Mountain Man

I was going through the reams of paperwork involved in my current K1 visa application and the thought occurred to me (being a procrastinator is one of my biggest pitfalls!), when applying for the ACPO Police Certificate one of the questions is "Have you ever lived in Scotland?"

Now, being Scottish, I had to tick yes to this question. However, if I were English or Welsh, the certificate would have come back as "No Live Trace" if there were previous convictions. In fairness, the applicant would then have to obtain a PNC printout of all previous convictions (yes, no? )

So, by being Scottish (not that it's a bad thing ) I am not allowed to have a standard certificate where it states "No Live Trace" for previous convictions, I get all of my previous convictions listed on the certificate.

Even though they were all over seven years ago, which you don't have to declare in Scots Law to any employers, etc., yet the rules are different for two people from the United Kingdom applying for the same visa?

My apologies for the little rant, but I just wondered what everyone else's opinion was on this matter? I guess I'm just being a worry-wart (as my OH puts it).

ian-mstm

While the circumstances may be different, the rules are the same... because US law doesn't much care whether or not you were allowed not to declare the issues to your employer. You must declare them regardless of what the ACPO certificate might say.

Or am I misunderstanding the question?

Ian

Mountain Man

Ian, I was just commenting on the difference between having to declare everything because I am Scottish, whereas if I was English the certificate would only say "No Live Trace." Unless I am mistaken, then this would only delay the application?

Not really a question, just looking for clarification I guess!

JAJ

In fact, a "clear" ACPO certificate says "No Trace", not "No Live Trace".
Or are you telling us that you do have some convictions in your background?

civilservant

He clearly said he does have convictions. You would be required to disclose these regardless of what the ACPO certificate says.

lansbury

The law in England and Wales is different to the law in Scotland. Scotland makes their own laws. Unless things have changed since I last accessed the Police National Computer (Nov 2006), convictions from Scotland are not on it. So if things haven't changed English/Welsh and Scots convictions come from two different systems and are controlled by the laws in their respective countries.

However if you got an English certificate which had "no live trace" on it, you would still have to get full details of those convictions for US immigration purposes. Therefore there is no practical difference to what you have to declare. In fact there has been some changes I believe to the system inside the US Embassy whereby if they receive a certificate with 'no live trace' on it, they can obtain full details of the convictions themselves.