Police Certificates from Another Country

[B&ANZ 134]

My husband has lived in two additional countries, both for less than 12 months. I am getting mixed feedback on whether or not to get a police certificate. I have read that if he lived in another country for 6 months or more, he needs one. I also read if he lived in another country for 12 months or more he needs one. One of the countries he lived in for less than 12 months is Canada and it is a ####### of a country to get police certificates from overseas! Or at least that is what we are finding. 

 

Can someone please point me to the appropriate documentation that addresses this? We are not at the NVC stage yet, but we are planning ahead because of the lag of services due to COVID-19.

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

If you are 16 years old or older, have lived in your country of current residence (if different from nationality) for more than 6 months, you need a police certificate from your country of current residence.

If you have ever lived in another country for 12 months or more and were 16 years or older at the time you lived there, you need a police certificate from the country where you used to live.

 

Source: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/the-immigrant-visa-process/step-5-collect-financial-evidence-and-other-supporting-documents/step-7-collect-civil-documents.html

Edited June 15, 2020 by Allaboutwaiting

[igoyougoduke 1,656]

Here you go 

[digitalegg 1]

Hi,  hate to rain on your parade but we have to acquire 6 police certificates so the above info people are posting is correct.  Any country the visa applicant has lived in for more that 6 month since the age of 16 requires a police certificate.  

 

Two points of advice:

 

1. Make sure you research the type of police certificate on the US travel.gov website you need prior to requesting it - each country has different requirements.  We made an error with one for Spain and it took an additional 6 weeks including a a flight to Spain to request the correct one in person.  

 

2. All foreign police certificate need to have certified translations if they not in English or have dual language. 

 

Good luck! 

DM

[Allaboutwaiting 2,503]

54 minutes ago, digitalegg said:

Hi,  hate to rain on your parade but we have to acquire 6 police certificates so the above info people are posting is correct.  Any country the visa applicant has lived in for more that 6 month since the age of 16 requires a police certificate.  

 

Two points of advice:

 

1. Make sure you research the type of police certificate on the US travel.gov website you need prior to requesting it - each country has different requirements.  We made an error with one for Spain and it took an additional 6 weeks including a a flight to Spain to request the correct one in person.  

 

2. All foreign police certificate need to have certified translations if they not in English or have dual language. 

 

Good luck! 

DM

If at the time of filing you no longer live in a country other than yours, the police certificate is required JUST if you lived there 12 months or more there. 

The 6 months apply just when you are currently a resident of the country other than yours. 

[digitalegg 1]

To be clear, we were required to submit 6 Police certificates due to our circumstance which is complex - my partner LEGALLY lived/worked in 6 different countries, and was a resident of each country for longer than 6 months since the age of 16 (he is now 52).  He is a Belgium citizen (25 years) originally from Argentina and both our immigration lawyer and the CEAC civil documents listed the required country specific Police Certificates we needed which were: Argentina, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, and Italy.  We have submitted all this with translations and our documents were finally all accepted late last week (after being a the NVC for over 6 months).   

 

This was an incredibly painful and costly experience.  My partner had to fly to Spain and Italy to acquire the Spanish and Italian one in person since they were both "lost in the mail" according to administration, the Netherlands certifiate was mis-mailed and we had to request a new one,  and Canada was pure nightmare and we had to do it TWICE since the first time we forgot to request the below,  so I am sharing our pain to help others.   As for Canada - you need to submit original ink fingerprints to an authorized RCMP agent -  we used Fingerscan.ca they were the best price and had great customer service - they are very responsive via email.  

 

Make sure you call this out in your request - this was the costly error we made by just asking for a RCMP police cert: 

 

Procedure for Obtaining: To obtain this document, you must submit your fingerprints to a local police service or RCMP-approved partner agency.  YOU MUST STATE THAT YOU ARE REQUESTING THE RECORD UNDER THE PRIVACY ACT.  Do not select “Visa/Border Crossing” as the purpose of the request. You must also specifically request the record which includes the “RCMP National Repository entire holdings.”  

 

Every case is different and I am sure the variables of each case may vary based on the applications history and details and from what I understand the NVC can request more or less -- we have zero control but it is wise to over-prepare.