Romeo and Julie met in High School and fell madly in love. The young couple had but one dream to marry after college and spend the rest of their life together. After graduating from college, call centers were sprouting everywhere and Romeo and Julie were fortunate to find found good paying jobs as customer representatives at the call centers. However, when Romeo informed his mother who recently immigrated to the United States of his plan to marry Julie, his mother forbade him to do so since this will affect the immigrant petition she filed for him. His mother who was a lawful permanent resident (“LPR”) filed an immigrant petition for Romeo as her unmarried child who over 21 years old. Romeo’s marriage to Julie would lead to the automatic revocation of the immigrant petition filed by his mother since there is no preference category for a married son or daughter of an LPR.
Romeo and Juliet decided to live together without the benefit of marriage and eventually had children. To shield their children from future shame and embarrassment and in order that the they will carry Romeo’s last name, the birth certificates of all their children showed a fictitious date of marriage for Romeo and Julie.
Eventually, the Romeo’s priority date became current. He sought the help of a travel agent to help him process his Philippine passport and immigration papers. The travel agent advised him not to declare his children when dealing with the US Embassy because they were born out-of-wedlock and that it will just complicate his immigrant petition because their birth certificates show a fictitious date of marriage.
We have encountered many clients who following the well meaning but ill-advice of travel agents, relatives and know-it-all friends, decide not to disclose information about their children for fear that said disclosure would affect their immigrant petition. The non-disclosure is unnecessary and in fact would potentially create problems for Romeo in the future. If Romeo opts to not disclose his children and immigrate to the United States, such non-disclosure may not only affect his ability to bring his children to the United States at a later date, but may also become an issue when he eventually files a naturalization application. By initially denying having children and later on claiming these children after becoming a US permanent resident creates doubts as to the children’s true relationship to the US permanent resident and puts a cloud on the alien’s credibility.
All children, be they adopted, legitimate, children out of wedlock and even stepchildren needs to be disclosed. Thus, during an alien’s application for US permanent residence or during a naturalization application, the officer will specifically ask the applicant whether they have any children anywhere in the world and enumerate all kinds of children. This way, there is no room for misunderstanding as to what they mean by children. By requesting this information about children, the United States government gets a heads up as to who may come knocking at their doors in the future.
Contrary to the advice of the travel agent, Romeo should disclose all his children in the immigration forms he will be required to submit in connection with his immigration application. As a matter of fact, what he should have done was to inform the National Visa Center about the birth of his children after each child was born and provide a copy of their birth certificates so that there is no delay during the immigrant visa processing.
All children of Romeo who are below 21 years old are derivative beneficiaries of the immigrant petition filed by Romeo’s mother. As derivative beneficiaries they are included in the immigrant petition filed on behalf of Romeo and these children are entitled to get immigrant visas together with Romeo.
The problem with the fictitious date of marriage that appears in the birth certificates of all his children will likely be an issue. Thus, it would greatly benefit Romeo to retain an experienced immigration attorney to help him deal with this immigration matter.
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Atty. Jean S. Tinsay is a partner in the Law Firm of Chua Tinsay and Vega (CTV) - a full service law firm with offices in San Francisco, San Diego and Manila. The information presented in this article is for general information only and is not, nor intended to be, formal legal advice nor the formation of an attorney-client relationship. Call or e-mail CTV for an in-person or phone consultation to discuss your particular situation and/or how their services may be retained at (415) 495-8088; (619) 955-6277; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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