Hello all, hoping to find reassurance or at least an answer here that I have been unable to get clarity on elsewhere.

I am a UK citizen (male) living here in the UK, my girlfriend is a US citizen in the US.

We are planning to have a civil partnership ceremony here in the UK, before she returns to the US to apply for my green card through the I-130 form for spouses.

My question is, will the US immigration system recognise an opposite-sex 'civil partner' from the UK as a spouse? Civil partnerships here in the UK have the same legal standing as marriages, but I haven't been able to clarify if they are treated as the same thing for the purpose of UK to US immigration.

I know that in some circumstances 'common law' partners may be considered for immigration, and this is a big legal step above that (as I say, civil partnerships are, in legal terms, pretty much the same as marriages here).

Oh and we're choosing a civil partnership at this stage as a personal choice - with an idea of having a 'marriage' at some point further down the line.

Does anyone have experience of a successful UK to US immigration as a civil partner? Or any knowledge of how this will be viewed?

P.S. we've already got the marriage-visitor visa for my gf to come here next year to give notice and have the ceremony (multi-trip).

 

Hi - thanks for the reply, however it doesn't really address my question. Let me clarify.

A common-law relationship is quite different to a civil partnership. As stated in my post, civil partnerships are legally very close to marriage; they give the couple the same rights and responsibilities, are registered in a similar way, and there is a legal process reuired to dissolve them (which cannot be enacted within a year of the partnership being formed):

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/f...l-differences/#h-what-is-a-civil-partnership-

Common law partnerships do not have the same status as these in the UK, and I wouldn't expect them to be recognised by Immigration in the US either. In fact common-law partner isn't really a thing at all in the UK.

So what I'm looking for is the US Immigration's position on Civil Partnerships, not common law partnerships.

 

Thank you but, again, I wouldn't be entering into a civil partnership IN the United States, and so I don't believe the laws, rights and regulations of the United States (or its individual states) as pertaining to marriage, would come into consideration for the immigration process - just as United States laws on marriage aren't considered for immigration applications where a marriage takes places in another country.

From what I've read, they make a judgement based on the validity of the partnership in the country where it was formed (i.e. what legal status does a Civil Partnership have in the UK). So I'm not sure what you say holds any water.