I was recently asked this question, and I admit I did not know the answer. This may sound strange, but divorce lawyers are not generally concerned with marriage license requirements. Except when we draft premarital agreements, we’re not involved when a marriage begins.In any event, this question piqued my curiosity, so I did some checking. Marriage license requirements are statutory. A.R.S. Sec. 25-121B. Persons who wish to marry must fill out an application and affidavit, neither of which require proof of citizenship. The statute also requires, however, that the applicants provide their social security numbers separately from the affidavit. The question, then, is what is the consequence for a person failing to provide his or her social security number? Will the marriage license be denied?The answer is that the marriage license probably SHOULD NOT be denied. Whether that holds true in every Arizona county in every situation, I do not know. The statute clearly states that the marriage license applicants are to provide their social security numbers, so if an applicant is unable or unwilling to do that, a given clerk in a given Arizona county would ostensibly be justified in refusing to issue the marriage license.Nevertheless, there is no requirement that a person be an Arizona resident in order to get an Arizona marriage license. Marriage licenses are granted routinely to couples from other states who wish to marry in Arizona. In addition, at least one county in Arizona, Mohave County, posts on its website that if a person doesn’t have a social security number, he simply writes “none” on the form in the space provided for the SSN. The marriage license still issues.I spoke by telephone on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 with “Karen”, one of the Mohave County filing counter clerks, and she confirmed to me that Mohave County will issue a marriage license to a non-citizen who is visiting the United States. Specifically, she stated that marriage licenses are customarily granted to Canadian citizens who are visiting here for the winter. Arizona Superior Court clerks do not have the authority to inquire into whether a non-U.S. citizen is here legally or illegally. If a county’s policy is to grant marriage licenses to some applicants who fail to provide SSNs, it is my opinion that licenses should be granted to ALL applicants without SSNs as long as the other statutory requirements are met.For now at least, if an illegal resident wishes to marry in Arizona and is refused a marriage license in Maricopa County, she should be able to obtain the license in Mohave County. I would welcome comments on this post from illegal residents who have applied for Arizona marriage licenses in various counties about what your experiences have been.
Copyright © 2011 by Scoresby Family Law – J. Kyle Scoresby, P.C. All rights reserved.