Hi, everyone. I am Attorney Megan Pastrana of Immigration for Couples and I'm here
for our weekly live immigration attorney chat. There are a lot of individuals who are being
scheduled for their consular interviews at US embassies and
consulates in other countries. We've been seeing an uptick in interviews being scheduled and so,
a lot of individuals are asking about the police clearance certificate requirements. There are
also people in our Facebook group who are just being proactive and wanting to understand more
about the police clearance certificate requirements. That part of the process;
getting and collecting civil documents especially if you've lived in multiple countries can be
a bit overwhelming and so, I wanted to provide some clarity about the police clearance
certificates. The first thing I wanted to talk with you with regards to police
police clearance certificates is their validity period. This comes
straight from the National Visa Center website, the police clearance certificates are valid
for two years. There are a lot of countries that will issue police clearance certificates,
the United Arab Emirates is one that comes to mind, where they will issue a police clearance
certificate and it's only valid for three months. There are other countries that will
say it's only valid for a month or six months. That can become confusing because that
is that particular country's validity period.
But for all intents and purposes, the United States and for your immigration process,
the National Visa Center does say that police clearance certificates are valid for two years.
It is important to pay attention to those interview requirements because they can
change and they can sometimes vary by consulate because if you happen to be living in a certain
country, they might have a reduced period of time that that police clearance is valid. But in general,
the National Visa Center says they're valid for two years.
The last thing that I wanted to clarify on police clearance certificates is I've noticed
that there are a lot of individuals who are applying for adjustment of status,
that is a process where you complete the process here in the United States to receive your green card,
you complete the entire process here and I've had some individuals on the YouTube channel
and in our Facebook group asking about police clearance certificates for adjustment of status.
I think they might be getting confused with consular processing, which is the process that
happens at a US embassy or consulate abroad. But in general, for the adjustment of status
process, you aren't having to obtain police clearance certificates from other countries.
However, please understand if you have had criminal history in another country
then you would have to get certified criminal records or a police clearance
in that instance. But in general, for the adjustment of status, those police clearance certificates
aren't required in the same way that they are for the consular process or for fiancé visa cases.
I hope that that helps give you some clarity on police clearance certificates.
Again, I know we had a lot of questions in the Facebook group and that kind of covered
at the main questions that everyone had with police clearance certificates.
There was one more, I did see that I had one more question here in the Facebook group
about police clearance certificates and that was, "What if I can't obtain the police clearance
letter?" The individual was asking, "I've been trying to obtain it from this particular
country and it only says that I can obtain it in person, but I live very far away and there isn't
a way for me to go in person." Again, I'll use the United Arab Emirates as an example.
Their police clearance certificates can only be obtained in person and there's quite a few
countries like that where you have to be in person to obtain the police clearance.
Depending on the circumstances and depending on the country where you need to obtain the
police clearance, a lot of times US embassies and consulates will say that they will allow that
requirement to be waived if it's too difficult. In some
countries, if there is civil strife or you're unable to go there safely
or if it's just impossible for you to make it. Sometimes, you can ask for a
waiver. There are some countries where the embassy or the National Visa Center will actually say
we encourage consular officers to
waive this police clearance requirement because of certain extenuating circumstances.
That doesn't mean that you can get every single clearance letter waived. A lot of police
clearance letters can actually be obtained online like the United Kingdom. There's quite a few countries
that allow for you to be able to actually get that police clearance letter online and
there's also ways that if you have a family member there or if you can hire an attorney
there in that country to be able to obtain it for you, it's always better to get the police clearance
letter. But if you're really in a predicament where there's no way
because of extenuating circumstances, civil strife, something happening in that country
or maybe for particular personal reasons you can't, you can try to ask for a waiver of that
requirement. It's always better to try to get the letters to prevent any kind of unnecessary delay.
I'm looking here at our Facebook group and all those questions,
that definitely did cover all of the questions I had or police clearance requirements. If you have
additional questions, please let me know and I'm happy to make more videos on this topic.