Effective November 12, the National Visa Center (NVC) has discontinued collecting original civil documents in support of immigrant visa (IV) applications in an effort to "maintain the integrity of the IV process, reduce customer wait times, and improve the customer experience overall."

The National Visa Center is the US State Department agency tasked with processing immigrant visa applications (i.e., applications for Green Cards) after they have been initially approved by US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS). Once the National Visa Center processes the application, they send the paperwork to the appropriate US Embassy or Consulate abroad where the final immigrant visa interview will take place.

Applicants will now be required to submit either electronically or via mail photocopies of supporting documents, including birth, marriage, and police certificates, and subsequently bring the original documents to their consular interview; however, this new procedures does not apply to the Affidavit of Support forms, which still must be submitted to NVC in original.