'Long form' marriage certificate for IR1/CR1 app ?

[Dubliner77 6]

Hi all,

 

Myself (Irish Citizen) and wife (US Citizen) were notified by USCIS that our CR1/IR1 case is documentarily qualified. 

 

However, in preparation for our embassy interview in Dublin next week (now cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions in Ireland) I checked back online on our civil documents on the CEAC website to ensure I had printed copies of everything, and saw that our marriage cert had been rejected with the following response note from the consular officer:

 

YOUR MARRIAGE CERT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AS IT IS NOT YOUR LONG FORM CERTIFICATE. PLEASE SCAN YOUR LONG FORM CERTIFICATE WHICH SHOWS PARENTAL DETAILS INTO YOUR CASE. PLEASE SCAN THE CORRECT CERT INTO YOUR CASE

 

Accordingly, we've sent an application for a long form cert to the city clerk of New York City, where we were married. Hoping it comes in time to upload it before the interview is rescheduled. 

 

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this rejection before? I never read anywhere when preparing the I-864 materials that an extended marriage cert was needed, so I was confused to receive this note from the consular officer. We only got a regular short-form cert when we were married. 

 

Secondly, the consular officer referenced our parental details being on the long-form certificate, but I can't find any sample doc online that shows parental details on a long-form marriage cert. Does anyone have a long-form marriage cert, and does it show your parents' details?

 

Thanks a lot for your insights in advance! 

 

Dubliner77

 

 

 

[JFH 12,190]

***procedural question moved from 'progress reports' to 'process and procedures'***

[Mike E 11,739]

That's interesting. My Illinois marriage cert from my first marriage doesn't list the names of each spouse (and was good enough for my AOS decades ago) but my California marriage cert from my second marriage does. 

 

Another +1 for the K-1.

Edited October 23, 2020 by Mike E

[JenIE 402]

1 hour ago, Dubliner77 said:

Hi all,

 

Myself (Irish Citizen) and wife (US Citizen) were notified by USCIS that our CR1/IR1 case is documentarily qualified. 

 

However, in preparation for our embassy interview in Dublin next week (now cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions in Ireland) I checked back online on our civil documents on the CEAC website to ensure I had printed copies of everything, and saw that our marriage cert had been rejected with the following response note from the consular officer:

 

YOUR MARRIAGE CERT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AS IT IS NOT YOUR LONG FORM CERTIFICATE. PLEASE SCAN YOUR LONG FORM CERTIFICATE WHICH SHOWS PARENTAL DETAILS INTO YOUR CASE. PLEASE SCAN THE CORRECT CERT INTO YOUR CASE

 

Accordingly, we've sent an application for a long form cert to the city clerk of New York City, where we were married. Hoping it comes in time to upload it before the interview is rescheduled. 

 

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this rejection before? I never read anywhere when preparing the I-864 materials that an extended marriage cert was needed, so I was confused to receive this note from the consular officer. We only got a regular short-form cert when we were married. 

 

Secondly, the consular officer referenced our parental details being on the long-form certificate, but I can't find any sample doc online that shows parental details on a long-form marriage cert. Does anyone have a long-form marriage cert, and does it show your parents' details?

 

Thanks a lot for your insights in advance! 

 

Dubliner77

 

 

 

Hi there,

 

Good to see another Dublin Embassy person on here! 

 

I'm very sorry to hear you were one of the people affected by the lockdown and had your interview cancelled.

 

I just took a look at all of the info that the Dublin Embassy sent us, along with the travel.state.gov website and it does seem like it only mentions having a certified copy of the marriage certificate and doesn't specifically say "long form". The only reference to long form I ever came across was in regards to the birth certificate.

 

That said, I am in California and when I requested a copy of the marriage certificate I was by default given a full-size paper that had all of the info we provided at the time of marriage, which does include the parental details. Since this is what we uploaded into the system, it was approved with no issue.

 

As an example of a certificate that looks similar to mine, see the attached. You can see for each person you have to put info about your parents and it appears on this document.

 

Also, it's super helpful if you can fill out your timeline -- it will help everyone else get a better picture of how long the process will take, especially at the Embassy level.

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by JenIE

[hooley8 8]

We got the same request on our case in Dublin. What we ended up getting is a "certified abstract of marriage" this contained our parents information too. We requested it from the county court in Ohio where our marriage was on record. 

In the same situation as yourself our interview for today got cancelled. 

[pushbrk 12,910]

Just note that the marriage certificate falls under civil documents, not supporting documents for the affidavit of support.  One would think that the marriage certificate you uploaded was the same as the one sent to USCIS with the petition.  If so, one would think it would satisfy NVC and the Consulate.  There ARE exceptions though.  Do you submit the same certificate of marriage to NVC that you submitted to USCIS with the I-130?

[Dubliner77 6]

16 hours ago, JenIE said:

Hi there,

 

Good to see another Dublin Embassy person on here! 

 

I'm very sorry to hear you were one of the people affected by the lockdown and had your interview cancelled.

 

I just took a look at all of the info that the Dublin Embassy sent us, along with the travel.state.gov website and it does seem like it only mentions having a certified copy of the marriage certificate and doesn't specifically say "long form". The only reference to long form I ever came across was in regards to the birth certificate.

 

That said, I am in California and when I requested a copy of the marriage certificate I was by default given a full-size paper that had all of the info we provided at the time of marriage, which does include the parental details. Since this is what we uploaded into the system, it was approved with no issue.

 

As an example of a certificate that looks similar to mine, see the attached. You can see for each person you have to put info about your parents and it appears on this document.

 

Also, it's super helpful if you can fill out your timeline -- it will help everyone else get a better picture of how long the process will take, especially at the Embassy level.

 

This is very helpful. Thanks for sending on that example, I wasn't able to find a similar one online. Here's hoping the extended form comes with these details! I don't remember having to give my parents' details when we were married but maybe we did

 

I will fill out that timeline shortly. I'm a newbie here so thanks for the nudge. 

[Dubliner77 6]

15 hours ago, hooley8 said:

We got the same request on our case in Dublin. What we ended up getting is a "certified abstract of marriage" this contained our parents information too. We requested it from the county court in Ohio where our marriage was on record. 

In the same situation as yourself our interview for today got cancelled. 

Hi there, sorry to hear your appointment was cancelled too. We're keeping the faith that cases will be low in December after the lockdown and we'll be seen before new year. 

 

Out of interest, do you remember how long it took for you to receive your doc from the Ohio court in the post? Assuming you had it sent to Ireland too. I'm sure it varies by jurisdiction but I'd like to have a rough idea of how long we can expect to wait for ours to come. 

[Dubliner77 6]

12 hours ago, pushbrk said:

Just note that the marriage certificate falls under civil documents, not supporting documents for the affidavit of support.  One would think that the marriage certificate you uploaded was the same as the one sent to USCIS with the petition.  If so, one would think it would satisfy NVC and the Consulate.  There ARE exceptions though.  Do you submit the same certificate of marriage to NVC that you submitted to USCIS with the I-130?

Hi there, thanks for your message. 

 

Yes, we only have one marriage cert currently, which is short-form, and this is the cert we submitted as part of our I-130 petition, which was accepted without problem at that stage. So perhaps the Irish embassy is a bit more particular than the USCIS?

[hooley8 8]

2 minutes ago, Dubliner77 said:

Hi there, sorry to hear your appointment was cancelled too. We're keeping the faith that cases will be low in December after the lockdown and we'll be seen before new year. 

 

Out of interest, do you remember how long it took for you to receive your doc from the Ohio court in the post? Assuming you had it sent to Ireland too. I'm sure it varies by jurisdiction but I'd like to have a rough idea of how long we can expect to wait for ours to come. 

My wife is still in Ohio so she was able to go and collect the documents from the court house. But they took about 7-10 days to get here once she posted them.

[JenIE 402]

5 hours ago, Dubliner77 said:

This is very helpful. Thanks for sending on that example, I wasn't able to find a similar one online. Here's hoping the extended form comes with these details! I don't remember having to give my parents' details when we were married but maybe we did

 

I will fill out that timeline shortly. I'm a newbie here so thanks for the nudge. 

You're welcome, I hope you're able to easily get a copy that has the required info. A silver lining is that you have a bit of time to make sure all of the documents are in order.

 

And welcome to the site! It's really helpful for getting answers, peace of mind, and commiserating with others going through the process.

[pushbrk 12,910]

8 hours ago, Dubliner77 said:

Hi there, thanks for your message. 

 

Yes, we only have one marriage cert currently, which is short-form, and this is the cert we submitted as part of our I-130 petition, which was accepted without problem at that stage. So perhaps the Irish embassy is a bit more particular than the USCIS?

The Irish Embassy has nothing to do with your case.  You are dealing with a US Consular Officer, working in the Consular Immigrant Visa Unit of the US Consulate in Dublin, Ireland.  Whether that is co-located in the US Embassy to Ireland compound or another location, is not known to me and it doesn't matter.  You are not actually dealing with ANY "Embassy" of ANY country.

[neca 166]

Hi all,

 

Just to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly:

1. You were Documentarily Qualified
2. Your case arrived at the Embassy in Dublin and an interview was scheduled
3. The CEAC website changed from DQ to requesting the longform certificate? Were you notified?

Seems really odd to me for your stuff to be all approved and then denied, but it's good that you caught it before the interview!

 

Also, @JenIE, the image you uploaded seems to have broken, would it be too much trouble for you to supply a new one? The only longform-style marriage certs I'm finding are Irish ones lol

[JenIE 402]

50 minutes ago, neca said:

Hi all,

 

Just to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly:

1. You were Documentarily Qualified
2. Your case arrived at the Embassy in Dublin and an interview was scheduled
3. The CEAC website changed from DQ to requesting the longform certificate? Were you notified?

Seems really odd to me for your stuff to be all approved and then denied, but it's good that you caught it before the interview!

 

Also, @JenIE, the image you uploaded seems to have broken, would it be too much trouble for you to supply a new one? The only longform-style marriage certs I'm finding are Irish ones lol

Weird, not sure why the uploaded image went away -- it was definitely viewable before. I attached it again.

 

I'm not sure how common it is for the NVC to approve stuff only to have a document rejected by the Embassy right before the interview, but that did happen to us with the PCC -- I assume while prepping our case for the interview they looked at the document and noticed that the name was slightly incorrect and it just wasn't caught by the NVC. In our case my husband was notified of the rejection, but I had actually noticed the change in the system prior to the email because when you get your interview they recommend you be proactive about making sure all documents are approved/current.

[hooley8 8]

13 hours ago, neca said:

Hi all,

 

Just to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly:

1. You were Documentarily Qualified
2. Your case arrived at the Embassy in Dublin and an interview was scheduled
3. The CEAC website changed from DQ to requesting the longform certificate? Were you notified?

Seems really odd to me for your stuff to be all approved and then denied, but it's good that you caught it before the interview!

 

Also, @JenIE, the image you uploaded seems to have broken, would it be too much trouble for you to supply a new one? The only longform-style marriage certs I'm finding are Irish ones lol

Unlike @JenIE we were not notified of the requested documents. It was by chance I logged in, for the same reason as Jen though. They sent an email listing the documents you need and telling you to be proactive about your case. But yes I was DQ'd and had an interview scheduled with the embassy.