Federal Judge Mary Rowland has revived Thomas Valdivia, Jr.’s petition to award his husband, Radu
Cheslerean, a Romanian citizen, spousal residency rights in the US.
➤ IMMIGRATION, from p.14
Cheslerean’s recent affi davit
concerning his two marriages indicated
that Garcia’s 2006 I-130 petition
on his behalf was rejected because
she did not check any boxes
regarding comingled resources or
other evidence of a genuine union
such as insurance policies. That’s
a red fl ag to immigration authorities
of a sham marriage — though
Cheslerean argues that was all
due to their youthful naiveté and
lack of any signifi cant fi nancial resources.
Rowland found that the BIA cannot
now read back into its ruling in
the Garcia case “a fi nding that Valdivia
failed to disclose his earlier
attraction to Cheslerean.”
The BIA also argued in this lawsuit
that in 2009 Garcia admitted
that she and Cheslerean were “just
friends,” but that is not dispositive,
Rowland found, of the state of
their relationship when the couple
married in 2006. The question of
FACEBOOK/ RADU CHESLEREAN
a sham marriage, the judge noted,
relates to the time when the marriage
was entered into, not the state
of the relationship years later. The
marriage may not have been a real
one by 2009, but that is not proof
that Cheslerean entered into it
three years earlier with the intention
of defrauding the US.
Rowland concluded that nothing
proves that Cheslerean’s marriage
to Garcia was a sham and found
that the story told now by Valdivia
and Cheslerean is credible. Garcia
and Cheslerean met at a party and
married, that marriage eventually
broke up, perhaps, we might speculate,
partly due to Cheslerean’s
discovery that he was falling in
love with Valdivia. Cheslerean fi -
nally embraced his sexual orientation
and became Valdivia’s boyfriend
and then his husband. Case
closed.
Valdivia and Cheslerean are represented
by Chicago attorneys Noelia
Rodriguez-Quiñones and Nancy
Marcia Vizer.
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