Would appreciate some advice on a minor annoyance re: immigration.

[spectheintro 18]

Hey all:

My wife immigrated to the US in 2010 under an IR-1, and she just received her new greencard today. We'll begin the citizenship process in November, which I'm pretty excited about!

But there's always been a bit of a paperwork issue that needs resolution, mostly because I'm #######-retentive. Here's the situation: my wife's birthday on her foreign birth certificate is wrong.

It was intentionally moved back from December to September so she could attend school a year early in her home country. Because that is her officially recognized birthday, ALL of our paperwork for immigration in America has reflected that birthday. It's been a constant annoyance.

Now that her application for citizenship is coming up, I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to correct the birthday. My inclination is to fix it prior to the Naturalization application so that her certificate of citizenship has her real birthday, but I realize that could make the process more complicated and I *really* want to be done with it. Is this too much of a hassle to try and fix? Is it even *possible* to fix it at this point? Does anyone here have any experience/suggestions for this sort of thing?

Thanks.

[aaron2020 11,651]

Hey all:

My wife immigrated to the US in 2010 under an IR-1, and she just received her new greencard today. We'll begin the citizenship process in November, which I'm pretty excited about!

But there's always been a bit of a paperwork issue that needs resolution, mostly because I'm #######-retentive. Here's the situation: my wife's birthday on her foreign birth certificate is wrong.

It was intentionally moved back from December to September so she could attend school a year early in her home country. Because that is her officially recognized birthday, ALL of our paperwork for immigration in America has reflected that birthday. It's been a constant annoyance.

Now that her application for citizenship is coming up, I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to correct the birthday. My inclination is to fix it prior to the Naturalization application so that her certificate of citizenship has her real birthday, but I realize that could make the process more complicated and I *really* want to be done with it. Is this too much of a hassle to try and fix? Is it even *possible* to fix it at this point? Does anyone here have any experience/suggestions for this sort of thing?

Thanks.

Don't try to fix it. You are opening up a can of worms.

I have an incorrect legal birthday since age 5. The shear number of documents and files from schools, employers, etc. all have the incorrect legal birthday.

For identity checks, a name is often cross-referenced with a birthday. If you change the birthday, it will be incredibly hard to reconcile the records to show that it is the same person.

For example; Jon Smith born 1.1.1999 changes his birthday to 3.5.1998. His school records, employment documents, etc. shows the 1.1.1999 birthday. How the heck is someone sitting in an office who doesn't know Jon Smith going to figure out that Jon Smith born on 1.1.1999 is the same person as Jon Smith born 3.5.1998 without a long explanation?

Don't do it. Her birthday may annoy you, but it hasn't cause any problems. By trying to change it, you are going to create lots of problems for her and potentially you.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

How do you prove it's wrong? How do you explain why you didn't fix it when she first applied? How do you explain that you've lied to immigration since you started the process?

You've both lied for the last couple of years, on official documents. I suggest if you REALLY want to fix this you should speak to an immigration lawyer first. He'll most likely tell you what Aaron has already said. That the process to fix your lie will create much more hassles for you unless you cover it with another lie that you both just found out because her mother just told you.

Unfortunately you may now need to live with this lie, for the rest of her life. Her birthday IS September, it's what her birth certificate says.

[spectheintro 18]

Thanks everyone; I was afraid of this. It is very annoying because by the time I found out, there was nothing I could do about it--the I-130 had been filed and correcting the problem would have entailed a TON of paperwork in her native country, translating that, and then re-submitting the application. Ugh.

Oh well. Guess that's that!

[Kajikit 65]

It doesn't sound like an error worth fighting for... it's not as if it's 10 years wrong, it's just a few months. Congratulations - your wife has two birthdays. (seriously, it's not a big deal. At least it's a CONSISTENT error.)