Alimony Spouse Support Foreign In Washington
Description
Form popularity
FAQ
Countries including Australia, Canada, Germany, Mexico, and the U.K. regularly work with U.S. courts to enforce alimony orders across international borders. However, enforcing an international alimony order may take more time than enforcing a domestic one.
Even if a spouse immigrant is denied alimony in divorce proceeding, she or he can seek support as set out under form I-864. Further, the spouse immigrant has no obligation to find a job (which is a requirement for alimony in California) to obtain support under form I-864.
That said, Washington will generally recognize a foreign divorce under the legal principal of comity, assuming certain conditions are met. For example, if the parties live in Canada but they file for and obtain a divorce in Mexico, a Washington court will very likely not recognize the Mexican divorce.
Typically, this obligation continues until your spouse becomes a U.S. citizen, accrues 40 qualifying work quarters in the U.S. (roughly 10 years), permanently departs the country, or passes away.
Someone doesn't have to be a US citizen. The qualifications to draw a spouse benefit in that scenario is age at least 62, have a spouse who draws SS and have been in the US LEGALLY for at least five years.
The citizen spouse must sign a contract (I-864) with the Federal government promising to support the non-citizen spouse financially. In most cases, even if the couple divorces, the citizen spouse must continue to support the non-citizen spouse.
As a general rule of thumb, courts in Washington State award one year of alimony for every three or four years of marriage. There is no statute or case law explicitly stating this formula, but it is an oft mentioned rule and generally what courts can be expected to do.
As with marriage, divorce has zero impact on whether a person who is in the nation illegally can be removed from the country. If you are in the US illegally, getting married even to a US citizen won't grant you legal status nor does it make you eligible for legal status. With divorce your circumstances don't change.
A court in Washington State will usually a) award each party his or her own separate property and b) divide the net value of the parties' community property 50/50. This means the husband keeps what he brought to the marriage, the wife keeps what she brought, and the rest gets split between them equally.
