Problem with foreign divorce decree (Illinois)?

[npmonteiro]

Hello!

I have just had my green card interview and am concerned about a possible rejection.

Here's a summary of my case: My wife (US citizen) filed a I-130 petition for me. We live in Connecticut but were married in Illinois when we lived back there five years ago. I had been married before (in Portugal) and my divorce decree for that first marriage is from a Portuguese court. I attached a certified translation of the the decree to my USCIS application.

I had my interview in Connecticut today. The interview went well but at the end the officer told us that he had to check with Illinois whether it was okay with them that my divorce decree for my first marriage was a foreign document. He said it is possible that Illinois will not recognize a foreign divorce and that, if so, my current marriage would be considered invalid and my wife's I-130 petition would be rejected. We have a valid marriage license from Illinois so we never worried about this.

Does anyone know whether this will be a problem? It would be good to know in advance, since the officer said that a rejection might take longer than a month. This way we could prepare in advance for a new application, which would require me getting a divorce from my first wife in the US, then divorcing also my current wife and remarrying her.

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[bandk]

This is nonsense. They should recognize it as they recognize foreign birth certificates. I'm sure eventually you would win but i hope it won't come to that.

[helpmylife]

This sounds ridiculous.. This is immigration. Everything has to do with foreign entities and foreign documents. How can a foreign divorce dissolution not be acceptable? I wouldnt worry about it too much, as long as you provided the official document and a translated certified copy. Imagine how many people who have gone through this process and were married before provided a foreign divorce decree and were absolutely fine?

[npmonteiro]

This sounds ridiculous.. This is immigration. Everything has to do with foreign entities and foreign documents. How can a foreign divorce dissolution not be acceptable? I wouldnt worry about it too much, as long as you provided the official document and a translated certified copy. Imagine how many people who have gone through this process and were married before provided a foreign divorce decree and were absolutely fine?

OP here. Yes, I agree this sounds farfetched, but there's a complicating factor in my case. I came to the US with my first wife, a Portuguese citizen like myself. We were still living in Illinois when we divorced and so we gave our attorney in Portugal power of attorney to petition the court there for our divorce. As it turns out, according to the immigration officer who interviewed me at the Connecticut USCIS yesterday, some states in the US have strict laws about accepting foreign divorces, and only accept them if both spouses had their "domicile" (I put it between quotes because it's a legal term) in that country at the time of divorce. The rub may be that, while our residence was in Portugal at the time (i.e., we had a non-resident alien status in the US), our domicile was actually in Chicago (i.e., we spent most of the year there, except for vacations back home in Portugal), so Illinois USCIS may not accept the divorce on the basis that we were not domiciled there at the time.

Does anyone know whether Illinois is one these states? (The USCIS officer told us that California is one, and Connecticut also worked like this until recently, but no longer does. The USCIS officer did not know about Illinois because here in Connecticut they don't deal with Illinois issues very often.) Any information would be much appreciated!