Spanish Birth Certificate says "only for use when needed to prove parentage and is not admissible for any other purpose." Advice?

[trvs 0]

My fiance was born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and has a literal birth certificate containing her name, date, place, time of birth, and her parents' and grandparents' names and countries of residence. But her cert is stamped with a blue stamp from the civil registry that cites Article 30 of the Civil Registry Law: "The literal birth certificate shall state that it is issued for matters in which it is necessary to prove parentage, and is not admissible for any other purposes." Is this still usable for visa purposes? The translation we obtained also includes a translation of this stamped text. It is otherwise a normal literal official copy, but I can't find any references to this in relation to birth certificates online, especially in relation to K1 or other US immigration.

 

Followup question! We were able to get a digital birth certificate issued by the Spanish Ministry of Justice per recommendation on the reciprocity guidelines. 1) This certificate is not translated, but there are options to issue an English certificate, although we haven't tried it yet because the certificate is a photocopy of a handwritten document. Do we need to have this translated? 2) How do we provide this document to USCIS? The PDF has a verified signature with EU security certificate, but it's in Spanish; if we have it translated, a translator's file would destroy the digital signature, no? I'd appreciate any guidance!

[snailyote 2]

I had something similar on my Brazilian birth certificate. I had to go to the civil record office and they issued me a new birth certificate without the condition. Not entirely sure if it applies to your fiance since it’s a different country, but it might be worth looking into.

 

For translated documents, you need to include a copy of the original, a translated copy, and a statement from the translator showing that they’re capable and able to translate that language to English. The verified signature can be on the copy of the original document but it would’t need to be on the translated version since they know it’s not an original copy of the document.

[Lemonslice 4,834]

You can look up which documents are acceptable on the reciprocity schedule:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Visa-Reciprocity-and-Civil-Documents-by-Country/Spain.html

[trvs 0]

9 hours ago, snailyote said:

I had something similar on my Brazilian birth certificate. I had to go to the civil record office and they issued me a new birth certificate without the condition. Not entirely sure if it applies to your fiance since it’s a different country, but it might be worth looking into.

 

For translated documents, you need to include a copy of the original, a translated copy, and a statement from the translator showing that they’re capable and able to translate that language to English. The verified signature can be on the copy of the original document but it would’t need to be on the translated version since they know it’s not an original copy of the document.

 

 

 

This is very helpful, thank you! So were you required to obtain a new birth certificate - did you receive a Request for Evidence? Or is this something you decided to do just to be safe?

I really appreciate your insight!

[snailyote 2]

1 hour ago, trvs said:

 

 

 

This is very helpful, thank you! So were you required to obtain a new birth certificate - did you receive a Request for Evidence? Or is this something you decided to do just to be safe?

I really appreciate your insight!

Sorry, this wasn’t required for this visa petition, it was an unrelated situation where I needed to renew my Brazilian passport. In order to renew it, I had to prove citizenship by submitting my birth certificate but they wouldn’t take it unless that condition was removed. So I had to get the condition removed first.

 

Before submitting anything to the embassy, I would recommend that your fiance reaches out to the embassy to make sure that a condition like that wouldn’t cause any issues. I think it would needlessly delay the process if they deem the certificate invalid because of that condition. Best of luck!