Brazil - Certified Documents from the Court

[Gauchos 52]

I'm hoping someone can help - my wife has her AOS interview coming up and she was charged with a crime that was dropped. The Court of Justice of the state of RS hosts a site for its court cases (TJRS) and the documents that declare the final dispositions are available for download. These documents contain a 'certification' at the bottom with a URL and a code that can be used to verify that the submitted document is authentic. My wife is a lawyer in Brazil and assures me that this is the only document that the court will provide. They will not certify the document in any other way or provide a signature, stamp, seal, etc. We also have counsel in Brazil who says the same thing. Does anyone have experience with court documents from Brazil or Rio Grande do Sul? Will USCIS accept a document that's 'certified' this way?

[Boiler 45,311]

Not all crimes are equal, is the issue one that may be of relevance for Immigration or not?

[JeanneAdil 6,413]

what documents did she provide with her Brazil  criminal report at the embassy for the K1 interview?

[Gauchos 52]

7 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

what documents did she provide with her Brazil  criminal report at the embassy for the K1 interview?

She provided her police certificate. This was blank as she had never been convicted (or arrested) of anything and there is a process to remove dismissed cases from appearing on the certificate. The I-485 is much more specific in what it asks. We disclosed everything on the I-485 and included documents that were available to us, but not “certified” documents unless the ones from TJRS will be considered certified. 

[Boiler 45,311]

DS 160 asks if you have been arrested, what did she answer?

[Gauchos 52]

35 minutes ago, Boiler said:

Not all crimes are equal, is the issue one that may be of relevance for Immigration or not?

I don’t expect the crime to be an issue - offending the honor of someone else. We might call it the US version of defamation, but criminal instead of civil. These cases can be registered without the cooperation of a prosecutor. Essentially, she was accused of calling someone names and the case was dismissed. 

Just now, Boiler said:

DS 160 asks if you have been arrested, what did she answer?

No. She was never arrested. 

[Gauchos 52]

I'm just following up in case anyone runs into the same situation. We had to file with the local courts in Brazil and pull the entirety of the cases. One court put an ink stamp on documents, while another court would not. We ended up getting the documents authenticated with an apostille in Brazil. Our IO remarked that the apostille stamps were fancy and accepted the documents as certified. He didn't really seem to care about the foreign court records, to be honest. There also didn't seem to be any issue with not disclosing anything on the K1/DS-160 vs disclosing for AOS since there were no arrests or convictions. It didn't even come up. We have to get more police certificates due to being unable to get her fingerprints at biometrics appointments, but I'll litter VJ elsewhere with those complaints.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Gauchos