Matter of Cheung
- Reporters:
- Before:
- Milhollati, Maniatis, Appleman, Maguire, Farb
(2) In a visa petition proceeding where previous evidence оf the claimed relationship was rejected, and the only new evidence presented with thе visa petition was an “Official Certification of Family Relationship” issued by a court in the Peoples Republic of China which contains the same information as the petitioner‘s letter to the court requesting the certification, where the certification is silent as to the source of the information, where the certificate was recently issued, and the petitioner failed tо establish that the certificate was issued after reference to any official recоrds or reliable independent source, the appeal from the District Director‘s denial оf the visa petition will be dismissed.
ON BEHALF OF PETITIONER: Stephen L. Yun, Esquire
2100 21st Street
Sacramento, California 95818
By: Milhollan, Chairman; Maniatis, Appleman, Maguire, and Farb, Board Members
In a decision dated October 31, 1979, the District Director denied the visa petition filed on behalf of thе beneficiary as the father of the United States citizen petitioner. The petitioner has аppealed from this decision. The appeal will be dismissed.
The beneficiary is a native оf the Peoples Republic of China and a resident of Hong Kong. The petitioner is a native оf the Peoples Republic and a naturalized citizen of the United States. An immediate relativе visa petition was approved on behalf of the beneficiary of July 7, 1971, under
On appeal, the petitioner contends that the Service has denied the visa petition because the previous visa рetition was revoked. She also claims that the Service has denied the petition solely on the basis of discrepancies in the statements of the petitioner and the beneficiary, nоt on the ground that they are not father and daughter as claimed. She also asks for time to submit fingerprint information from the police in Hong Kong.
Although in her appeal the petitioner does nоt address the major ground for the denial of the visa petition, we will treat the brief provided with the visa petition as if it were incorporated in the appeal. We will do this only because the brief deals with the certificate issued by the Peoples Court, which is the only new evidence provided by the petitioner to date which is material to the claimed father-daughter relationship.
After reviewing the record, we have concluded that the petitioner has not met her burden of proof in conferring benefits under the immigration laws. Matter of Brantigan, 11 I&N Dec. 493 (BIA 1966). We see the same defect in the 1979 Certificate presented as did the District Director. The 1978 letter to the Liaison Office of the Peoples Republic contains the same information provided in the Certificate that the Peoples Court issued. Nowhere in the Certificate is there a recitation as to the source of the information contained in the Certificate. Given this fact, we are not persuaded that the Peоples Court did not simply issue the Certificate to the petitioner as a courtesy. In any casе, given the recent date of issue, and the failure to establish that the Certificate was issued after reference to any official records or reliable independent source, its prоbative value is extremely limited. When this fact is considered in conjunction with the discrepanciеs noted in previous decisions, and the real possibility raised by the American Consulate in Hong Kong thаt the beneficiary is an impostor, it is clear that the petitioner has still not established the claimed relationship between her and the beneficiary. The appeal will accordingly be dismissed.
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.