As you know I’ve been writing a series on Marriage Laws in the 50 United States and I’ve discovered that the laws are changing all the time, even on pieces that I wrote just a couple of weeks ago. Does that sound familiar? I just wrote about marriage license law change in Delaware and today, we’re talking about a case in Minnesota where one couple is suing two Hennepin County officials as well as the commissioner for the state’s Department of Health.
So What’s Up?
It seems that Shira Levenson traveled to Peru for a summer backpacking trip in 2005. While there, she met Miguel Acuna and fell in love. She was originally supposed to just be in his hometown for a few days, but those days turned into a month. Many months later, their love still strong and their affection firm, they decided to get married.
They applied for a K-1 or fiancé visa for Miguel and sought to follow the letter and the spirit of the laws as they planned their wedding. Miguel arrived in the states in December. The terms of the fiancé visa require that they get married within 90 days of his arrival. They spent the first couple of months getting their living arrangements settled and planning their wedding.
When they went to apply for their marriage license, they had about 30 of the 90 days left to go. To their surprise, they found they were unable to obtain a marriage license, why? Because Miguel did not have a social security number, despite the fact that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen and was in the states on a fiancé visa they were told that they could not get a marriage license in Hennepin County.
State Law Requires Social Security Numbers
Minnesota state law requires marriage license applicants to present their social security numbers as a part of the application process. Acuna and his fiancé went to apply for a social security card for him, but it would take significantly longer than 30 days to get the social security number for him. So if it’s part of the state law, why is the couple suing? Because different counties interpret that state law differently and not all require the social security number if the applicant doesn’t have one.
The couple traveled to Las Vegas to tie the knot and are continuing to work on getting a social security number for Acuna and pressing forward with their lawsuit, in hopes to clarify and amend the state law so that other couples do not encounter the same roadblocks that they do. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where they should have looked into all the requirements in their local county, chances are they may have been fine if they’d applied for the social security card when he arrived in the states.
Check out more Marriage in the News for more on lawsuits, marriage law changes and more.