DNA SAVES THE DAY FOR FAMILY PETITIONS

By Michael J. Gurfinkel, Esq.

            In the Philippines, family relationships can sometimes be very complicated and hard to prove, including parent-child relationships.  Such complications may later affect a parent or child’s attempt to petition the other for a green card.

            For example:

• Some children are born at home instead of a hospital, and their birth is “documented” by way of a late-registered birth certificate signed by a midwife or commonly known as a “hilot.” 
  
  
• In other cases, a young girl may become pregnant, and the family, hoping to save the girl and the family from shame and embarrassment, have the baby’s birth recorded by listing the grandmother as the biological “mother.”
   
• In other situations, a child may be sickly at birth, and according some Filipino provincial customs or traditions, filing another birth certificate for the child in a different name will confuse the evil spirits and cure the child.  However, the child will now have 2 different birth certificates with different names, but the same parents.
  
  
• In other situations, birth certificates (especially of parents) could have been destroyed because of war, termites, lahar, bugs, or other calamities in the Philippines.

            When a child becomes a U.S. citizen (i.e. through marriage, etc.) and then attempts to petition his or her parent, (or the parent attempts to petition the child), the lack of a reliable birth certificate can sometimes result in their relative petition being denied, because the family relationship was not properly established.

            However, in a recent unpublished decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the USCIS had denied a petition by a daughter of her mother, because she could not adequately prove the parent-child relationship based on available documentation.  However, the daughter offered to submit to DNA blood testing.  The BIA then remanded (sent back) the case to the USCIS, with instructions to allow the parent and child to submit to DNA testing in order to prove the family relationship.

            I know that the U.S. Embassy already does allow people to undergo DNA testing if the relationship is not readily provable with existing documentation.

            If you and the one you are seeking to petition truly have the required family relationship, but the documentation is not acceptable to either the USCIS or to the Embassy, you may wish to seek the advice of a reputable attorney, who can evaluate your situation and perhaps determine if DNA testing could satisfy the government’s concerns about the legitimacy of the relationship, and thereby get the petition approved.

            Four offices to serve you:  PHILIPPINES: 894-0258 or 894-0239; LOS ANGELES;  SAN FRANCISCO; NEW YORK : TOLL FREE NUMBER: 1-866-GURFINKEL (1-866-487-3465)