Via The Seattle Times
08/24/2006

After waiting nearly 12 years to help his sister and her family obtain green cards so they could move to the U.S., Nak Sieng faced one final hurdle: proving he and his sister really are related.

An exercise that might have been simple for some was a monumental challenge for the siblings who had lived through Cambodia's revolutionary war and, as a result, couldn't obtain certain documents — like birth certificates or school or medical records — to prove their relationship.

Childhood photos the family was able to save from the war years were too old, authorities told them. And photos from Sieng's more recent visits to Cambodia in 2000 were too new.

Then U.S. embassy officials in Thailand asked for a kind of evidence that attorneys say is becoming increasingly common in immigration cases: a DNA test.

The test proved unequivocally that the two are brother and sister.