Is it easier to get married in the US or Taiwan?

Factual Questions
1

After four years together, the ladyfriend and I are going to tie the knot. We just don’t know where we’ll “officially” get married. I’m American, and she’s Taiwanese.

We know next to nothing about ho all this works…

To give you a little background, the plan is for us to head back to the US sometime between January and May 2009, as I (hopefully) will be starting grad school the following fall. The US will be our “home base” so to speak.

What we don’t know is if it’s easier (as far as paperwork and general bureaucratic BS) to get married first in Taiwan, and then head back to the US and get the marriage certificate certified over there or if it’s better to get a fiancé visa and get married in the US.

I know this is a pretty specific question, but I know there are a lot of international couples on the SDMB…

2

Speaking from my experience, my wife and I never had to get anything certified in the US. The US Embassy here in Bangkok recognized our marriage as valid upon receiving a copy of our marriage certificate when she applied for her first visa under her new married name.

3

[QUOTE=gitfiddle]
After four years together, the ladyfriend and I are going to tie the knot. We just don’t know where we’ll “officially” get married. I’m American, and she’s Taiwanese.

We know next to nothing about ho all this works…

To give you a little background, the plan is for us to head back to the US sometime between January and May 2009, as I (hopefully) will be starting grad school the following fall. The US will be our “home base” so to speak.

What we don’t know is if it’s easier (as far as paperwork and general bureaucratic BS) to get married first in Taiwan, and then head back to the US and get the marriage certificate certified over there or if it’s better to get a fiancé visa and get married in the US.

I know this is a pretty specific question, but I know there are a lot of international couples on the SDMB…
[/QUOTE]

I was in your situation once (you whippersnapper). We had our engagement banquet in Taiwan and then got married in the US–she came over on a fiance visa. I don’t know if this was the best route, but one way or another she would have had to petition for an immigrant visa of some sort. In our situation, there was no such thing as “just visiting” in the eyes of the INS/USCIS.

So I’m guessing that your ladyfriend will have to go through the process of applying for an immigrant visa and then adjusting her status to get her green card, no matter whether she does so as your fiance or as your wife. I’ll leave it to others (paging Eva Luna?) to tell you which route is more cumbersome.

But what you don’t want to do is have her go to the US on a visitor visa, and then once you’re there tell USCIS “surprise! we’re married! Now let us stay as an immigrant!” They don’t like surprises like that, and AFAIK would be more likely to end up with your wife being deported than staying happily together with you in her new homeland.

(Gaah, it’s all coming back to me why I hired a lawyer to deal with all this in the first place . . . )

(On preview: I think the difference in Siam Sam’s case is that he and his wife live permanently abroad, but you’re saying that you guys will be living at least part of the time in the US.)

4

[QUOTE=Koxinga]
(On preview: I think the difference in Siam Sam’s case is that he and his wife live permanently abroad, but you’re saying that you guys will be living at least part of the time in the US.)
[/QUOTE]

We were and are living permanently here, but the guy at the embassy seemed to have a hard time accepting this. He kept trying to give us instructions on how the wife could become an actual American citizen, and we kept telling him we really weren’t interested in pursuing that. I don’t think he ever was really convinced.

But true, we were not planning to live in the US. We were only getting her a tourist visa. Still, our marriage was at least recognized by the US government without having to do anything extra inside the US.

5

[QUOTE=gitfiddle]
To give you a little background, the plan is for us to head back to the US sometime between January and May 2009, as I (hopefully) will be starting grad school the following fall. The US will be our “home base” so to speak.

What we don’t know is if it’s easier (as far as paperwork and general bureaucratic BS) to get married first in Taiwan, and then head back to the US and get the marriage certificate certified over there or if it’s better to get a fiancé visa and get married in the US.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t say which one is easier from a paperwork point of view, and my situation was slightly different (I married a US citizen while already in the US). But I would like to point out that “and then head back to the US and get the marriage certificate certified over there” isn’t really how that option works.

The first option is to get the fiancé visa and then get married in the US. The second option is to get married in Taiwan and apply for permanent residence through the US consulate in Taiwan. With the second option I think you have to have the permanent residence before you can travel to the US. I suspect the choice will largely be determined by timing: comparing the estimated time to approvals for both methods and seeing how that fits in with your travel plans.

I didn’t go through a lawyer since my course of action was clear and it was just a case of filling out all the forms. But in your case, with two big options to choose from, I’d recommend speaking to an immigration lawyer.

6

I’m a little confused about the “getting the marriage certificate certified in the US” part. I originally thought this was a query about how to have the marriage recognized by the US government. If so, there’s no need to get anything certified in the US; the embassy (or whatever consular equivalent they have in Taipei) will recognize the marriage, although that in itself does not guarantee a visa.

But now I’m thinking this is a question about permanent residency in the US?

7

[QUOTE=gitfiddle]

To give you a little background, the plan is for us to head back to the US sometime between January and May 2009 . . . The US will be our “home base” so to speak.
[/QUOTE]

Yup, looks like a question of permanent residency to me.

8

Yes, I saw that, but took that as just background. The question of where was it easier to get married threw me.

9

[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
I’m a little confused about the “getting the marriage certificate certified in the US” part. I originally thought this was a query about how to have the marriage recognized by the US government.
[/QUOTE]

Indeed, that’s what I was asking. My lack of understanding about how this all works made my statement a little difficult to understand.

[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
But now I’m thinking this is a question about permanent residency in the US?
[/QUOTE]

Exact.
I’ve got a couple more question to add to all of this:

What about money? We don’t have much money at all. I’d say, at most, we’ll have about $5000 in the bank when we head back to the US. I know we have to show “evidence of financial support.” Are they going to tell us we don’t have enough money?

Also, are they going to ask us to prove that we’ve been together for a certain amount of time? Like I said, we’ve been together for four years, but I don’t know how to prove it. The only thing I could think is to show our passports and note that every single place (About five or six different countries) we’ve been in the last four years, we’ve been at the same time, which isn’t a coincidence.

10

[QUOTE=gitfiddle]
What about money? We don’t have much money at all. I’d say, at most, we’ll have about $5000 in the bank when we head back to the US. I know we have to show “evidence of financial support.” Are they going to tell us we don’t have enough money?

Also, are they going to ask us to prove that we’ve been together for a certain amount of time? Like I said, we’ve been together for four years, but I don’t know how to prove it. The only thing I could think is to show our passports and note that every single place (About five or six different countries) we’ve been in the last four years, we’ve been at the same time, which isn’t a coincidence.
[/QUOTE]

As for money, I don’t know about Taiwan, but in Thailand the US Embassy wants to see proof of ties to the country when issuing a tourist visa, something that offers a reasonable guarantee the person will return here and not remain in the US. This is usually money, in the form of a bank account or even property ownership. For a fiancee visa, this may differ. Check with the US Consulate there, or whatever they have. (I believe there’s no embassy there, because of recognition of mainland China?) The embassy in Bangkok has an excellent American Services section that I’ve always found to be helpful.

As for proving you’ve been together for a while, I know the embassy here does try to determine if you’ve met your new wife in a bar or even if she’s ever worked in a bar. In our case, we were able to document pretty well that we’d attended school together in Hawaii, so that worked a lot in our favor. If nothing else, showing yuor passports and noting travel destinations is worth a shot. Show anything you can think of, because if she does happen to get rejected, they still keep the application fee, so you want to give it your best shot.