Apostille for birth certificates

[dawning 212]

Hi everyone,

My petition for my husband's visa is now at the NVC stage, and I am trying to get the documents together for the IV packet. We have just become aware that the embassy in Caracas requires an apostille for the Venezuelan citizen's birth certificate. Does anyone have any experience obtaining apostilles in Venezuela? It sounds like it might be quite a process.

Any insights would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[NickD 202]

Getting really bad, wife was told by the Chicago consulate if she wants to renew her Venezuelan passport, has to go down to Venezuela to do this.

Exactly whom are you dealing with? In transferring any governmental document from Colombia or even the US, Venezuela insisted it be accompanied by an apostille. For US documents, we had to go to our secretary of state.

For the USCIS, they couldn't care less about that apostille, just wanted to see the original and a translated version of it.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Hi everyone,

My petition for my husband's visa is now at the NVC stage, and I am trying to get the documents together for the IV packet. We have just become aware that the embassy in Caracas requires an apostille for the Venezuelan citizen's birth certificate. Does anyone have any experience obtaining apostilles in Venezuela? It sounds like it might be quite a process.

Any insights would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Thanks for mentioning this.. This is the first I have heard of any part of the process on the US side requiring an apostille from a foreign country. Can you tell me where you learned of the requirement?

[NickD 202]

From experience, USCIS never wanted to see an apostille from a foreign country, just the document and a translated version of it. We could do the translations ourselves by typing this at the end of it.

"

Certification by the Translator

I, (name), certify that I am fluent (conversant) in the English and Spanish languages, and that the above/attached document is accurate.

Date: xxxxxxx

Address: xxxxxx

But was saying, when we sent US documents to Venezuela, like our marriage certificate for one, they insisted it was accompanied with an apostille.

We never sent one to our NVC, not required. But seem to be running into other minor problems with Venezuela, like Chavez and Maduro kicking out US ambassadors and consulate members out of Venezuela. And Washington doing the same with the Venezuelan consulates here.

Another problem we are having is shipping down very badly needed baby supplies for our grandson there. Fedex is just about out of the picture, we found MIA Logistics, but they are running into equal problems.

Yet another problem is us flying down there with all the airlines quitting. And just reported, people buying plane tickets in Venezuela to come here, have to pay ten times the standard exchange rate.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

OP.. I don't see anything on the Venezuela embassy site that mentioned needing a Appostille (which means nothing other than I could not confirm it). I would be very interested to know where you heard the information.. The embassy site did have instructions for getting an Apostille for Venezuelan documents:

The instructions for getting an Apostille from the Foreign Ministry in Venezuela are found on www.mre.gov.ve under Servicio al Publico, or www.mre.gov.ve/consular/legalizacion.html

Good luck to you.

[dawning 212]

Thanks for mentioning this.. This is the first I have heard of any part of the process on the US side requiring an apostille from a foreign country. Can you tell me where you learned of the requirement?

Hi,

This is what another VJ member from Venezuela had shared with me-- it took me by surprise, as nothing I had been looking at for NVC's general information on documents mentions apostilles, and, as another poster mentioned, USCIS definitely didn't require it. Here is the link the other VJer from Vzla sent me:

ttp://caracas.usemb...quirements.html

I agree that it seems illogical, because they do not require it for any of the other documents, such as marriage or divorce documents, or police certificates... and the embassy deals with Venezuelan documents all the time, as they are there in Venezeula... but I called NVC, and they said I should send them, and I e-mailed the embassy, and they said the same thing.... IF anyone here can give me definitive information that they are NOT needed we would be very relieved, as my husband lives a ways from Caracas and it is expensive and difficult (not to mention dangerous) for him to travel to get the apostille-- according to the information the same Venezuelan has been sharing with me, it would entail two separate trips to Caracas, and staying overnight at least one of those time. Any ideas anyone?

Thanks for taking the time to look into this.

[dawning 212]

OP.. I don't see anything on the Venezuela embassy site that mentioned needing a Appostille (which means nothing other than I could not confirm it). I would be very interested to know where you heard the information.. The embassy site did have instructions for getting an Apostille for Venezuelan documents:

The instructions for getting an Apostille from the Foreign Ministry in Venezuela are found on www.mre.gov.ve under Servicio al Publico, or www.mre.gov.ve/consular/legalizacion.html

Good luck to you.

Forgot to mention that the language they use refers to the BC's being "certified" by the MRE-- but I don't know what else that would be besides an apostille?

Thanks for the good wishes.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Hi,

This is what another VJ member from Venezuela had shared with me-- it took me by surprise, as nothing I had been looking at for NVC's general information on documents mentions apostilles, and, as another poster mentioned, USCIS definitely didn't require it. Here is the link the other VJer from Vzla sent me:

ttp://caracas.usemb...quirements.html

I agree that it seems illogical, because they do not require it for any of the other documents, such as marriage or divorce documents, or police certificates... and the embassy deals with Venezuelan documents all the time, as they are there in Venezeula... but I called NVC, and they said I should send them, and I e-mailed the embassy, and they said the same thing.... IF anyone here can give me definitive information that they are NOT needed we would be very relieved, as my husband lives a ways from Caracas and it is expensive and difficult (not to mention dangerous) for him to travel to get the apostille-- according to the information the same Venezuelan has been sharing with me, it would entail two separate trips to Caracas, and staying overnight at least one of those time. Any ideas anyone?

Thanks for taking the time to look into this.

OK wow yeah.. That is really terrible.. Pulling the text from your link, looks like they added it at some point (the punctuation is bit off from rest of the page). For other docs it specifically says it is not needed - I wonder if they had some fraudulent birth certificates lately. Good thing you caught it!

• Birth Certificate: A certified copy of the applicant’s birth certificate is required.All Venezuelan birth certificates presented at the U.S. Embassy during the applicant’s personal visa interview must be certified by the Ministry of Foreign Relations.Please see the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerio del Poder Popular Para Relaciones Exteriores (MRE)) .If you were adopted, you must submit a certified copy of the final adoption decree.

Looking at the instructions on the web page it only says how to do it in person (both dropping off and picking up the documents).. If I am reading it right it takes one to three days. You probably already know all this I'm just repeating bad news - sorry.

Have you figured out how to send dollars? I think my head would explode if I had to send a good deal of money to Venezuela at the official exchange rate.

[dawning 212]

OK wow yeah.. That is really terrible.. Pulling the text from your link, looks like they added it at some point (the punctuation is bit off from rest of the page). For other docs it specifically says it is not needed - I wonder if they had some fraudulent birth certificates lately. Good thing you caught it!

• Birth Certificate: A certified copy of the applicant’s birth certificate is required.All Venezuelan birth certificates presented at the U.S. Embassy during the applicant’s personal visa interview must be certified by the Ministry of Foreign Relations.Please see the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerio del Poder Popular Para Relaciones Exteriores (MRE)) .If you were adopted, you must submit a certified copy of the final adoption decree.

Looking at the instructions on the web page it only says how to do it in person (both dropping off and picking up the documents).. If I am reading it right it takes one to three days. You probably already know all this I'm just repeating bad news - sorry.

Have you figured out how to send dollars? I think my head would explode if I had to send a good deal of money to Venezuela at the official exchange rate.

Yeah, I think you might be right-- although they haven't updated other things-- the exchang hasn't been 4.30 for some time, for example-- That's what made wonder if it was an old requirement-- but the embassy said I need to send the apostilled documents to NVC to avoid delays in processing. I think it was very lucky that alejandreska pointed all this out to me.

Fortunately I was just down there and able to leave some cash for emergencies-- I came back to do the NVC stuff. And my husband was lucky to have some work and earn some bolivares lately. So hopefully it should be ok economocially.

As I understand from alejandreska, the document first has to be "legalized" at the ministerio de relaciones interiores, before it goes to the MRE-- and they will see him on a different day, all based on his cédula number-- so that's why he would need to go twice-- neither government seems to care how hard they make things for people.

Thanks for corroborating this.

[dawning 212]

From experience, USCIS never wanted to see an apostille from a foreign country, just the document and a translated version of it. We could do the translations ourselves by typing this at the end of it.

"

Certification by the Translator

I, (name), certify that I am fluent (conversant) in the English and Spanish languages, and that the above/attached document is accurate.

Date: xxxxxxx

Address: xxxxxx

But was saying, when we sent US documents to Venezuela, like our marriage certificate for one, they insisted it was accompanied with an apostille.

We never sent one to our NVC, not required. But seem to be running into other minor problems with Venezuela, like Chavez and Maduro kicking out US ambassadors and consulate members out of Venezuela. And Washington doing the same with the Venezuelan consulates here.

Another problem we are having is shipping down very badly needed baby supplies for our grandson there. Fedex is just about out of the picture, we found MIA Logistics, but they are running into equal problems.

Yet another problem is us flying down there with all the airlines quitting. And just reported, people buying plane tickets in Venezuela to come here, have to pay ten times the standard exchange rate.

Yes, I know,when I asked the USCIS even the usually very uninformative phone were clear that nothing needed apostilles. And even the NVC's information says nothing about it. But APPRAENTLY (it's not easy to find) the U.S. Embassy in Caracas requires them for birth certificates.

Is your wife Colombian? I saw where you posted that she has a Venezuelan passport.

Yes, certainly there are a lot of problems with the economy in Vzla. One of the main reasons that we are trying to have my husband come here rather than me go there. Some of my in-laws that have tourist visas wanted to visit me for the summer, but so far haven't been able to get any reasonable airfare.

Good luck with the airfare and the shipping of baby items-- it really is true that a lot of things are chronically scarce down there, with diapers especially coming to mind. I just came back from there with our now 7 month old baby-- where to find diapers was always a concern.

[NickD 202]

Wife moved from Colombia to Venezuela when she was 18 year old so had to deal with both countries for immigration. Found their births certificates to be weird, where the biological father had to go to a notary, even after a year from their births with two witnesses that the child was indeed his to have a notary type up the birth certificates then register them with the courts.

So can see where its very easy for fraud. Stepdaughter's birth certificate was loaded with typos, wife had to go to court to straighten these out. That was another thousand bucks. Further complications resulted that even though my wife had full custody of her daughter, still required permission from his father for her to leave the country. He went back to Colombia to escape wife beating charges seven year prior to me meeting my wife. And tried to blackmail me for $10,000.00 to sign those papers. But said if he did, would be liable for a total of 14 years of child support payments. So just ended up making a trade.

I assumed you submitted all this information to the USCIS to petition for your husband, then shifted to the NVC. We are also in this stage with my stepson, but six years went by with no results. He never was contacted by the US consulate in Caracas. So now they are also insisting on an apostille from the government? In another view, this only means his birth certificate was registered by his parents notary.

Guess we will also have to be prepared for this in the event he is ever called.

[NickD 202]

Wife was the executive assistant working for a no-more American company in Caracas, and as such, visited the US consulate many times. Company was always bringing new people. As such, got to know everyone there and was able to get her own US visa for her and her daughter.

This is all over ten year old ancient history, but since they already had US visa's didn't have to fool around with this. Consulate only has a skeleton crew working there now and are only renewing old visa's.

To the best of my knowledge, no limits on marriage visa's nor the immigrant children of that marriage. So I hope everything goes smooth for your husband. But with other complications, took almost a year to get my girls here. Just want you to know, I know the feeling and tension. It also constantly amazes me how us common people can get along just fine, but our leaders can't, but we pay the price for this.

In bringing their stuff here, questioned about me driving around through Colombia, was advised strongly again that, huge tolls and banditos and would be lucky to drive 20 mph. So they just brought what they could carry. A little cash took care of the rest of it, but for me, worth every cent.

[dawning 212]

Wife moved from Colombia to Venezuela when she was 18 year old so had to deal with both countries for immigration. Found their births certificates to be weird, where the biological father had to go to a notary, even after a year from their births with two witnesses that the child was indeed his to have a notary type up the birth certificates then register them with the courts.

So can see where its very easy for fraud. Stepdaughter's birth certificate was loaded with typos, wife had to go to court to straighten these out. That was another thousand bucks. Further complications resulted that even though my wife had full custody of her daughter, still required permission from his father for her to leave the country. He went back to Colombia to escape wife beating charges seven year prior to me meeting my wife. And tried to blackmail me for $10,000.00 to sign those papers. But said if he did, would be liable for a total of 14 years of child support payments. So just ended up making a trade.

I assumed you submitted all this information to the USCIS to petition for your husband, then shifted to the NVC. We are also in this stage with my stepson, but six years went by with no results. He never was contacted by the US consulate in Caracas. So now they are also insisting on an apostille from the government? In another view, this only means his birth certificate was registered by his parents notary.

Guess we will also have to be prepared for this in the event he is ever called.

Yes, the USCIS reviewed documents (after a 8 month delay) and then sent the case on to NVC. NVC seems to require more documents on the intending immigrant, including original BC and police certificates-- and apparently the US embassy in Caracas requires that the BC's have an apostille... apparently not common. So we are working on this. My husband says that everyone wants to charge him a lot of money because the documents are to immigrate, so they assume he or I have lots of resources to facilitate the necessary steps-- reading your story about having to bribe judges made me realize that it's not something recent, and it's probably coming out cheaper because my husband is doing the negotiating. But it's kind of eye-opening for me to see how corrupt the government is.

All in all, it will probably take over a year for my husband to get his visa from the date that I filled-- more than 8 months with USCIS, and things not moving so fast with NVC either... I can't complain yet though, because I don't have all the papers ready for the next step myself yet

Thanks for the moral support-- I think it should be fine in the end, can't see any reason why my husband shouldn't be eligible for a visa-- it's just frustrating how very long it takes, especially since we have a baby and he ends up missing out on seeing chunks of the baby's development.

[NickD 202]

Was the baby born in the US? Well is a US citizen anyway because of you, but the father is also a father of a US citizen, so should help in the process.

I call the other, an expedient fee, wife tried to negotiate, and got no where, with all the papers prepared, have to go to court, and with a notary. And in their courts, can wait one or two or even more years before they would hear it. So I called her and instructed to learn what they wanted, they all have Miami bank accounts. Fees were anywhere from $500.00 to $2,000.00, and they love US dollars depending on the case. Each time I transferred money to their Miami bank accounts, and each time her cases were heard the very next day.

Colombia is exactly the same way, last incident, wife learned she was required to have a Colombian passport since her US passport said she was born in Colombia. Just can't go into an agency like here and apply for one, have to go to a notary first. Her notary told us, not the least shy about this, slide $500.00 US dollars and you will get your passport today. We said no to this, but she did get her Colombian passport about a year later.

Ha, checked the USCIS site for expedient fees, all I could find is if I was a corporation, could pay extra and get an employee here. But in our case, had to wait.