Sponsored Spouse Worked Abroad - Police Checks?

[RapsFan905]

Hi there, my wife and I are currently in the process of applying for sponsorship for her to move to Canada. She has been living in America for over 6 months now and spent most of her adult life there. However, she studied abroad in Turkey for 9 months, and worked as an English teacher in Korea for 1 year as well. Does she require background checks for both Turkey and South Korea, as well as America?

We are a bit confused because in the guide it states that we need to submit a criminal check for:

-the country where you currently live, if you have lived there for more than 6 months; and
- the country you have spent most of your adult life

Under this definition, she would only need an American criminal check, however when reading about criminal record checks on another part of the guide, it says that she needs a criminal check for any country she has spent more than 6 months.

Does anyone have experience with this?

Thank you very much!

 

[Survivor27]

Hi there, my wife and I are currently in the process of applying for sponsorship for her to move to Canada. She has been living in America for over 6 months now and spent most of her adult life there. However, she studied abroad in Turkey for 9 months, and worked as an English teacher in Korea for 1 year as well. Does she require background checks for both Turkey and South Korea, as well as America?

We are a bit confused because in the guide it states that we need to submit a criminal check for:

-the country where you currently live, if you have lived there for more than 6 months; and
- the country you have spent most of your adult life

Under this definition, she would only need an American criminal check, however when reading about criminal record checks on another part of the guide, it says that she needs a criminal check for any country she has spent more than 6 months.

Does anyone have experience with this?

Thank you very much!

Yes

 

[danawhitaker]

Hi there, my wife and I are currently in the process of applying for sponsorship for her to move to Canada. She has been living in America for over 6 months now and spent most of her adult life there. However, she studied abroad in Turkey for 9 months, and worked as an English teacher in Korea for 1 year as well. Does she require background checks for both Turkey and South Korea, as well as America?

We are a bit confused because in the guide it states that we need to submit a criminal check for:

-the country where you currently live, if you have lived there for more than 6 months; and
- the country you have spent most of your adult life

Under this definition, she would only need an American criminal check, however when reading about criminal record checks on another part of the guide, it says that she needs a criminal check for any country she has spent more than 6 months.

Does anyone have experience with this?

Thank you very much!

It seems like no, according to the new procedure. Both the short guide and the full guide only specify the country you currently live and then where you've spent the most time since 18. And the wording on the police certificate section says, "You may need a police certificate from any country or territory that you have spent six months or more since the age of 18."

At the same time, I would make sure that if you need to obtain the others, it can be done relatively quickly, and initiate the process soon if not (or if you'd be more comfortable doing so). I recall seeing wording somewhere at some point since they released the new application kit that implies they could decide to ask for more police certificates from those other places at any point. It would still be valid if she no longer lived in those countries, as the page says, "the police certificate must be issued after you last lived in that country or territory."

With all the changes, what we don't know is how they're going to handle asking for the other ones. They may end up asking for the other certificates, they may not. There may be very specific criteria they use to decide whether or not they want to ask for them. And we haven't had enough people going through yet under the new application kit to get a feel for what their expectations are.

If it were me, I'd probably get the other police certificates anyway, in case they asked, in order to avoid delays after being asked for them. But I'm also overly cautious, and my husband and I were really tired of being apart and anything that would have added extra time would have had me being more cautious than necessary.

Edit: I found the wording I was talking about:

Police certificates: Applicants need to provide only the police certificates from:
the country where they currently live; and
the country where they have spent most of their adult life since the age of 18 (if different from the country where they live).
We’ll request other police certificates only if needed.

That's at this link: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=1320&top=14

 

[RapsFan905]

Thank you both for your responses! Dana - we also were confused slightly about the wording. It would appear she only needs a U.S. criminal record check, but there's wording that makes it seem that the other countries may be required too! I am going to call Immigration Services to double check, but I totally agree with you that if I cannot find the answer to have all 3 prepared just in case!

 

[RapsFan905]

Questions like this make us both wonder if we would be better off getting a Consultation Service to help us, but we both feel we have a pretty solid grasp of everything. Saving the $2,700 consultation fee is also a big bonus of doing it yourself. Did you both do your application independently?

 

[danawhitaker]

Questions like this make us both wonder if we would be better off getting a Consultation Service to help us, but we both feel we have a pretty solid grasp of everything. Saving the $2,700 consultation fee is also a big bonus of doing it yourself. Did you both do your application independently?

My husband and I did our application ourselves. I spent a lot of time on the forums here prior to applying, trying to find the answers to things that confused us. Sometimes I couldn't find a concrete answer, but I don't think we would have gotten better answers from a lawyer or consultant, either.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

Thank you both for your responses! Dana - we also were confused slightly about the wording. It would appear she only needs a U.S. criminal record check, but there's wording that makes it seem that the other countries may be required too! I am going to call Immigration Services to double check, but I totally agree with you that if I cannot find the answer to have all 3 prepared just in case!

Don't bother with the Call Centre; they can barely answer the most basic questions.

Prior to the new application, PCCs were required for all countries where the applicant spent 6 months or more. Since the new package came out, there hasn't really been enough information to determine how strict IRCC is being about which PCCs they require and the website, as you have discovered, can be a bit ambiguous.

As said above, look into the process so you know what you are facing if they are requested.

Questions like this make us both wonder if we would be better off getting a Consultation Service to help us, but we both feel we have a pretty solid grasp of everything. Saving the $2,700 consultation fee is also a big bonus of doing it yourself. Did you both do your application independently?

The vast majority of people do it themselves. Pretty much no one on the forum will recommend hiring someone. There are so many horror stories on here of how consultants/lawyers screwed up apps.

 

[RapsFan905]

Thank you both once again! We both were slightly hesitant to drop the money on a consultant considering we both feel pretty comfortable with the application (just small little things like this topic are tripping us up). However, it is very obvious there is a great community of people here who have been through the same thing and are willing to share their experience. I will be flying back to Canada tomorrow and plan on calling the call centre. If I do manage to get some solid answers I will post it up here for anyone else in the same situation!

We're mostly worried about slipping up on a little thing and having our application revoked, but are those who handle applications somewhat lenient if there are minor mistakes (as long as we take prompt action to correct them)?

Cheers!

 

[RapsFan905]

Hi there, just a follow up to anyone else in a similar situation! I called Canada Immigration a few days ago and was told that it is prudent to obtain Criminal Record Checks for ALL countries you have lived in. They may not ask for all of them, but due to time constraints, it is recommended you have them all ready in case they are asked for. Hope this helps anyone else in this situation!

 

[lemain]

Hi there, just a follow up to anyone else in a similar situation! I called Canada Immigration a few days ago and was told that it is prudent to obtain Criminal Record Checks for ALL countries you have lived in. They may not ask for all of them, but due to time constraints, it is recommended you have them all ready in case they are asked for. Hope this helps anyone else in this situation!

Hi - Hope you application is going well, I wanted to ask if you needed to produce the other certificates in the end? Thanks!

 

[kcward7]

Hi - Hope you application is going well, I wanted to ask if you needed to produce the other certificates in the end? Thanks!

You should get them. We were asked for all.