Is THIS what Montreal wants? A birth certificate story and question...

[jfgk1987 303]

Hey everyone, this might be kind of long.

My Canadian citizen fiance was born in South Korea and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 9. We knew he needed a birth certificate at the time of the interview, so I told him that he had to get a certified copy from Korea. That was 9 months ago. We also knew it had to be translated into English, so he went to the Korean embassy in Toronto to get his birth certificate translated.

He went against my advice and got a faxed copy of his birth documents without telling me. To add to that, the Korean embassy told him that a faxed copy was totally acceptable! The interview was 8/29/14 and I drove from White Plains NY (6 hours) to be there (I've driven a whole lot, but never more than an hour and 30 minutes tops). I did everything on my part document wise correctly. While we were waiting to be called to the first window I took a peek into his folder and took a look at his documents, I got a sinking feeling when I checked out his birth certificate - I was hoping he had a real copy of it hiding somewhere. After the interview he puts a 221G for an official birth certificate on my lap. I wanted to kill him. Thirty minutes later we're back at the hotel and the case is already in AP.

The next business day (9/2) he rushed back to the Korean embassy, apparently there was an easy way to get birth documents from Korea through the embassy. The embassy requests them from the Korean government and access to print it is granted in 48 hours. Since my fiance got there so early they were ready the next day. He got the English translation and then went to Loomis to mail the documents back to Montreal.

Montreal responded to us on 9/10 (hard copy letter received 9/15) with a letter saying that what he sent was not sufficient. They were now requesting an original birth certificate AND a certified English translated copy. I guess what my fiance got from the embassy (technically from the Korean government) wasn't considered an original, even though it was an original.

My fiance's father got in touch with is brother-in-law in Korea that same evening to see if he could help us out. To get a document (hard copy) directly from Korea when you live outside of Korea, you have to go to the nearest Korean embassy to get some sort of permission affidavit signed by the requester and witnessed by someone at the embassy, my fiance got it and scanned it to email to his uncle. Since it was already morning in Korea, once he got the email he went to a city hall to get the documents (city halls are listed on the travel.state.gov reciprocity table for Korea as an acceptable place to get a BC). He got them and sent them to my fiance via DHL express 2 day and my fiance received them yesterday. He went to get a certified translation from one of these guys in the ATIO, then this morning he sent everything to Montreal, so here we go again...

So, here's my question (finally): will Montreal be satisfied with the documents straight from Korea + the super certified translation? My fiance is afraid they'll be rejected even though they should be accepted...right? If these documents are rejected we're literally out of options, which is why my fiance is panicking. After 9 years of being apart with visits he just wants to be here with me, and I'm not going to lie I'm sort of afraid too. I just want this to be over with!

Thanks for reading, I know it was long! Any advice will be appreciated.

[mtlguy 59]

With an original birth certificate and a certified translation you guys should be fine.

[jfgk1987 303]

With an original birth certificate and a certified translation you guys should be fine.

Thanks, I hope so. We really thought getting it through the consulate would work since they had to go through the government first. It worked for a few other users from other countries (and Korea) that went through Montreal, which was where we got the idea from. I'm just afraid we'll get denied over a stupid birth certificate, would we even have any options to get past that?

[jfgk1987 303]

Well our case updated today! The case creation date changed to today, it switched to Non Immigrant Visa, and the status is back to Ready. That's a good sign right?

[NikLR 13,227]

yes that means they've likely gotten to reviewing everything.

[jfgk1987 303]

Visa issued!!!