced," and that was issued before his last and reported marriage/divorce.

--Ray B

I really appreciate your advice!



May I ask how the 2 unreported marriages were discovered? I am willing to fix all the paperwork and report/document my previous marriage if I must, but it'd be a last resort and I'd like to fully understand the possibilities before I decide on something. If I keep my mouth shut about it all, how would they go about finding out? Would it happen simply as a result of me admitting to it during the interview or what?

Thanks again.

[batman]

I see. Well I am a natural born american citizen, my wife is a chinese citizen in the USA on a student visa (attending law school). The idea is to get her green card before she graduates in order to avoid the time/money that'd be wasted on OPT (the professional training thing, I may be getting the acronym wrong).

Given I'm american born, would they therefore lack documentation to compare my "bio" to? I'm not so much planning to take a chance in hopes they won't look in the wrong (or right?) place and figure out my situation - but if there is no way for them to find out about my previous marriages, short of my wife or me telling them, it would obviously be a factor in what I decide to do here.

Thanks again for continuing to humor my questions.

[rayb]

Batman

Nobody should tell you to withhold information from your immigration applications (petition, biographic form), especially since such withheld information is sometimes deemed critical for allowing or disallowing immigration benefits to the beneficiary, and is reported under penalty of perjury ("lying to a Federal officer").

Frankly, though, I have seen scores of biographic forms submitted by American petitioners in which they reported no prior marriages or failed to report any, when there were other indications of prior marriages. The only instances I later became aware of when this came back to haunt them was if the beneficiary courteously reported additional prior spouses of her petitioner while being interviewed.

If your paperwork has not yet been submitted, my advice would still be to "fess up," tell your babe of your history, and input the correct information to your G-325A and I-130 forms.

--Ray B

I see. Well I am a natural born american citizen, my wife is a chinese citizen in the USA on a student visa (attending law school). The idea is to get her green card before she graduates in order to avoid the time/money that'd be wasted on OPT (the professional training thing, I may be getting the acronym wrong).

Given I'm american born, would they therefore lack documentation to compare my "bio" to? I'm not so much planning to take a chance in hopes they won't look in the wrong (or right?) place and figure out my situation - but if there is no way for them to find out about my previous marriages, short of my wife or me telling them, it would obviously be a factor in what I decide to do here.

Thanks again for continuing to humor my questions.

[batman]

I understand. I've thought I should tell her for a while, but I suspect she wouldn't be very understanding, but nonetheless I suppose I really should. Can't yet promise I'll make the "right" decision here but at least it'll be an informed decision now. I'll think about how to handle it and I may even post the result here.

I really appreciate the information you've given me, I might've done something foolish otherwise. Thank you so much RayB.

[batman]

I've decided to take your advice and have told my wife everything (sent a lengthy email, I'll screw it all up if I try to do it in person). I still don't know how she will respond, but either way I appreciate the advice and I'm glad I finally got it off my chest.

[rayb]

A "man has to do what a man has to do..."

--Ray B

I've decided to take your advice and have told my wife everything (sent a lengthy email, I'll screw it all up if I try to do it in person). I still don't know how she will respond, but either way I appreciate the advice and I'm glad I finally got it off my chest.