Requested Origanal Documents Through Mail

[keithusn 0]

I received a letter from the NVC requesting my wife's original birth certificate accompanied by a translation.

"all documents not in English must be accompanied by a certified translation." This means I must submit (mail) her Russian Birth Certificate from Russia via mail to the NVC. They used the words "all documents not in English must be accompanied by......." So it must be the original and the translation.

Okay fine.... now the issue. Russian law prohibits the mailing of Russian Identification Documents, we checked with the Russian Post Office, Fed Ex, and DHL. They all confirm they will not send her birth certificate from Russia to the USA. To my understanding the birth certificate was supposed to be one of the documents to be presented in person at the Moscow Embassy, now the NVC is asking for this document to be submitted prior to the interview? Is this a catch 22?

I emailed both the Embassy and the NVC just today, but it will be a few days to a few weeks no doubt before they return my email

Anyone else experience this or can shed some light on this matter?

Best Regards,

Keith Bennett

[Dakine 26]

I received a letter from the NVC requesting my wife's original birth certificate accompanied by a translation.

"all documents not in English must be accompanied by a certified translation." This means I must submit (mail) her Russian Birth Certificate from Russia via mail to the NVC. They used the words "all documents not in English must be accompanied by......." So it must be the original and the translation.

Okay fine.... now the issue. Russian law prohibits the mailing of Russian Identification Documents, we checked with the Russian Post Office, Fed Ex, and DHL. They all confirm they will not send her birth certificate from Russia to the USA. To my understanding the birth certificate was supposed to be one of the documents to be presented in person at the Moscow Embassy, now the NVC is asking for this document to be submitted prior to the interview? Is this a catch 22?

I emailed both the Embassy and the NVC just today, but it will be a few days to a few weeks no doubt before they return my email

Anyone else experience this or can shed some light on this matter?

Best Regards,

Keith Bennett

Instructions when I did the CR at NVC asked for original documents.

Maybe NVC will let you get by with copies.

How can you get documents out of Russia? Snail mail or have a friend fly them?

[rjp44 1]

I received a letter from the NVC requesting my wife's original birth certificate accompanied by a translation.

"all documents not in English must be accompanied by a certified translation." This means I must submit (mail) her Russian Birth Certificate from Russia via mail to the NVC. They used the words "all documents not in English must be accompanied by......." So it must be the original and the translation.

Okay fine.... now the issue. Russian law prohibits the mailing of Russian Identification Documents, we checked with the Russian Post Office, Fed Ex, and DHL. They all confirm they will not send her birth certificate from Russia to the USA. To my understanding the birth certificate was supposed to be one of the documents to be presented in person at the Moscow Embassy, now the NVC is asking for this document to be submitted prior to the interview? Is this a catch 22?

I emailed both the Embassy and the NVC just today, but it will be a few days to a few weeks no doubt before they return my email

Anyone else experience this or can shed some light on this matter?

Best Regards,

Keith Bennett

Instructions when I did the CR at NVC asked for original documents.

Maybe NVC will let you get by with copies.

How can you get documents out of Russia? Snail mail or have a friend fly them?

The way I understood the instructions is that all documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, police reports, had to either orginal or certified copies and that they will be needed again for the DS-230 and for the interview, so get enough copies of everything.

[keithusn 0]

Here are the issues with that:

Snail mail? Not a chance, original documents getting lost in the mail between Russia and the USA happens all the time, even has happened to my self and my wife, and other than it's illegal.

Flying them out, sure I could go get them, this isn't an issue, other than it's illegal.

Here is the main issue, NVC is asking us to actually break the law, to smuggle documents out of the country. We are not trying to get around the system, we could do this by flying them out. The issue is they are asking us for the documents and it is actually against the law to mail them or fly them or smuggle them out of the country. The embassy is just 10 miles from her house and she can bring the docs to the interview, and other than this one document (birth cert) the I-130 is complete and ready for the embassy to set an interview date. Thanks for your comments though,

Best Regards,

Keith Bennett

[trailmix 77]

Does this help?

Documents

Civil documents, except as noted below, are available in the Russian Federation. Certified copies of available documents may be exported. The person to whom a civil record pertains may obtain a certified copy of the record from the local office of the Bureau of Acts of Civil Status (ZAGS). Documents which have been certified by ZAGS or a local notary office can be affixed with an apostille by the Ministry of Justice or other selected offices empowered to do so. The apostille is accepted in all countries that are parties to the Hague Convention on the Abolition of Legalization of Documents. Documents that bear an apostille need not be authenticated by an American consular officer for use in the United States.

Russia Reciprocity Schedule - Department of State

When you spoke with the post office, fedex etc, did you indicate you were sending an 'original' document or a copy - as of course it would be very rare to have the 'original' which is normally held at a government office (don't know if that makes a difference to them, but anyway).

Edited December 2, 2007 by trailmix

[keithusn 0]

Okay, so perhaps they will just need a certified copy, which looks exactly like the original. You think that the original birth cert. is the one given at birth, then all others after are just certified copies, correct?

Best Regards,

Keith Bennett

[trailmix 77]

I can only speak for Canadian ones but, basically there is the one your Mother/Father fills out at the hospital. They of course don't get to keep it, it goes to the government registry office. This is the true 'original'.

So then when you order a copy from the government (which is what NVC etc want) it is naturally a certified copy of the original.

Does that make sense?