Paperwork taken at POE

[JungleOne 0]

Hello, my in-laws entered the USA on an IR-5 visa yesterday.  At their POE they had one sealed envelope and another unsealed envelope which contained their birth cert, marriage cert, name change, police cert...etc - basically all the paperwork that was submitted to NVC.  The immigration officer kept both envelopes after going thru them.  Is this standard operating procedure?    I believe they keep the sealed one but was wondering why they took the unsealed one.  Will they get that envelope back?

[Boiler 45,451]

I am going to guess your in laws gave it to them

[Chancy 6,241]

*** Moved from Bringing Family of LPR forum to Moving to the US forum -- topic is about POE procedures ***

 

[Timona 4,207]

No

[Crazy Cat 41,814]

1 hour ago, JungleOne said:

another unsealed envelope which contained their birth cert, marriage cert, name change, police cert...etc - basically all the paperwork that was submitted to NVC. 

Why did they give that one to CBP?  Were they instructed to do that?

Edited March 7, 2023 by Crazy Cat

[Rocio0010 5,579]

4 hours ago, JungleOne said:

Is this standard operating procedure?

No

 

4 hours ago, JungleOne said:

Will they get that envelope back?

Most likely no

[throwitaway 190]

15 hours ago, JungleOne said:

Hello, my in-laws entered the USA on an IR-5 visa yesterday.  At their POE they had one sealed envelope and another unsealed envelope which contained their birth cert, marriage cert, name change, police cert...etc - basically all the paperwork that was submitted to NVC.  The immigration officer kept both envelopes after going thru them.  Is this standard operating procedure?    I believe they keep the sealed one but was wondering why they took the unsealed one.  Will they get that envelope back?

The unsealed envelope is definitely not a thing, I wonder why they brought that? I hope they weren’t originals. If so, you can sometimes find a number to a POE, maybe give them a call and ask if someone put it aside. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by throwitaway

[JungleOne 0]

In further discussing the details with the in laws...they were holding the unsealed envelope with the sealed one.  Only the sealed one was handed to the CBP, everything seemed fine but the unsealed envelope caught the eye of the officer and they were asked to hand the unsealed envelope to the CBP.  After CBP went thru it they tore up the unsealed envelope and put all the paperwork in the sealed envelope.  The files in the unsealed envelope were originals.  There was a language barrier which added to the confusion but it seems like my in laws should have kept the unsealed envelope out of sight.  My in laws can get originals created again.  I probably wont call them or inquire further as CBP already has access to all the info in the unsealed envelope.  Just dont know why CBP wanted that information at POE.

[TBoneTX 45,260]

43 minutes ago, JungleOne said:

My in laws can get originals created again.

This can be expensive, difficult, or even impossible in some cases, depending on the country.  At least there's a way for them, so that's good news.

[lloy0076 6]

CBP are highly unlikely to have shredded the documents; as someone else pointed out, you could likely try to call/contact the POE to explain the confusion and get the originals back.