Leon_87

Hey everyone,

This is my first post ever on this forum.

I just wanted to share some experience regarding police certificates that are required for the Visa Procedure to the USA. I think it would be interesting if some other people with experience with these or other countries' police certificates would share their stories too.

I won the Diversity Lottery in 2011 (the second time they organised it that year lol), and had my interview at the Madrid Embassy 2 weeks ago.

I didn't have the police certificates with me; I really missed the part where they said I need them (I really thought all that came in the section where it said "only if you have ever been convicted).

Anyway: I was asked for the Police Certificates of all countries where I have lived longer than 1 year. That meant four European states: Spain, France, Switzerland, and UK. I also lived in Germany for 8 months, but they said I didn't need a German certificate.

Here goes a short description of the certificate process of each of those four countries:


Spain - "Certificado de Penales"

This was a peace of cake. Since I was in Spain for the interview at the Embassy, it just took a short visit to a territorial centre of the Ministry of Justice (in any major Spanish city) to get the document. No queues whatsoever. Just filled in a short form, showed my ID card, payed 3€ for the service, and 5 minutes later I had the police certificate with the "International Apostille" on it. Just wonderful. The document is in Spanish (although the Apostille is multilingual), but since my case is at the Madrid Embassy, that's fine. However, I was asked whether it was ok to have it in Spanish, so I assume they do give them out in other languages too if needed!

(I cannot tell however how easy/hard it would be to get one Spanish police certificate while outside of Spain)



Switzerland - "Casier Judiciaire"

Not very hard either. And as with everything in Switzerland, extremely efficient. I used this website http://www.bj.admin.ch/bj/fr/home/th...fregister.html, which helps you fill out the forms and allows you to pay online (20CHF for a normal certificate or 40CHF if you require the Apostille). Then you print the form, send it with a copy of your passport, and voilà. I had the police certificate 5 working days later in my mailbox. A breeze.

Even though during the application you must choose a Swiss official language for the certificate, they actually issue multilingual police certificates (in German, French, Italian, English and Spanish...!) so no need for translations afterwards. Even though 40CHF might seem pricey, it was so fast, so easy and so efficient, that I can't complain much about it.

(For those in Switzerland, it seems you can order the certificate at the Post Office by showing your ID; or even order everything online if you have one of the new ID cards allowing online official identification)



France - "Casier Judiciaire"

Slightly trickier, but still a piece of cake. You need to order the certificate here: https://www.cjn.justice.gouv.fr/cjn/b3/eje20
After the online forms are submitted, an e-mail is sent to your personal address and you need to send back an e-mail with your passport or ID card. The process is totally free.

The certificate was in my mail box 4 working days after I ordered it. The problem is, it does not come with the Apostille; in order to get it, the Police Certificate needs to be sent to an "Apostille Service". It is also free of charge. However, they require that you send postage in order to return you the "apostilled" certificate (actually I didn't know that, so when they returned the document they also included a little paper saying "please next time send required postage"!). This second part of the process took 3 working days (assuming they got my letter with the unapostilled certificate 1 working day after I sent it).

The last issue was to get a translation for the certificate, since it's French-only. I live in Paris, so it was easy to find a translator, who got me the certificate translated into English in 2 working days for 40€.



UK "Police Certificate"

This is a bad-taste joke compared to the 3 other countries.

On the http://www.acro.police.uk/police_certificates.aspx website, you need to download and print a very long form, asking all kinds of questions, and requiring:

• the addresses you had over the last 10 years (I think I had over 10)
• 2 proofs of address, which may not be self-printed documents (welcome to the 21st century, when I for instance get EVERYTHING online: phone bills, utility bills, bank statements, etc); plus, they need to be in English or translated. I personally find it ridiculous. Why do the other countries not give a s**t about proofs of address, and these people care so much? And why on earth would I give a fake address in France, for god's sake?
• a photo endorsed by someone having what they seem to consider a "noble job" (doctor, lawyer, etc) who has known you for at least 2 years and is not a member of your family. Again, ridiculous... if they wanna see what I look like, they can just take a look at my passport, since they obviously also require a copy of it.
• Since they do not take online payments (welcome to the 21st century), a cheque needs to be sent. But, not so easy...the cheque needs to be in British Pounds... just great again.

As with most "public forms" in the UK, I find it very threatening that you need to sign fifty times that you are aware that giving the wrong information "may lead to prosecution" (favourite British sentence of all times I believe).

Price is 35 Pounds for normal service (they say they post it after 10 working days) or 70 Pounds for Premium service (2 working days). It seems richer people enjoy better public services.

They received my application on the 24th April, and on the 2nd of May they sent me an e-mail to acknowledge that and to say that they will deal with it shortly.

As of today, 5th May, I got no further news.




It sucks, because they kept my passport at the US Embassy in Madrid (they said it was either that or coming back to Madrid myself to get the Green Card stamp on my passport); for travel in Europe my ID card is all good; however, I booked a trip at the very end of the May to Morocco and I do need my passport for that. At the Embassy they said that, after I send them the certificates, I shall get "2 to 3 weeks later" my passport back. Since it's already the 5th and there are no signs of the British Police Certificate, I think I will need to find a way to get a temporary passport or something like that, or I might as well start forgetting about Humphrey Bogart's piano in Casablanca...

I really love the UK and think it's a very competitive society that does things properly. But here it was very obvious that there is something definitely wrong. The other 3 countries just needed a copy of my passport to issue the certificate in literally no time for much less money (or even no money at all). The UK asks for an important fee to be paid, a ridiculously high amount of documents (some hard to get) and they are taking 3 times more than the others need. I hardly can say it's acceptable.


I have to say that if I had known my 14 months (gap year prior to university) in London almost a decade ago would put me in this situation, I think I wouldn't have mentioned it when fulfilling the forms.



One final question: is the Apostille required on the Police Certificates, or am I just wasting my time (and some money) getting it?


Best regards

Leon

Jscl

I'm sure that will be a really useful post, thanks for sharing.

My UK police certificate was a few years back (no photos needed then, nor proof of previous addresses, I guess that is a new anti-identity theft thing) but it was just one certificate, we didn't need an apostille (in fact I had to look up apostille to find out what it was). I couldn't tell you if that had changed or if you'd require it as you are processing in Spain though. (By the way, back then it took 30 days, so at least that has improved!)

JSL8610

Hi. Sorry to hear that your experience of getting a UK police certificate was so bad. I applied for mine last month and got it back in less than a week.

I'm not sure where you got the information that proof of address documents cannot be self printed. I printed both of mine (bank statement and utility bill) since I do everything online and they accepted them just fine.

I do agree that having to have your photo endorsed is a little odd and can, for some people, be a real pain.

It's not great having to pay a fee when lots of other countries issue certificates for free, but compared to the overall immigration costs £35 is negligible.

Anyway, thanks for the post. Very helpful.

Leon_87

Yepp, I don't know... As I wrote before, they sent me the e-mail to confirm they were going to "start dealing with it" 6 working days after the date they said they got the application. It seems that in my case they really are going to be using the maximum period.

Maybe they deal with envelopes coming from abroad after domestic ones?

Out of curiosity, I checked the French version of the application on the ACRO website; I expected a simple translation of the English version, but actually the whole explanatory text was quite different. I think they literally said (in French) "no online documents or statements are to be admitted as proof of address". Yet, I don't see how they could tell if someone printed their online banking statement or whether it is just a copy of a "normal" one sent over the post.

Definitely... I already consider myself quite lucky, since 3 days before I had the interview they considerably reduced the fee I had to pay at the Embassy.

Yet, I do think that (contrary to my beliefs) this is no process for poor people.

I was particularly surprised when I found out they mandatorily require you to provide them an US address beforehand. Since I still didn't get my Green Card / Stamp on my passport (or whatever it is that I'll get in the beginning) I obviously didn't book any plane tickets or signed an apartment lease in any way; their very own instructions say not to do so, since the application might be delayed.

I ended up using the address of a friend I know in the US (don't really know him so well though, and I think he was a bit reluctant about the idea in the beginning, thinking that would legally imply somehow that I'd stay at his place for a long time or something like that).

So I was thinking...what if you are an immigrant from Pakistan or Nepal with not that much money, who's never been to the US before and just want to move there with their "Lottery Green Card" to start a new would-be more prosperous life? Are they expected to travel to the US beforehand to get an address, even before they got the Green Card, in order to complete their application?

I am aware I must be sounding quite grumpy, but this seemed to me something that I'd be more expecting from the French administration than from the US one

Noorah101

Probably not expected to do that, no, but to somehow get a US address, either via friends or family in the USA, or opening a PO Box address in the USA somehow...maybe that can be done over the internet, I don't know. But even an arriving immigrant who has never been to the USA before, MUST have a US address at the POE arrival....USCIS will be sending the plastic green card to that address. You could use a hotel address at the beginning, just make sure you notify the hotel that you're expecting mail there...might help if you actually stay there, too.

Rene

Leon_87

I guess you are right, and a hotel address may also be used.

I think I happened to read somewhere that previously you had to provide an address at the port of entry, which seems much more reasonable to me (since at that point one does know where they are actually heading).

Now, months before actually moving to the US, without even having the guarantee of actually receiving the Green Card, does seem weird to me. As I said, following their own instructions, I didn't book yet any kind of travel means or accommodation at all.


It somehow reminds me of the difficulties to start a life in France: you need a Bank Account to pay utilities/bills; yet you need a permanent address to open a Bank Account (they need proofs of address...such as bills or bank statements! lol) and in order to get an apartment you need a bank account because they only take cheques as deposits... not that easy to find a loophole unless someone already "inside the system" gives you a hand!

roraimap

Hi Leon_87,

Sometimes UK takes more time to send the police certificates... I will do the interview in Madrid as well. May I send you a PM and asking you two things? Not sure if you want them to answer here.

Thanks and good luck with UK!

ian-mstm

Just a word of caution, it is risky to ask/answer immigration-related questions in private. If nothing else, an open forum allows mistakes and bad information to be quickly corrected.

Ian

superkruz

I had this problem too and solved it by opening a virtual PO Box in the USA. Any mail that arrives can then be forwarded anywhere in the world. Here is the website of USABox.com. It is real cheap and effective.

Leon_87

Following the senior user's advice, I'd say shoot, go ahead and ask publicly! Especially if it's related to the thread somehow (police certificates) or US immigration in general. The info may be of use to others, and as they said before, any wrong information I might give you may be corrected by others that way.

Now, if the question is more about how to get from the airport to the US embassy in Madrid or the airline I'm planning to catch to move to the US, I guess a PM will be just fine

Leon_87

Many thanks for the info!!

It is always very valuable information when someone that has already been through the same says "I've done that and it worked"!

roraimap

OK... I am asking publicly.

Specifically for US embassy in Madrid, did they ask you to give the police certificates with the apostille? I dont find anything in their webpage asking for this.

My other question is that I have lived in three different countries. Two of them about 6 years ago. Is that ok if those police certificates are one year old?

Thanks

roraimap

Could we use a PO Box for delivering the green card id? I didnt know... and thanks, I will save that webpage just in case.

Leon_87

That's the same question I asked above on this very thread. Hence, I don't know. Someone else said (also on this thread) that they did not need them. Since I would assume the US Embassies mostly have the same Visa procedures and requirements everywhere, I would guess the apostille isn't actually needed...

I got the apostille for the 3 police certificates that are already in my possession (ES; FR; CH).

I don't think the British one is going to come with an apostille on it. If so, then I'll just send it that way to the US Embassy. The ACRO website explains that they specialise on "police certificates for VISA applications for the US" and some other countries, and also states that they have agreements with US authorities. Hence, I am guessing that whatever document I'll be getting from the ACRO should be fine the way they send it without any further stamp on it.

No idea about that one. I would assume that if you haven't lived in those countries ever since, it would be logical if it was fine; but logic and reality ain't always walk hand in hand.

Thanks[/QUOTE]

He says he did, so apparently it is ok.

roraimap

Thanks Leon,

What you said about UK is right. Their police certificates are specialized for those countries. I have showed them without apostille and they were perfect.

Good Luck!