So, I got married in Taiwan... but TECO won’t accept the marriage certificate

Legal Visa & Residency
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So I’ve been driving myself crazy with this. I married my wife in Taiwan thinking it would make the process easier, but I really screwed up. For the record we’ve been together for years.

So, I have all my papers - marriage certificate, background check, health check, photos, fees, application papers, etc. But there isn’t a single TECO office in America that will accept my taiwan marriage certificate. They say I need to have an American marriage certificate. Thing is, the USA doesn’t HAVE marriage registration. Luckily, BOCA states that for countries that don’t have marriage registration, the marriage certificate is all that is needed, so I should be fine right?

Nope. The new york TECO office tells me I have to marry her in the usa, they wont accept it. I flew to LA to apply there, they said they might, but they aren’t comfortable issuing a visa for someone out of their jurisdiction. I tried telling the people at the NY office that there is no marriage registration in the USA, but they practically screamed at me to get out. I cannot believe I actually can’t get a resident visa because I made the mistake of marrying my wife… IN THE COUNTRY IM TRYING TO MOVE TO.

At this point, I’m considering getting divorced and just remarrying online in Utah so I can get the stupid fucking paper they want, but I refuse to believe I’m the only fool who found himself in this situation. To be clear, the ONLY thing any TECO office is giving me trouble about is the marriage certificate. I got married in Taiwan and can’t get an American certificate. I feel like I’m dealing with crazy people.

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What are you trying to do, teach?
Or live in Taiwan?
If live, maybe others can confirm whether you can enter on tourist visa, then register with that marriage certificate at wife’s local district administration office.

Your (Taiwanese) wife helping in any of this? Or she not Taiwanese?

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My wife is a taiwanese citizen. I’m trying to live there, at least until her green card is approved (which as most people know is a very very lengthy process). She doesn’t really know any of the legal ins and outs here either, and to complicate things, every entity we contact (TECO, BOCA, my local town and city clerks, EVERYONE) seems to agree my marriage certificate should be fine, the ONLY people on earth that don’t seem to recognize it are the TECO NY staff.

Thing is, when I apply for a tourist visa in person, they tell me I don’t need it because I’m American and tell me to leave the office, so I tried that route already too. They have a habit of requesting a lot of additional unecessary documents. When I applied, I brought in proof of income, my tax documents for the last year, and current bank statements showing well over 10,000 dollars set aside (I was applying for a tourist visa to change status after landing) and they said “that’s it?”. Truly, I think they’re lying about what is necessary so they can avoid doing paperwork, but it’s keeping me from my wife. If I was in any other jurisdiction this would be so much easier.

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And this would be easier than say, just going to city hall and having a Justice of the Peace do you? OK.

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You get a landing visa as US citizen. Usually good for 90 days.
Get your wife to buy Skype call for one month and have her call fixed line of government offices. They’ll probably tell you what to do better than TECO

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Yeah, have you yourself dealt with TECO in NY, or GULP DC?

Best to just give them what they want.

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I should have clarified, my wife is in Taiwan right now because her father has dementia and can’t care for himself or really travel, so she can’t leave him to come here. We could try to find a hospital to put him in, but it’s a lot of money for a private place and obviously the public hospitals require someone to stay with him which would defeat the purpose. We don’t really have any family in Taiwan we can call in favors to handle that for us.

Also I looked into landing visas, I’m pretty sure you can’t change your status on a landing visa, it has to be a specially marked visitor visa at the absolute least.

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Better yet as wife in Taiwan. She should call the local government offices and explain specifically about how you got married in Taiwan, etc.
My wife has dealt with local bureaucrats, and they will help out much more.

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You could get a student visa but you might have to make a visa run to manila or HK, not the worst of weekends.

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I transferred from landing visa to resident visa before. So it definitely was possible. Not sure if it still is. People also do visa runs to HK, its a short flight away.

Welcome to the 'mosa

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Yea, in my experience also, the immigration people are ok and can help to sort out the various hoops. It would be a good idea to ask them what to do now, and then do that. I’d ask your (OP’s) wife to pop down to the local immigration department and ask them.

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About visa runs, is there any legal limit to how many times I can get a landing visa? Just on the off chance that I’m not able to change status, is it viable for me to just swing over to hong kong and back every 90 days? I’m not an experienced traveler so I don’t know the ins and outs of that. If so, that would actually be incredible, Ill gladly spend a few hundred every couple months.

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Some people do that. But I’d imagine that with a local spouse you’d be unlikely to have to do more than one visa run.

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That would actually be such a life saver. It helps to know SOMEONE was able to change status, because online it says they don’t and that’s what everyone in the USA says (everyone meaning TECO, which I’m really growing to mistrust).

If that’s what it comes to, a few hundred bucks every 90 days is peanuts, I’ll gladly spend that to avoid dealing with TECO. The funny thing is, every time I had to get paperwork done in Taiwan, things were very efficient and nobody ever gave me a tough time… it’s only once I got home.

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So first off, TECO is the worst of the worst of the Taiwanese government. And they’re wrong, you do not need a US marriage certificate.

I would complain to BOCA, and MOFA, and NIA about TECO. They will likely submit your application but put up a fight.

However there isn’t much benefit in applying for a resident visa at TECO cos you have to resubmit everything at NIA in Taiwan to get your ARC so the below is probably easier.

This is also basically what I did, I am Australian and Australia also does not have a marriage registry and I married my Taiwanese spouse in Taiwan which is automatically recognised in AU, no paperwork needed. I believe this is the same in the US but just so you know in case it isn’t.

Apply for a visitor visa in the US - they may tell you don’t need one. Say “I don’t care, process the application.” They should not refuse, if they do, send another complaint to BOCA, and MOFA. I know you said you already tried but, try harder. Be an asshole, They don’t have the right to refuse to let you apply.

You need a visitor visa because visa free cannot be converted/apply for ARCs.

Once you have your visitor visa go to NIA and apply for a spouse ARC straight up with all the documents you have. You do not need to apply for a resident visa at BOCA (this part confused me), just go to NIA and apply for the ARC. ARC processing is pretty quick, you should have it in a week or 2 after applying.

You can use google translate for the websites in Chinese. You can submit complaints in English, they will reply in Chinese and google translate is fine. I have submitted complaints about my local TECO before

https://bossmail.immigration.gov.tw/mail-box/mailindexEN.jsp

https://eyes.mofa.gov.tw/en/

https://www.boca.gov.tw/sp-mimb-main-1.html

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This is why your kind missus needs to stroll over to local bureaucrat office and get the low-down. They’ll know better what to do.

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I know I probably start to sound like a broken record in this thread, but I did actually complain to MOFA about this, and what they did was… forward my complaint to the NY TECO office. They responded, but again asked me to attach my USA issued marriage certificate.

I could keep going in circles with them but the thing is, half the documents (health check in particular) are only good for 90 days for a visa application, and im nearly out of time before my check expires.

Given how they snubbed me when I applied for my visitor visa, I think I’m just going to resign myself to a weekend vacation to some other nearby country every few months until her green card gets approved and we can figure out what to do with her dad.

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Did you complain to BOCA? BOCA is the visa issuing department of MOFA.

Welcome to Taiwan.

Dealing with these kid of idiots is pretty common.

Also, if your wife has a citizen digital certificate she can lodge an administrative complaint online to Taiwan’s judiciary about this situation.

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I only complained to MOFA, I’ll try with BOCA. For what it’s worth, idiots creating bureaucratic nightmares seems to be pretty standard for every country, so I don’t hold it against Taiwan. Just wish the idiots they employed were at another office.

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It’s not

You should, don’t accept people refusing what you’re entitled too.

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