Divorce decree from Ireland

thegrabber

Hi all,

Seeking advice regarding foreign divorce.

Little bit of background about myself.
I am an Indian origin, currently living in Ireland. I received Irish citizenship through naturalization on 2015. My first marriage was on 2008 according to Indian marriage act before I came to Ireland. My ex was also Indian. She received Irish nationality through naturalization on 2014. On 2016 we divorced in India and received a divorce decree from Indian court. We filed the divorce there being Indian origins.
My new girlfriend who is a US citizen would like to apply for a K1 visa for me to get married in US.

My question is - should I need an Irish divorce certificate for K1 application?
I have been divorced from India being an Indian origin. My current nationality is Ireland.
Does Indian divorce accepted in Ireland?

Your advise is highly appreciated. Thanks

jimmycrackcorm

Are you registered as bring married here in Ireland? I.e. I presume you would only have existed in revenue records for tax purposes as being married, so no search would return a marriage record here.

thegrabber

Hi, thanks for your heads up.
I came to Ireland on spouse visa. My ex was working here and she brought me in. After few years we both received citizenship. You may be right. The Indian marriage cert was only used for revenue purpose and GNIB. Hence no record would be available in the Irish marriage records.
My concern is does US embassy ask for Ireland divorce decree considering my current nationality!. Not sure where to enquire for right information.

Peregrinus

The question you're asking is whether the US authorities will recognise a divorce granted in India to two people who were (I assume) not resident in India at the time of the divorce proceedings, but were resident in Ireland.

This really is a question of US law and practice, so an Irish discussion board is probably not the best place to get a reliable answer. In general, though, the question of your citizenship is irrelevant, as is the question of where the marriage was orginally celebrated. People mostly get divorced in the country in which they actually live at the time of the divorce, and other countries will accept that as a reasonable thing to do. Thus, if you had got divorced in Ireland while living in Ireland, the US authorities would almost certainly accept that.

That doesn't mean, however, that they won't accept the Indian divorce. If, contrary to what I have assumed, either you or your ex were resident in India at the time of the divorce, then they would likely accept the Indian divorce. Even if neither of you were resident there, but you had strong links to India - e.g. you owned property in India which needed to be divided by the divorce decree - that would probably be acceptable. In general the US authorities have a tradition of being fairly open about accepting the validity of foreign divorces without too much enquiry.

So I think your prospects are reasonably good, but you may need to talk to a US migration lawyer for an authoritative answer.

thegrabber

Thanks very much for the advise. As you mentioned i would get an authoritative answer from a US migration lawyer.