A quiet custody hearing in Orange County on September 11, 2001, showed why the rule of law endures: courts judge conduct, not nationality, religion or the conflicts of nations.
Failing to domesticate a foreign divorce in California can lead to severe legal consequences, such as marital status ambiguity, allegations of bigamy, and the denial of immigration benefits for subsequent spouses.
For nearly four decades, courts have invoked a judicially constructed notion that certain agreements “promote divorce” and are therefore void as against public policy. That doctrine—frequently used to invalidate Islamic Mahr provisions—deserves reconsideration. Particularly now.
Divorce is not only a legal termination of marriage but a passage through a tunnel of transformation—legal, financial, psychological, and cultural. For immigrant families, this tunnel becomes doubly complex. It is not merely the end of a relationship but the confrontation between two systems of value: the native culture that shaped expectations and the host culture that governs adjudication…
