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I-130 Question - Filing for parents, how to properly reflect a step-dad situation
Hi everyone, great that such a resource exists! I hope gurus here would be able to hint me in a right direction.
I am a US citizen by naturalization (after marrying a USC), I will be filing I-130 for my parents (along with I-485 AOS, concurrent filing) some time in the future.
I started looking through papers and ran into a confusion that you'll hopefully help me to resolve.
Background: My dad is not my biological father - my bio father have never been interested in my life, they were not married with my mom and I have no clue where he was/is etc. Never got any relationship with him, never got any child support payments etc. The only thing I know now is that he passed away when I was ~14 or so.
When I was a kid my mom met a person who I consider my only father, they got married AND he went through a formal adoption process naming him my father. By the end of the process I think I was 8 or 9 y.o.
Now comes the confusing part. According to the laws of Russia once we got this adoption decree and the court order, all my birth records were amended by the registrar, my initial birth certificate got destroyed, my last name got changed and I got a new one with a name of my adoptive father in it. As Russia keeps all adoption records strictly confidential, I was given a legal right (at least in Russia) to answer any question like "Have you even used a different name" etc. as "No" in any government form. In essence this is how I answered this question in ALL forms my all life, including in all later forms here in the US - even if I wanted to refer to my birth name, I have no papers or other proof whatsoever.
Now when I fill in I-130/I-485 forms for my dad, I struggle to decide how I should define our relationship:
Option 1 - I can treat him as bio father and answer "No" to "Are you related by adoption?" question. This was my preferred option until recently as this is essentially what my birth certificate says.
The problem here is that I read instructions for I-130 and it looks like there would be extra questions as long as my parents' marriage took place when I was already 7 or 8 years old. The whole chain is going to be problematic, especially with I-485, as my dad terminated his previous marriage when I was 4 years old, so I can expect certain questions from anyone reviewing this form.
Option 2 - I can treat him as an adoptive parent and answer "Yes" to "Are you related by adoption?" question. I am more inclined towards this option now, but one particular thing I am concerned about is my birth name that shows up in adoption decree. I doubt I would ever run into this issue, but I wonder if authorities would feel unhappy that I kept answering No to any "other name" questions throughout my life and now all of a sudden another name pops up
Plus I wonder what other papers my dad might be required to produce to prove genuine "parent-child" relationship (I mean, we lived together as a family since he married my mom, so it's not an issue to think of any proof, I just wonder how likely it is to cause any red flags).
Your advice re options is greatly appreciated. As I mentioned, so far I am inclining towards #2, but would be interested to hear any arguments for it or against it
Thanks!
I am a US citizen by naturalization (after marrying a USC), I will be filing I-130 for my parents (along with I-485 AOS, concurrent filing) some time in the future.
I started looking through papers and ran into a confusion that you'll hopefully help me to resolve.
Background: My dad is not my biological father - my bio father have never been interested in my life, they were not married with my mom and I have no clue where he was/is etc. Never got any relationship with him, never got any child support payments etc. The only thing I know now is that he passed away when I was ~14 or so.
When I was a kid my mom met a person who I consider my only father, they got married AND he went through a formal adoption process naming him my father. By the end of the process I think I was 8 or 9 y.o.
Now comes the confusing part. According to the laws of Russia once we got this adoption decree and the court order, all my birth records were amended by the registrar, my initial birth certificate got destroyed, my last name got changed and I got a new one with a name of my adoptive father in it. As Russia keeps all adoption records strictly confidential, I was given a legal right (at least in Russia) to answer any question like "Have you even used a different name" etc. as "No" in any government form. In essence this is how I answered this question in ALL forms my all life, including in all later forms here in the US - even if I wanted to refer to my birth name, I have no papers or other proof whatsoever.
Now when I fill in I-130/I-485 forms for my dad, I struggle to decide how I should define our relationship:
Option 1 - I can treat him as bio father and answer "No" to "Are you related by adoption?" question. This was my preferred option until recently as this is essentially what my birth certificate says.
The problem here is that I read instructions for I-130 and it looks like there would be extra questions as long as my parents' marriage took place when I was already 7 or 8 years old. The whole chain is going to be problematic, especially with I-485, as my dad terminated his previous marriage when I was 4 years old, so I can expect certain questions from anyone reviewing this form.
Option 2 - I can treat him as an adoptive parent and answer "Yes" to "Are you related by adoption?" question. I am more inclined towards this option now, but one particular thing I am concerned about is my birth name that shows up in adoption decree. I doubt I would ever run into this issue, but I wonder if authorities would feel unhappy that I kept answering No to any "other name" questions throughout my life and now all of a sudden another name pops up
Plus I wonder what other papers my dad might be required to produce to prove genuine "parent-child" relationship (I mean, we lived together as a family since he married my mom, so it's not an issue to think of any proof, I just wonder how likely it is to cause any red flags).
Your advice re options is greatly appreciated. As I mentioned, so far I am inclining towards #2, but would be interested to hear any arguments for it or against it
Thanks!
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