Acceptable Police Clearance for American?

Just out of curiosity, what is considered an acceptable police clearance, particularly for people from the US? I sent a letter from the California Department of Justice showing no criminal history, but they seem underwhelmed. Have people needed to go through the FBI?

What's your application about?

Naturalization, adult, been here more than 5 years.

fuzzbizz wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:42 am

Naturalization, adult, been here more than 5 years.

What, exactly, were you asked to provide? You should check the wording carefully.

In my (similar) application I haven't been asked for a police cert of any sort from my previous country.

There is no requirement to provide a police clearance for naturalisation applications - unless they explicitly ask you to provide one.

I didn't need one for the application, but the second stage letter specified that I needed a Police Clearance Certificate from any country I've lived in. The wording is pretty vague (I don't blame them; countries will vary) but I was curious if anyone else had used the FBI one, their stat's Department of Justice, etc.

I think they were underwhelmed with the response from the California Department of Justice; it's not on letterhead and is quite brief.

In that case you need one from the federal government instead of your regional/state government.

https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ident ... ary-checks

I don’t understand how they choose who needs a police certificate though. I (along with many people who have been approved or in second stage) didn’t have to provide one. Some others did. Don’t know whether this is random or based on something else (I provided my police cert for my first Irish visa application).

fuzzbizz wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:01 pm

I think they were underwhelmed with the response from the California Department of Justice; it's not on letterhead and is quite brief.

What do you mean by "underwhelmed"? Generally they'll either accept evidence, or not. I agree with @littlerr - get the FBI one as you were asked to provide clearance from the country, not state.

If you ever get Garda vetted in Ireland you need to provide the federal (FBI history summary) report. This covers all states, rather than just the one or few you have lived in. I imagine INIS follows the same guidelines as the Gards but it's weird they didn't note that in the first place. To be on the safe side with my own application, I provided a copy of my FBI history summary which I needed for Garda vetting/my job.

Thanks, sounds like I need to go with FBI then.

Re: underwhelmed, they sent a letter asking for "all documentation included with the original report from the California Department of Justice" - which was a bit strange since I'd already sent them everything.