I submitted my PR application in May 2018 while I was residing in the USA and moved to CANADA in Sep 2018 directly from the USA after I got my PR approval.
I am preparing to submit my citizenship application in the next two months. I have a question regarding police certificates. I submitted police clearance certificates from INDIA (Issued in May 2018) and the USA (Issued in March 2018) along with my PR application in May 2018.
I have been to INDIA for 2-3 weeks after I got my PR. No other travel. No travel to the USA.
Can I use the same police clearance certificates I submitted with my PR application towards my citizenship application or do I need to get new police clearance certificates covering my time in the USA from MARCH to SEP 2018 and also for the 2-3 weeks travel to India?
Summary:
(1) No need to include a PCC from the U.S. (assuming you have not been in the U.S. since the date you landed and became a PR); this is based on Example 1 in the instructions/guide for item 10. List in 10.b) chart and explain.
(2) If you were in India for 183 days or more within the FOUR years immediately prior to the date you apply for citizenship, you will need to list India and provide a new PCC.
(3) The PCCs you submitted with PR application, for the U.S. and India, do not meet the requirements for PCCs submitted with citizenship application; they are more than six months old AND you have been in the U.S. and in India AFTER those PCCs were issued.
EXPLANATION:
The response by
@deadbird properly focuses on what matters. Remember:
if in doubt, follow the instructions; otherwise, yep, follow the instructions.
That includes working through the instructions step-by-step. For purposes of providing a PCC with a citizenship application, the first step is accurately responding to item 10.b) . . . "
In the past four (4) years were you in a country or territory other than Canada for 183 days or more in a row?"
If the answer to that is "
yes," you list that country or countries (if there was more than one) in the chart provided. The presumption is the applicant needs to provide a PCC for each country listed in that chart.
If you make your application tomorrow, September 28, 2021, the relevant four years is September 28, 2017 to September 28, 2021. If you were in the U.S. for 183 days or more in a row during those four years, you need to list the U.S. in the chart. And you need to include a PCC from the U.S. UNLESS an exception applies.
Similarly for India. If you apply tomorrow and between September 28, 2017 and September 28, 2021 you were in India for 183 days or more in a row during those four years, you need to list India in the chart. And you need to include a PCC from India UNLESS an exception applies.
Countries Listed in 10.b) Chart:
To be clear, even if an exception applies, even if you figure out that no PCC needs to be submitted for a country, that does not determine whether the country needs to be listed. If you were in a country 183 or more days in a row within the relevant four years, that country needs to be listed in the chart.
For clarity and emphasis . . . you need to list any country in which you spent 183 days or more, in a row, between September 28, 2017 and September 28, 2021 (based on an application made tomorrow).
For every country listed, you need to declare whether or not you are submitting a PCC (center column in chart). If you are not submitting a PCC for a country listed in the chart, you need to provide an explanation . . . either why you cannot provide a PCC or why a PCC is not necessary based on an "
exception."
Generally, assume a PCC needs to be submitted for any country listed in the chart (will elaborate as to the exception below).
Bringing this to your query, which is whether a PCC submitted with the PR application can be used with the citizenship application.
Can Previously Used PCC be submitted?
Again, unless an exception applies, for each country listed in the chart for item 10.b) the applicant is instructed to include a PCC with the application.
The instructions for this are clear, right there in the application form.
The police certificate must EITHER have been issued AFTER the last time you were in that country, OR within the last six months.
So, if you need to submit a PCC for the U.S. or India, you cannot use the same one as provided with your PR application UNLESS you have NOT been in that country since that PCC was issued.
So no, you clearly cannot use the PCC from India used in your PR application, since it is clear you have returned to that country since then.
Technically you were in the U.S. AFTER the PCC from the U.S. was issued (PCC issued in March 2018, and you were still in the U.S. until September 2018), so NO, that PCC cannot be used for your citizenship application.
The latter, however, brings up a question about whether the country of origin exception applies. And if so, in what way does it apply.
Country of Origin Exception:
This is where things are not so clear, and it is what the back-and-forth between
@wink and
@CaBeaver is largely about. They are focused on whether the "
country of origin" is the country of the PR's nationality, or the country where the PR was living at the time of applying for and being granted PR, up to the time the PR actually landed (became a permanent resident).
This exception is stated in the application form itself:
If you were in your country or territory of origin immediately prior to becoming a permanent resident and landing in Canada and this time falls within this four (4) year period, you are not required to provide a police certificate. Please indicate this in the explanation box.
It is similarly (not exactly) stated in the instructions/guide.
Regarding this
@wink references (with link) post by
@rajkamalmohanram:
You have stayed in the US for more than 183 days in the past 4 years. I would consider US as your "Country of origin" because you were "residing" in the US immediately prior to establishing Permanent Residency in Canada so in this case, you would not have to provide US PCC.
(Note: I may have made inconsistent observations about this in the past. "
Country of origin" sounds more like one's nationality than just where one happened to be when they applied for Canadian PR. But . . . )
The closest any of the examples provided in the instructions/guide comes to illuminating more about this is Example 1:
You lived in France for one year (365 days) before you became a permanent resident 3 years ago. You did not travel to France after you became a permanent resident. You would answer “Yes” to the question and you would need to provide a police certificate from France if you did not provide one with your immigration application. If you provided a police certificate from France with your immigration application, tell us this in the box provided at Question 10b.
Apart from whether this is specifically intended to be an explanation for the country-of-origin exception, it appears to apply to you and the U.S. --
-- you were living in the U.S. "before you became a permanent resident," and was there for more than 183 days in a row, and you did not travel to the U.S. "after you became a permanent resident." And you provided a PCC from the U.S. with your immigration application.
All of which adds up to supporting the conclusion you do not need to submit a PCC from the U.S. Whether this example is explicitly explaining how the country-of-origin exception applies or something else.
But that is probably the easy fork in your query. Last I looked (though others here are more on top of this than me), obtaining a PCC from the U.S. is not complicated, not difficult, and can be done within a relatively reasonable period of time. And to avoid the possibility of being asked for a U.S. PCC later, which would be a non-routine procedure and potentially slow if not outright delay processing, deciding to get that PCC and submit it with the application makes sense . . . no need to explain why it is included, you checked "yes" to item 10.b) and listed the U.S., so you included a PCC from the U.S.
My sense is that what you are really interested in figuring out is whether you can avoid obtaining and submitting a PCC from India.
So, What About India?
For purposes of determining if you need to submit a PCC from India, it does NOT matter if India, if your country of nationality, is considered your country of origin . . . since the country-of-origin exception depends on being in that country "
immediately prior to becoming a permanent resident," and you were not, but rather you were in the U.S.
So, if you were in India for 183 days or more within the FOUR years immediately prior to the date you apply for citizenship, you will need to list India and provide a new PCC. Thus, for example, if you apply tomorrow and between September 28, 2017 and September 28, 2021 you were in India for 183 days or more in a row during those four years, you need to list India in the chart. And you need to include a new PCC from India.
