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Eric and Anna Samayoa pose outside the Davidson County Clerk’s office after getting married.

At the end of each week, the Davidson County Clerk’s office starts looking like a marriage factory. And many of the couples are immigrants, once prevented from marrying in Tennessee.

Last year, Davidson County clerk John Arriola started getting so many requests to perform marriages, he set up a day each week when couples can come in, get their marriage license, and seal the deal right there in his office.

Back-to-back ceremonies now happen every Friday.

“Repeat after me,” Arriola tells Anna Garcia and Eric Samayoa. “With this ring…”

Garcia is from Cuba. Samayoa is from Guatemala. Their high school-aged children stand beside them, with cameras waiting for the big finish.

“Again, again, again,” one of their children says. “Make it a long kiss. Hold it.”

On this day, Arriola presides over about a dozen weddings. Many, like the Samayoas’, include at least one non-citizen. She’s been naturalized. He has not.

Marriage as an Immigration Issue

This is where marriage can become an immigration issue. Marrying a citizen doesn’t entitle an immigrant to citizenship, but it does help in gaining legal status years down the road.

The new Mrs. Samayoa says their marriage is about love. Potential citizenship for him is just icing on their wedding cake.

“He come in from Guatemala with visa and his visa expired,” she says. “I want to live a better life. How can we live a better life? To make my husband legal.”

Marriage wasn’t an option for this couple until 2008, when Vanessa Saenz of Nashville filed a lawsuit.

Vanessa Saenz filed a lawsuit in 2008 after having trouble getting married to her undocumented fiance.

Saenz is an attorney who believes marriage is a fundamental right. She argued county clerks were missing the point of a law that required social security numbers on marriage certificates. It was intended to track down parents who owe child support but also prevented undocumented aliens from getting hitched, because most don’t have social security numbers.

Unintended Effects

Saenz had trouble, herself, getting married to her undocumented fiancé.

“People would come to me with the same problem,” she says. “I would say ‘let’s go sue.’ They’d be like ‘no, we don’t want to rock the boat. He’s undocumented’ or whatever.”

Saenz effectively won her case. It was dismissed after the Attorney General issued an opinion that directs county clerks to only take down social security numbers if applicants have them.

Attorneys General in at least seven other states have come to the same conclusion.

“We still have renegade clerks out there that will not accept this as the law,” Saenz says.

Or, she says, some clerks aren’t following the Attorney General’s interpretation of the law. State code still asks for names, ages, addresses and social security numbers.

The law also doesn’t give guidance on what kind of ID should be presented. So understandably, WPLN found inconsistency in what it takes to tie the knot.

Inconsistent Requirements

Of 10 counties called, some said social security numbers are required. One didn’t know off hand. Another said the applicants have to prove they’re in the country legally with a valid passport.

In an interview, Wilson County’s deputy clerk Kim White explains it’s possible for people without a social security number to get married there, but it doesn’t happen much. White says Wilson County turns away about one of every 25 couples for insufficient documentation.

“Our policy has been two forms of ID. One has to be a picture and one has to be legible that we can read,” White says. “If they have a passport in anything but English, it has to be translated.”

Translated documents are not a necessity in Davidson County. And anyone turned away in one county is welcome to make the short drive to Nashville some Friday morning.

Clerk John Arriola (right) hands a marriage certificate to Daniel and Pamela Hewlett.

Clerk John Arriola says he marries immigrant couples from around the state.

“The way we see it,” he says, “we’re not going to put up any barriers.”

Arriola says he just wants to feel comfortable the people holding hands in front of him are who they say they are. His less restrictive approach shows up in the numbers.

While the state as a whole has seen a slight increase in the number of marriage certificates granted without social security numbers, Davidson County figures jumped four percent in 2009, with another increase likely when data on 2010 come out.

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