Just like various states in the US recognize each other's drivers licenses, the United States has that type of agreement (reciprocity schedule) with other countries for documents such as divorce decrees.
My wife submitted a divorce document as part of her Green Card application, as proof that she legally terminated her previous marriage years before she even met me. We followed the US Department of State's guidelines to get this document because the law is very specific on what is actually valid.
The trouble is that one of the letterheads on the Chinese version of a divorce document says "Civil Mediation Agreement." USCIS officals I talked to wants the letterhead to say "Divorce Decree" instead. Trouble is, that's now how the Department of State or the country of China see it, at least according to everyone I've talked to (including lawyers).
I have only one chance to respond to protect my wife and unborn son.
Request
Does anyone have any contacts I can leverage to figure out what USCIS thinks a divorce document from China is supposed to look like? I'm somewhat concerned that following the process as described by the US Department of State may be insufficient if USCIS's interpretation of the law is different than the rest of the US Government.
Good news diadem fucked around with this message on 05-17-2019 at 09:40 AM.
All tests show that the baby is healthy. It's a going to be boy, and I'm naming him after his great grandfather (decorated war hero Staff Sergeant Isaac Kaplan, United States Army Air Corps)
I was able to get verification that my understanding of the law was correct by multiple law firms.
We had a lawyer submit a response that included a link to an official US Department of State statement.
Example:
quote:
RFEs are pretty common. In Korea we don't have "Birth Certificates", but instead have these things called Basic Certificates. They show what your name is, when you were born, who your parents are.. pretty much like our version of a birth certificate. Even on the US State dept website it says for Korea, this is an acceptable substitute. I sent it in and lo and behold, got a RFE asking for a Birth Certificate. It's like the people working there have 0 ability to account for even the slightest deviations, like a robot going though a flow chart. A quick search would have shown that what I sent was a US government accepted form of a birth cert for Korea. But no, thats too much work, slap it with a RFE so someone else can deal with it.I had to send them the same thing again with a paragraph about how this is acceptable documentation as well as affidavits from my parents, and this time they accepted.
I think what you are going through is a similar situation. I would say it's a more minor issue than you are making it out to be. Basically with the new Trump admin, they've been trying to trip up applicants by being more strict with what docs the accept and sending RFEs when there is even the slightest inconsistency from what they wanna see. That's why USCIS case processing times have gotten almost 50% longer this year compared to last year, even though the number of applicants didn't change much.
diadem fucked around with this message on 06-06-2019 at 11:53 AM.
