CR1 Interview in Tunisia- Birth Certificate Question

[Kaftejihar 0]

Hey guys, 

Would appreciate any insights about this.

We're DQ'ed and all our documents were accepted by NVC and now waiting for our interview at the US embassy in Tunis.

The birth certificate we submitted was an old one but it went through just fine.

Now the problem is when we got married, we did not do it in Tunisia, but somewhere else while we were tourists there. Our marriage is fully legit and legal of course and that's why it went through NVC just fine, but because we got married abroad, I was never able to update my marital status back in Tunisia. The tricky part about Tunisian birth certificates and all Tunisians know this is that if you get married it will say so on your birth certificate: mine does not say that. Updating this little part involves either going back to the country we got married in and filing there at the Tunisian embassy there, or through the Tunisian ministry of Foreign Affairs in a process that could easily take up to 6 months, in which they would need to take a variety of civil documents (Originals), including my marriage certificate, which I will need soon during the interview. Long story short, will explaining the situation the officer on that day clear this up, or is it a no go? It can probably also help by explaining that I don't even reside in Tunisia and that I only came there for the interview itself, proving my impossible availability to accomplish such task.

Thoughts?  

[pushbrk 13,573]

13 hours ago, Kaftejihar said:

Hey guys, 

Would appreciate any insights about this.

We're DQ'ed and all our documents were accepted by NVC and now waiting for our interview at the US embassy in Tunis.

The birth certificate we submitted was an old one but it went through just fine.

Now the problem is when we got married, we did not do it in Tunisia, but somewhere else while we were tourists there. Our marriage is fully legit and legal of course and that's why it went through NVC just fine, but because we got married abroad, I was never able to update my marital status back in Tunisia. The tricky part about Tunisian birth certificates and all Tunisians know this is that if you get married it will say so on your birth certificate: mine does not say that. Updating this little part involves either going back to the country we got married in and filing there at the Tunisian embassy there, or through the Tunisian ministry of Foreign Affairs in a process that could easily take up to 6 months, in which they would need to take a variety of civil documents (Originals), including my marriage certificate, which I will need soon during the interview. Long story short, will explaining the situation the officer on that day clear this up, or is it a no go? It can probably also help by explaining that I don't even reside in Tunisia and that I only came there for the interview itself, proving my impossible availability to accomplish such task.

Thoughts?  

Hard to say if this matters. It's a Tunisia specific issue.  A similar situation in the Philippines used to be no problem, unless you wanted a new passport in the married name. Now, a marriage outside the Philippines must be registered through the Philippine Consulate abroad, or there is a definite problem.  Unless there is a similar current issue for Tunisia, no worries.  Maybe ask in the appropriate regional forum, or the situation may be mentioned in on the US Embassy for Tunisia, website.

[Kaftejihar 0]

7 hours ago, pushbrk said:

Hard to say if this matters. It's a Tunisia specific issue.  A similar situation in the Philippines used to be no problem, unless you wanted a new passport in the married name. Now, a marriage outside the Philippines must be registered through the Philippine Consulate abroad, or there is a definite problem.  Unless there is a similar current issue for Tunisia, no worries.  Maybe ask in the appropriate regional forum, or the situation may be mentioned in on the US Embassy for Tunisia, website.

Thanks for your reply kind sir. I honestly have no idea. I went through every possible data available on the internet from forums, discord servers, reddit, you name it .. and haven't found one single case that looks like mine. Just looking at the facts points out that it should be fine, but we'll see. All our other documents should be perfectly aligned with what they're asking for. If they're worried about my marital status, the marriage certificate is there to show it. I don't see why this would be an issue whatsoever.

Edited Tuesday at 04:31 AM by Kaftejihar

[Dashinka 25,738]

Moved to the Middle East & North Africa regional forum.

[jmalelkamel 5]

On 6/23/2025 at 2:21 AM, Kaftejihar said:

Hey guys, 

Would appreciate any insights about this.

We're DQ'ed and all our documents were accepted by NVC and now waiting for our interview at the US embassy in Tunis.

The birth certificate we submitted was an old one but it went through just fine.

Now the problem is when we got married, we did not do it in Tunisia, but somewhere else while we were tourists there. Our marriage is fully legit and legal of course and that's why it went through NVC just fine, but because we got married abroad, I was never able to update my marital status back in Tunisia. The tricky part about Tunisian birth certificates and all Tunisians know this is that if you get married it will say so on your birth certificate: mine does not say that. Updating this little part involves either going back to the country we got married in and filing there at the Tunisian embassy there, or through the Tunisian ministry of Foreign Affairs in a process that could easily take up to 6 months, in which they would need to take a variety of civil documents (Originals), including my marriage certificate, which I will need soon during the interview. Long story short, will explaining the situation the officer on that day clear this up, or is it a no go? It can probably also help by explaining that I don't even reside in Tunisia and that I only came there for the interview itself, proving my impossible availability to accomplish such task.

Thoughts?  

Hi! It is not automatically updated on the birth certificate - we updated my husband’s birth certificate after we got married in Tunisia by simply walking into the office where they issue birth certificates (sorry, I don’t know what the name of this office was, but it was in La Marsa) and getting them to update it. No hassle, took less than 20 minutes. All they needed was our marriage certificate. I would imagine if it’s not in Arabic or French it may need to be translated though for them.