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I got married in 1996 in Iran and moved to germany the same year with my ex husband. We both have Iranian/German dual citizenship.

I moved to the US in 2010 and got divorced (proxy divorce) in 2016 in Iran, because I had no connection in Germany anymore and my ex was in Iran at the time; also getting divorced in Iran was financially affordable for me, and I had my mom in Iran to do all processing through a power of attorney I sent to her.

Now after 8 years being divorced I remarried in US and want to know if my divorce was enough to get married in US? I never thought I would need to get divorced in two countries but USCIS asking why I got divorced in Iran. I will write them the as the situation was but my concern is what will happen.

I know I did everything right from legal and ethical standpoint but I am feeling anxious what USCIS will decide after submitting the explanation to them. Any thought would greatly appreciated.

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  • Didn’t you check if your divorce was enough to remarry in the US before you remarried?
    – Traveller
    Commented Jul 26 at 7:26
  • I got divorce years before I remarried and my divorce was granted at the court and that was enough for me to get married again, I was not sure If I had to get divorce in every country I have lived in order to be divorced for USCIS , and I talked to an attorney and he said I did not have to file for divorce in Germany because I never remarried there and my divorce is valid,
    – Sara
    Commented Jul 26 at 13:48
  • When you apply for a marriage license, you are normally asked to declare all former marriages and to provide documentary evidence of dissolution for all of them, such as a death certificate or divorce papers. Did you do this? If so, then there is no problem, everything is straightforward, and the answer to the USCIS question is just as you've explained here. If you didn't declare your first marriage when you applied for the license for your second then you probably should indeed speak with a lawyer.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 27 at 6:34

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You should talk to an attorney. Generally, you don't need to get divorced in a separate process in every country you've lived in, but for the divorce to be valid the court/authority granting it must have had jurisdiction. Your attorney will be able to figure out if Iran had jurisdiction to grant the divorce in your situation. Given that your ex-husband was in Iran, it may be easy to show, but an attorney is the only person who can reliably answer that question for you and write it up for the USCIS.

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  • Thank you so much for your comment,
    – Sara
    Commented Jul 26 at 1:52
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Here are some BIA precedents regarding the effect of the location of the divorce on the validity of divorce for immigration: Matter of Dagamac, Matter of Levine, Matter of Moncayo, Matter of Ma. The basic principle seems to be that what matters is whether the state of the remarriage recognizes the divorce. So you should look at the law of the state where you remarried to see their rules on the recognition of a foreign divorce.

Usually, a state does not recognize a foreign divorce if neither party was domiciled in that jurisdiction at the time of the divorce. The precedents where a divorce was not recognized for immigration were all cases where neither party was domiciled in the jurisdiction of the divorce at the time of the divorce. In your case, you said that your ex-husband "was in Iran at the time". If you meant that he was domiciled in Iran at the time, then the divorce would probably be recognized by US states, if it met the legal requirements for divorce in Iran.

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  • Worth noting, since the OP mentioned they remarried, that if the divorce is not in fact recognized then immigration is not the only problem they have...
    – littleadv
    Commented Jul 26 at 7:36
  • Thank you for your comments,
    – Sara
    Commented Jul 26 at 14:25
  • Iran is different and has different rules, Unfortunately in iran Article 1133 of the regime's Civil Code clearly emphasizes, "A man can divorce his wife at any time." And in our case I was the one who filed for divorce 8 years ago, and I could not get divorce if My ex did not agree and judge would not grant my divorce anyway if my ex husband was not present.
    – Sara
    Commented Jul 26 at 14:29
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    @Sara the point is that if your husband was only visiting Iran at the time of the divorce then the state where you remarried might not accept the validity of the divorce even though it was legal under Iranian law, and if the state where you remarried doesn't accept the divorce then USCIS also won't accept it.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 27 at 6:38

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