Ok. Here's our situation. We are planning to pursue both the K3 and CR-1 visas...primarily trying for the CR-1 but if it gets hung up some place we will just get the K3 instead. It appears that we need a police certificate for each of these visa paths (one to send to the NVC for the CR-1 path and one to take to the interview at embassy if we go the K3 path). The problem is, the issuing body in Ukraine got upset when she said she wanted 2 original copies and refused saying we will be lucky to get 1! Reason being, they supposedly only have about 2000 sheets of the paper it must be printed on to last them the entire year! So my question is...do these definately have to be original copies?

To my understanding yes, or at least certified copies. Good luck!

What do the instructions say? If they do not stipulate original then I would send a copy to the NVC and then present the original at the interview

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, I think you only need the police certificate for the interview, so only one copy would be needed. There's a handy checklist on this website, link below, that I followed.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...mp;page=k3guide

I read some other posts, you may want to double check on this. That if you file k3, supposedly faster?? both i130 (cr1) and the 129f (k3) are approved at the same time. Ours was. Then you can file some form and pay a couple hundred bucks to have the i130 forwarded to your consulate for the interview.

LvivLovers,
I think both petitions will be approved and get you started towards the K-3 path, if you don't want that you can file an I-824 to pursue the CR-1. If you end up choosing the K-3, you will only need 1 certified copy of the police certificate to present at the time of the interview. If you choose the CR-1 route however, you will need to go to this link http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/info/info_3176.html choose your embassy (in your case Kyiv) and then click on list of documents. This will show you all the documents, along with translations, that you need to submit with the DS-230, which includes the police certificate.

In either case, you will only need 1 police certificate, either to take to the embassy or mail to the NVC. There is no need to get 2 if she can't get them. And YES, it does need to be an original document or certified copy, but do make copies just in case.

Diana

I guess my problem is that we really are pursuing both paths until one of them gets hung up. I'm trying to have my I-130 not be held once it's approved so I'm planning to file the DS-230 and other documents with the NVC...and they require the police certificate. But if that ends up taking months and months and the I-129F is already at the US Embassy my wife will also need a police certificate at her interview. So I think we'll have to figure out at some point which way we are really going to go and save the 1 police certificate for that route. I hate that we may have to mail it though depending on which visa we end up trying for...not only because it's slow, but if something happens to it, I have no idea what kind of problems we'll have next. Anyway, thanks for the advice everyone!