To make a long story short:

I have a friend who married an man who was here illegally. A few months after they were married, he was arrested and deported. Over the last few years, she has tried everything she could to help him get his papers but he was denied. He now has to reapply and he's looking at a minimum of 7 years before he'll be able to come back legally.

The situation is that she has been raising their 3-year-old daughter by herself ever since he was deported. He does nothing to support them in any form or fashion. She also found out a lot of things that she didn't know prior to their marriage. She just recently filed for divorce and had the papers sent to Mexico. However, her husband refuses to sign them because he knows that his chances of getting back into the country will be diminished if he's not married to anyone here. She asked the clerk of courts in her county if she would be able to obtain a default divorce but they told her no.

Would she be able to file for divorce on the grounds of abandonment if she simply told the court that she doesn't know where he is and doesn't receive any contact or support from him? This is in Wisconsin.

The answer is maybe. She needs to get a divorce attorney who can do this for her. I can't imagine it would be to hard to get a divorce if he was deported.

Maybe what you need isn't a divorce at all. You may need an annulment. There are specific grounds for this and a lawyer near you might be able to sort that out. Being as he was here illegaly then he may not have been in a capacity to be entered into a legal marriage contract. Many states have some sort of residency requirements but that would preclude a legal status. With out a green card then he has no legal standing other then basic human rights.

I don't know that a judge would grant the divorce because of abandonment because he didn't really abandon them he was deported. If she claims that she doesn't know where he is I'm sure they can pull the files and see that he was sent back to Mexico. I can easily see a divorce being granted but or a calif said an annulment but I honestly don't see abandonment being good grounds in this case especially because if he wants to fight it he can show his attempts at getting back to his family.

It's not hard to file, but he's refusing to sign the paperwork and return it to her. She's so desperate that she told him she was being sued for his past debt and told him that was the reason he needed to sign because he is so adamant about not divorcing her; his response was, "Well, what about my citizenship?" He doesn't care what happens to her or their daughter, he just wants his papers.

I don't know if she can get an annulment because it's been well over 4 years now; is there a SOL on annulments?

There are SOL on annulments in all states that I know and in my state it has passed. She could try to use fraud for grounds for divorce if she can show that she didn't realize that he wasn't a legal citizen or covered up his grand amount of debt. But if the debt wasn't a problem until he was deported because that's when payments stopped then that wouldn't work but if she talked to a local lawyer he/she could probably suggest other grounds because they would know more about her situation.

Fraud also works for annulment and is proper grounds in your state.. it didn't say anything about SOL for it. For most " standard " SOL on annulment is usually 6 months. But under fraud I think it is waived. Because as an example.. the person was never divorced from an ex previous yet you were married. Upon finding that out then you could get an annulment based on fraud. i.e. no SOL.

You might need to look into that and it may not require anything from him.