On
November 12, 2014, the Department of State made a significant change to the way
original documents are handled for Immigration Visa Applications.
The
National Visa Center (NVC) will no longer require you to mail them the original
civil documents, such as police, birth and marriage certificates. Instead, you will send NVC photocopies of
the documents and take the originals to your consular interview. You will still need to send NVC the
affidavit of support containing an original signature.
This
action was taken to help reduce the workload of the NVC. In recent months, the rapid advancing of
some cutoff dates resulted in the contractors for NVC being unable to keep up
with the increased immigrant visa demand.
This
change is really just a step back in time.
It was not that many years ago that we never sent originals to the National
Visa Center (or its predecessor TIVPC).
However, now it will be the U.S. Petitioner’s responsibility to be sure
the visa Applicant will have ALL of the necessary originals before their
consular interview.
The
advantages of this new (old) system is that it eliminates the need for original
documents to be mailed to the United States, and also reduces the hassle of
ensuring that the embassy returns your originals. Now, at the interview, the consular officer will already have
copies of your documents and in most cases will just compare and return your
original.
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