Japanese documents (koseki)

[ciaociao 0]

Anyone have any experience submitting Japanese documents (as part of an I-130 petition) and how the immigration authorities react to them ?

In Japan, official information about personal events is held in a thing called a "koseki" (family register). So, instead of having separate certificates for birth, marriage, divorce, death, you just have entries in your koseki. The Japanese government can give you an official copy of your koseki anytime you need it, and this is what you use for various legal purposes.

But, I'm wondering how immigration authorities in the US and elsewhere would react to this document. I can imagine them saying "we've never seen one of these before, it's no good, we need a real birth certicate".

I suppose it varies from place to place. Presumably immigration authorities in the US have seen a koseki before (lots of people have immigrated from Japan). But I'm doing DCF in China, and I'm less confident about their reaction.

Anyone have any experience, in the US or elsewhere ??

thanks

[tokyo.lovers 6]

i had a koseki at first. and i translated it myself. i just put at the top of the translation:

"Family Registrar/Birth Certification"

the tokyo embassy knows what it is, so it's no problem.

later i found out there IS an actual birth certificate form. we got one for our NVC submission.

so all that talk about there not being a birth form is not true.

either way, as long as you translate the top to say birth cert. it's fine.

but ask some of the actual japanese members, like LA&MA what form she used.

also the tokyo embassy website may have some translation templates you can download. check it out.

[LA&MA 24]

ok here is the form I used and submitted it to NVC... you can have it if you like...

Koseki.doc

also as tokyo.lovers recommend it...

the Tokyo Embassy website have some translation templates...

http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-forms.html

scroll down the page and find the section "Translation Forms"

and check the "Japanese Family Register (Koseki)"

good luck

[ciaociao 0]

Thanks, folks (or arigato, as the case may be).

I have no doubt that a koseki would be acceptable at the embassy in Tokyo.

I was wondering about elsewhere. I've been thinking about DCF in China

(since that's currently where we live), but they're pretty strict and

inflexible here.

What if I submitted the I-130 via the lock-box in the US ?

I suppose the case would still get forwarded to the Embassy in China.

But who decides whether the documents are adequate ? The folks in the

US, or the ones in China ? If it's the former, I'd feel a lot better.

[road417king 7]

Anyone have any experience submitting Japanese documents (as part of an I-130 petition) and how the immigration authorities react to them ?

<deleted stuff>

Anyone have any experience, in the US or elsewhere ??

thanks

Yes with the I-130 package we sent a copy of my wife's family register as the official record of her life (birth, previous marriage, divorce, children, etc.) along with a translated copy.

With regards to translations, the I-130 instructions say this:

"Translations. Any foreign language document must be accompanied by a full English translation that the translator has certified as complete and correct, and by the translator's certification that he or she is competent to translate the foreign language into English."

I had my wife's family register documents translated at $30 a page, but it's all nice and neat along with the translator's certification.

Actual birth certificates are *not* a requirement for Japanese immigrants, the family register is perfectly acceptable.

You'll want to keep the originals for your DS-230 package, and keep copies of the translations handy. For the DS-230 package they're not required (per the NVC website), but it will make things go easier so that the NVC doesn't need to have the documents translated.

Also, with everything you submit for this exercise, make sure you have two complete copies of everything. I keep one copy here at home in my safe and my wife has an identical copy with her in Japan. What the government gets, we both have full color copies of for our own records.

Hope this helps!