Late Registration and Last Name

[nicholaus62 1]

Hello!!

 

My wife (Filipino) and I just got married, and we are about to start the adventure of getting a green card. To be honest, it’s an intimidating process. Before we even go down this path, we want to ensure that all documentation is in order. The first issue we ran into is that her Birth Certificate is a late registration, and she is noted as having her mother’s last name on the document since her parents were not married at the time of birth. Her passport, Cenmor, and original Baptism, to name a few, all have her father’s last name. She is currently out of the country and with me in Bahrain (Middle East), so changing the birth certificate is a little tough.

 

Can you use the original birth certificate with the late registration as long as she has supporting documentation, as stated above, during the interview and/or applying for a green card? Or will she have to change her birth certificate to match the last name on her passport?

 

Second is NBI; will this be needed during the green card process? 

 

Any and all advice is welcomed!

[Chancy 6,241]

24 minutes ago, nicholaus62 said:

The first issue we ran into is that her Birth Certificate is a late registration, and she is noted as having her mother’s last name on the document since her parents were not married at the time of birth.

 

Are her parents now married?  If not, does she have an affidavit of acknowledgement of paternity from her father?  She cannot change her surname on her PSA birth certificate without either a PSA marriage certificate from her parents or an affidavit of paternity from her father.

 

As for the name discrepancy on her BC and other documents, she will either need to have her BC corrected or have some other legal name change document.  BC correction would be the easiest.  The US consulate will require a legal document explaining the name discrepancy/change.  An affidavit from your wife will not be enough.  Not sure how she even got a passport from DFA with a different name from what's in her BC, but hey, it's the PH government 🤷‍♀️

 

Also, NBI clearance will be required.  Your wife must submit one at NVC stage, after the I-130 petition that you will submit for her has been approved.  Her NBI clearance must include an AKA field listing all the other names she has ever used on legal documents.

 

[top_secret 2,385]

Chancy's advice sounds extremely relevant.  My wife was in somewhat the same situation.  Her parents were common law married when she was born and she was also like 6 years late registered to boot, so although her father did sign acknowledgment of paternity, my wife still had her mother's surname on her late registered birth certificate.  Later her parents legalized their marriage and many years after that my wife subsequently had her birth certificate legitimized and annotated to change to her father's surname.  If all of your wife's  other documents are already using her father's surname, she should probably at least have her birth certificate legitimized to grant her the legal right to use his name.  That is not an overly daunting process with the LCR if her parents did later marry.

 

For the late registration, although the embassy did not explicitly ask us for it,  we also submitted her Baptismal Certificate and high school "Form 139" school record (I noticed she failed 9th grade English🤣)  For her elementary school Form 139  she received a formal letter from DepEd stating she had in fact been a student but her record had been destroyed by a super typhoon).   Plus as Chancy mentioned we did also get her NBI clearance with her mother's surname as an AKA.  We had no trouble at all even slightly with the US Embassy.  They seem to take such things in stride.

[RO_AH 1,659]

15 hours ago, nicholaus62 said:

The first issue we ran into is that her Birth Certificate is a late registration

If she has late registration, she will need her school records, class photos, even a letter or 2 from past teachers. Any doctor or immunization records, baptismal certificate. There is no where where they tell you this, but if she goes to interview with a late registration BC she will be given a 221g for these things. Better to have it all in hand when she goes to interview. This happened to my wife and we received a 221g which delayed the process while we got those records and sent them in.

[flicks1998 1,044]

On 6/19/2023 at 4:56 PM, top_secret said:

Chancy's advice sounds extremely relevant.  My wife was in somewhat the same situation.  Her parents were common law married when she was born and she was also like 6 years late registered to boot, so although her father did sign acknowledgment of paternity, my wife still had her mother's surname on her late registered birth certificate.  Later her parents legalized their marriage and many years after that my wife subsequently had her birth certificate legitimized and annotated to change to her father's surname.  If all of your wife's  other documents are already using her father's surname, she should probably at least have her birth certificate legitimized to grant her the legal right to use his name.  That is not an overly daunting process with the LCR if her parents did later marry.

 

My wife was in the exact same situation and followed the same process.