How immigration lawyers request a marriage certificate from clients
By Arthur Teboul, DokuTrak · Published
In short
Ask the couple for the marriage certificate issued by the civil authority where they married, not a religious or ceremonial certificate alone. Ask at the same time for proof that every prior marriage of either spouse ended: divorce decrees, annulments or death certificates. Foreign-language documents need a full certified English translation.
Why immigration lawyers need a marriage certificate
In a spousal I-130, the marriage certificate shows that a legal marriage exists, and USCIS looks at the prior marriages of both spouses to confirm each was free to marry. A previous marriage with no final decree in the file can stall the case, because the new marriage only counts if the earlier one had legally ended. The certificate also supplies the dates and places the forms ask for.
What exactly to ask for
A copy of the civil marriage certificate or registry record, with a certified English translation if needed. For each spouse’s previous marriages, the final divorce decree, annulment order or the former spouse’s death certificate. Ask the clients to list every prior marriage first, so you can count documents against that list.
What to check when it arrives
- The names and the date of marriage match what both spouses wrote on the forms.
- The marriage date falls after the final date of every prior divorce, for both spouses.
- The document comes from a civil registry or county clerk, not only from a church or venue.
Email to send your client
Replace the bracketed parts. The same text fits in the message of a DokuTrak request (up to 1,000 characters).
Subject: Your marriage certificate and any prior divorces
Hi [Client name],
For your petition I need a copy of your marriage certificate, the official one issued by the city, county or civil registry where you married. A certificate from the church or the ceremony alone is usually not enough.
If either of you was married before, please also send the final divorce decree for each earlier marriage, or a death certificate if a former spouse passed away. These show you were both free to marry.
Documents in another language need a complete English translation signed by the translator. Could you send everything by [date]? If a decree is hard to find, tell me where the divorce took place and I will help you request it.
Thank you, [Your name]
Sources
The rules above come from these primary sources. Check them, and your local rules, before you rely on them.
Ask once. DokuTrak does the chasing.
- Your client uploads from one link, with no account and no password.
- Reminders go out on a schedule, by default 2, 5, 10 and 14 days after the request, until the file arrives.
- With AI review switched on in your workspace (it is off by default), each upload gets a first pass that flags a file that is not a marriage certificate or an unreadable or blurry scan. It says so when it is not sure.
- You accept every file or mark it for re-upload, and your client gets the note by email. The AI never accepts a file.