RFE - Marriage Certificate not valid for immigration

[Rosegrove 86]

Hello everyone :-)

Some basics first: I´m a german citizen and currently still in germany. My husband is an american citizen and lives stateside. We got married on June 30th last year at El Paso County, Texas.

We´ve filed our I-130 petition for the CR-1 Visa and got our NOA 1 on August 17th. We then got transferred to Nebraska Service Center.

After a looong wait we got a RFE regading our marriage certificate which goes:

"This document,although signed by a Justice of the Peace, does not seem to be issued by an appropriate civil authority. There is no registration stamp or signature of the registrar. This is supposed to be a keepsake marriage certificate and is not valid for immigration purposes. Please submit a valid marriage certificate which is appropriate for immigration purposes. (...) Submit a photocopy of the original marriage certificate (...) The document must include the date of registration and the signature of the registrar. (...)"

The thing is:

We did not get another marriage certificate as the county clerk said the one that we have is legit and the only one we´ll get. The date of registration and name of the registrar however is on the marriage license (i´ve attached a screenshot of that part of the license; just removed the name of the registrar.) My husband went to the courthouse yesterday with the RFE letter and they gave him a certified copy of the marriage license.

Knowing that we only have one chance to properly reply to the RFE i was wondering if any of you have any input / experience on this? Will USCIS accept it, if we send the certified copy of the marriage license which clearly states the data they are looking for or do they really need another (valid) marriage certificate?

We just want to be sure we won´t mess this up. My husband will go back to the courthouse today just in case but i´ve figured i´d check on here if anyone can help.

Thanks in advance and i hope everyone´s visa journey is going well

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

I would contact the County Clerk office and ask them; they can probably issue one that "looks" more official.

[Rosegrove 86]

Thanks for your reply :-) That´s what i´m thinking too and that´s why my hubby is going back there today. I was just wondering what we can do in case we won´t get a more "official" certificate. Not sure if they would accept the marriage license instead even though it does have the requested info on that since the RFE specifically asks for a marriage certificate. Maybe i´m being to picky (typical german) but we just don´t want to get denied :-(

[JFH 12,190]

We got married in a different state but things are similar. We got a fancy "keepsake" marriage certificate on the day to pose for photos with. It says on it that it is not a legal document and purely for commemorative purpose. We had to go back to the county auditor the next working day after our wedding to get the real certificate, the legally binding one. It's not as fancy. We had to pay $4 for it. It does say certificate on it, though. When we were at the auditor's office I noticed they used the word licence where I would have used certificate. To me they are not the same thing. To me the licence is proof that you have applied to marry and meet the local requirements to do so and certificate means that a legal wedding has actually taken place.

I was surprised that we didn't get the official one on the day. I have been married before (in the UK) and you get the real one there and then. You don't get a keepsake version here.

[Rosegrove 86]

I did read that in some states you will receive your "real" certificate a few days after the marriage took place. We got told that we won't get another one when we returned the marriage license back to the county clerk so she could register the marriage into the county records. Nowhere on the certificate does it say that it's not valid for legal purposes. The data USCIS wants is definitely on our license. Can't wait to hear what my husband finds out at the county office today, I hate the time difference ;-)

[pushbrk 12,898]

Hello everyone :-)

Some basics first: I´m a german citizen and currently still in germany. My husband is an american citizen and lives stateside. We got married on June 30th last year at El Paso County, Texas.

We´ve filed our I-130 petition for the CR-1 Visa and got our NOA 1 on August 17th. We then got transferred to Nebraska Service Center.

After a looong wait we got a RFE regading our marriage certificate which goes:

"This document,although signed by a Justice of the Peace, does not seem to be issued by an appropriate civil authority. There is no registration stamp or signature of the registrar. This is supposed to be a keepsake marriage certificate and is not valid for immigration purposes. Please submit a valid marriage certificate which is appropriate for immigration purposes. (...) Submit a photocopy of the original marriage certificate (...) The document must include the date of registration and the signature of the registrar. (...)"

The thing is:

We did not get another marriage certificate as the county clerk said the one that we have is legit and the only one we´ll get. The date of registration and name of the registrar however is on the marriage license (i´ve attached a screenshot of that part of the license; just removed the name of the registrar.) My husband went to the courthouse yesterday with the RFE letter and they gave him a certified copy of the marriage license.

Knowing that we only have one chance to properly reply to the RFE i was wondering if any of you have any input / experience on this? Will USCIS accept it, if we send the certified copy of the marriage license which clearly states the data they are looking for or do they really need another (valid) marriage certificate?

We just want to be sure we won´t mess this up. My husband will go back to the courthouse today just in case but i´ve figured i´d check on here if anyone can help.

Thanks in advance and i hope everyone´s visa journey is going well

Order a Certified Copy of your marriage certificate, from the county clerk in El Paso.

[mallafri76 1,012]

We also got married in Texas. The marriage license becomes the marriage cert in Texas once it's been recorded by the county clerk. Does your marriage certificate have the document number on it? Maybe when you copied it, the document number didn't show anymore? The same with the stamp. Ours has a gold seal but maybe they use like a regular stamp in El Paso, so make sure that the stamp is visible on the copy.

[Rosegrove 86]

That's very helpful, thanks! So I guess we're good if we send s certified copy of the license to USCIS then? The certificate doesn't have a document number on it.

[pushbrk 12,898]

You need a certified copy of a marriage certificate. If it's on the same page as the license, that's fine. But a marriage license is just that, a license to GET married. It does not certify that you ARE married.

[Rosegrove 86]

Actually it does say that we are married on the license. It has been signed by the Justice of the Peace ("This certifies that i have united in marriage the parties named above...") and underneath that is the date of registration with the signature of the registrar.

[pushbrk 12,898]

If it says you're married, then that part of the page is the "marriage certificate", not the marriage license. You have a document that is both. Now, make sure it is a certified copy of a marriage certificate. That a marriage license appears on the same page is incidental to what you need. A marriage license is not a marriage certificate.

[Rosegrove 86]

Thanks again everyone! We did send the certified copy of the Marriage License and our case just got approved :-)

[mallafri76 1,012]

Thanks for the update and congratulations on your NOA2.

[pushbrk 12,898]

Thanks again everyone! We did send the certified copy of the Marriage License and our case just got approved :-)

If your petition was approved, it's because you sent a certified copy of your "Marriage Certificate", not your "Marriage License". It's best to use the correct terminology, even if both license and certificate are on the same page. :-)