Nevada family-law case summaries

Ahed Said Senjab and Mohamad Abulhakim Alhulaibi are Syrian citizens who married in Saudi Arabia and have one child. In 2018, Alhulaibi came to Las Vegas on an F-1 student visa to attend UNLV. In January 2020, Senjab and the child joined him on F-2 dependent visas. Two months later, Senjab filed for divorce in Clark County, also seeking spousal support, child custody, and child support. Alhulaibi moved to dismiss, arguing the Nevada court had no power to hear the case. Nevada's divorce-jurisdiction statute, NRS 125.020, requires that at least one spouse have been a "resident" of Nevada for at least six weeks before filing. Older Nevada Supreme Court decisions had said "residence" in this statute meant the same thing as "domicile" - a true, permanent home where a person intends to stay. Alhulaibi argued that because their student-related visas required them to maintain a foreign residence, they could not legally form the intent to remain in Nevada, so neither spouse could be domiciled here. The district court agreed and dismissed the case. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. Reading the statute's words plainly, the court held that "residence" means just that - residence - not domicile. The statute itself uses the two terms separately, treating them as different. A separate Nevada statute, NRS 10.155, defines legal residence as the place where a person has been physically present during the period for which residence is claimed. Because the district court had already found that Senjab and Alhulaibi were physically present in Nevada for at least six weeks before the complaint was filed, the residency requirement was met, and the district court had jurisdiction to hear the divorce. The court sent the case back to the district court to proceed with the divorce action. The court did not decide whether F-2 visa holders can or cannot establish domicile, because that question was no longer necessary to resolve the case. The court also did not address the custody and support issues, since the district court had not ruled on them.