Consular Report of Birth Abroad

[kpol]

seoul.usembassy.gov/acs_report_of_birth.html

"The U.S. Embassy in Seoul strongly encourages all U.S. citizens who have children born in the Republic of South Korea to apply for a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) as soon as possible after the birth of the child. A CRBA is an official record confirming that the child acquired U.S. citizenship at birth."


"Parents are encouraged to apply for their child’s U.S. Passport and a Social Security Number at the same time as applying for his/her CRBA."

Of course, a slew of documents must be filled out and turned in and new rules require:

"Mother’s prenatal and hospital records (e.g., ultrasounds, prescriptions, evidence of pre-natal doctor visits, hospital discharge documents, vaccination card, etc.)"

I'm pretty pissed at this. I'm not even KU'd but its something we've been talking about. No way do I think my medical documents should be needed for this. No way. I'm pissed.

Thoughts?

[basilosaurus]

That's kind of bullshit. All that should be needed is the birth certificate. A child born to me is a us citizen, period, end of story.

[amaristella]

Some people have very little in the way of those types of things. If they find out late and have an uncomplicated pregnancy and maybe even a home birth, there just may not be a lot of records so I'm wondering what they would actually deem sufficient or insufficient.

[misshark122]

I don't understand why medical records are needed! If anything maybe just the "evidence of prenatal visits" is sufficient? They definitely do not need details!

[audette]

Hrm. Um. None of my medical records should be needed to document that my child is American. I'm not. DH is. Does he need to submit pre-natal medical records?

(technically, any kids we have will be dual, but we would apply for the CRBA as needed for each of it's nationalities, and yes, I'm being silly in this post)


It's an invasion of privacy, and likely a HIPAA violation. Not cool.

[kpol]

Dec 18, 2012 18:50:25 GMT -5 audette said:

Hrm. Um. None of my medical records should be needed to document that my child is American. I'm not. DH is. Does he need to submit pre-natal medical records?

(technically, any kids we have will be dual, but we would apply for the CRBA as needed for each of it's nationalities, and yes, I'm being silly in this post)


It's an invasion of privacy, and likely a HIPAA violation. Not cool.

This is where I'm at, too. I've already sent a letter to my Congressman, but who knows if that will go anywhere.

[ch47wife]

How new is this? I had a baby at a Korean hospital in May and didn't get the babies birth certificate until September (it would have been earlier but they messed up the sex) and although we had to have a lot of paperwork, I didn't have any of my records. We did have a certificate of birth from the hospital.

[kpol]

The base official FB page put out the announcement regarding the changes the other day, so I'm guessing it's relatively new.

[twoslicehilly]

Weird. We just did R's a few months ago and only needed her Japanese Birth Certificate. I wonder who made them make those rules?!