Is A Married Mexican Man Allowed To Come To The United States And Marry A Single Woman Without Being Divorced In Mexico?
No, That Is Called Bigamy.
Seriously, American (state) marriage laws generally recognize as “legally valid” marriages which are legally performed and recognized in foreign countries. (There are some exceptions for polygamous marriages, I believe.) So a Mexican married man is considered a married man, and hence not eligible to marry again in the US, unless he gets divorced first.
Mexican marriage laws also forbid bigamy, AFAIK. So this guy’s second marriage would not be legally valid either in the US or in Mexico.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer or an expert in marriage law, but this particular issue seems to be pretty much a no-brainer. Corrections from the more knowledgeable are always welcome, of course.
Is this the title of a book? It looks like one.
I was going to post that it looked like the title of a 70s sex comedy, actually…
Heh, I was thinking “Thank god for the feature that prevents posting in all caps” as I suspect was attempted here.
Aah, So It’s An Automated Anti-shouting Measure? I Didn’t Know We Had One.
Generally, Kimstu is right, but I think he’s oversimplyfying a bit when he says that a marriage concluded in country A is considered in country B as valid when the legal requirements of country A have been fulfilled. At least it’s not always (albeit in most cases) true for German law; don’t know about the situation in the U.S., but consider the following simple case where the simple rule of looking at the rules in the country of marriage doesn’t really work:
In a country where polygamy is legal (for example, many dominantly Muslim countries), a man marries a woman and years later marries a second woman. The second marriage would be regarded as valid in his native country, but not in the U.S., where polygamy is illegal.
Or, add another twist to the case: After the sondond marriage, the man’s first wife dies. Would he, after moving to the U.S., be considered there to be legally married to his second “wife”? Polygamy wouldn’t be an issue because now he doesn’t have any other spouses; but the second marriage couldn’t legally have been concluded in the U.S. because at the time of this marriage, he was already married to another woman.
You are correct, BTW. I used to work in immigration (but NOT the INS!!!), and this is the way it works. We actually had a case where this was a big problem, because our client believed that once he crossed the border from Mexico and left his Mexican wife behind, they were divorced. And had married a US citizen. Kind of a big bummer for him to realize his whole family-based immigration petition could’ve been blown over this little legal speed bump!! :wally
OF COURSE, THERE IS A VERY EASY WAY TO DEFEAT THE MEASURe.
I was thinking it was another TV movie on the Lifetime Channel.
And besides the polygamy issue there is the issue of age of consent and same-sex marriages. If you marry in another country where it’s legal to marry at a younger age and then move to the US are you still legally married? If you have sex with your spouse are you comitting statatory rape? If you are a man and marry another man in a country where that’s legal and then get married to a woman in the US, is that considered bigamy here?
Seconded. Back int he day, when I worked for the Office of the Immigraiton Judge, we had a marriage fraud case. A guy had applied for a green card based on a marriage to a U.S. citizen. In one of the few examples I’ve ever seen of INS actually having a clue, a sharp-eyed adjudications officer had gone back to the guy’s original application for a visitor visa to the U.S., where he had listed a wife and several children.
So what had happened to Wife #1, the judge asked? “Uuuuummmmmm…Nigerian tribal divorce - yeah, that’s it!” Nobody believed the guy, but he actually eventually produced a notarized statement from a Nigerian tribal chieftain re: accepted divorce practice among his tribe. It was a long time ago now, so I don’t remember all the particulars, but I think the judge did some research and discovered that the divorce wasn’t legit under Nigerian law (if, indeed, it hadn’t been entirely invented to begin with) and ordered the guy deported for fraud.
You know, it’s one thing when someone is trying to get away with something. It’s another when you have to enlighten a well-meaning immigrant to the cold, hard realities of American law and culture…
However, in my purely anecdotal experience the guys who claimed they had an I-Crossed-The-Border-Wife-Go-Poof! divorce always struck me as a little… well… not of the best moral character to begin with.
AHHHHH, THEY’RE 1920’S-STYLE “DEATH SHOUTS”.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Fear Itself. You made my day!
Sounds like there are some people with experience on this thread, so let me ask this (slight hijack):
Immigrant to US is single, marrieshere , files initial paperwork for residence pending review. Gets divorved, remarries in that time period (which I think is 2 years).
What next? Is the clock reset? Deportation? Eva Luna …?
Depends - I’m assuming for this purpose that he’s married a U.S. citizen. A valid marriage to a U.S. citizen cures most immigration sins, provided proper paperwork is filed before deportation proceedings are begun - visa overstays, etc. There are a couple of exceptions, IIRC, but then this really isn’t my area: entry without inspection, criminal offenses, etc. But once deportation proceedings have begun, there is a rebuttable presumption that the marriage was for immigration purposes.
Correct.
Un fortunately I have a friend with a problem. Real marriage but after visa overstay so it looks fake on the surface of it. Hoping they get through the interview OK…
Thanks for the answer.