Police Certificate

[VivaVictoria 0]

Hi all,

 

I submitted all the required documents for my mom and dad to NVC in August 2020. One of the documents they had to submit both was Hungarian Police Certificate (They obtained it on July 14th 2020, submitted to NVC in on Aug 29th). The certificate said that it expires in 90 days after it was issued. So at the time it was submitted it was valid. In November 2020 we recieved a notification that my mom's case got approved while my dad's Hugarian police certificate got rejected with the explanation "please submit a document from a correct issuing authority per guidelines". I checked the guidelines and the certificate, the issuing authority was correct. I called NVC, and the representative did not know why my mom's certificate got accepted and my dad's not, and she suggested to resubmit the same certificate and add a note that the issuing authority is correct. I did it right away in November 2020. On March 1st we received the same notification saying that it was rejected and we need submit a document from a correct issuing authority per guidelines. I used the AskNVC form and asked why my mom's certificate was accepted while my dad's not, and why we are asked to provide a document from a correct issuing authority if it was issued by the authority stated in the guidelines. I also called NVC and the case got escalated to a supervisor review. Today we received a notification saying that his police certificate has expired, please submit a new one. #######? I feel like I am running in circles. First two reasons did not mention anything about expiration. Looks like they are just trying to find a reason to reject it. I called NVC but I was told i need to wait until Monday as the case hasn't been reviewed by the supervisor yet. Does it matter that at the time the certificate was submitted, it was valid? It is not my fault that it took NVC a lot if time to review the case, plus if following the logic, my mom's certificate should have been rejected too. Did anyone have a similar situation?

Edited March 4, 2021 by VivaVictoria

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

Does it meet the specifications in the DoS reciprocity table? That’s what you need to go by, not whether they accepted another one (even if the other one was your mom’s). Specifically note the comments section re the guidelines. They actually have an email address for inquiries (this is not the case for most countries ), which you could perhaps use if you feel everything has been adhered to.

 

 

Police Certificates

Available

Fees: The fee must be paid by postal check provided with the request form.

Document Name: hatósági erkölcsi bizonyítvány (Certificate of Criminal Record)

Issuing Authority: Ministry of Interior, Department of Criminal Registry (Bűnügyi Nyilvántartó Hatóság)

Mailing address: 1476 Budapest Pf.380.

Special Seal(s) / Color / Format: green

Issuing Authority Personnel Title: Department of Criminal Registry

Registration Criteria: There are no registration criteria.

Procedure for Obtaining: Certificate of criminal record request forms are available at Hungarian post offices.  The certificate is issued within five working days from receipt of the request.  The certificate is issued only in Hungarian.  Non-residents should apply for certificates at the Hungarian Embassy or Consulate in their country of their residence.  The certificate will be forwarded to the Hungarian Embassy or Consulate by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.  The Hungarian Embassy or Consulate may charge a fee for the service. 

Certified Copies Available: Certified copies are not available.

Alternate Documents: There are no alternate documents.

Exceptions: Five bolded lines with NEM SZEREPEL listed twice on two separate lines.

Comments: Please note that the person requesting the certificate of criminal record must indicate in question 4 of the request form that the certificate is requested for an immigrant visa application to the United States. Failure to do so will generate a certificate that may not reflect the full extent of the person’s criminal history and should not be considered sufficient to support an application for a U.S. immigration benefit.  If you have questions, please contact usconsular.budapest@state.gov.

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by SusieQQQ

[VivaVictoria 0]

Yes, it does meet the specifications in the DoS reciprocity table. The first thing I did when we received the notice that my dad's Hungarian Police certificate was not accepted was checking their guidelines. I asked my dad if they had mentioned at the Hungary Embassy that they needed it for the US immigrant visa and he said "yes". When I first talked to the NVC representative on the phone, she looked at this certificate too and said she did not know why it was not accepted and suggested to resubmit the same certificate. I did email at usconsular.budapest@state.gov but they just sent me an instruction how to obtain a police certificate, that's it. So no help from them.

And I think it does matter that one of the certificate was accepted without any problem and another one is not taking into account that these were the identical certificates.

[Villanelle 4,121]

I suggest you focus on obtaining a new (current) certificate at this point. You are probably not going to get any specific answer to why it was rejected nor convince them to accept the expired one because it is currently expired. I suppose someone somewhere has the authority to override the rejection and enter it in (in a backdated fashion) so the system will show valid and accepted on the earlier submission date (so it can be used) but chances are small that will happen. 

 

You will find NVC (and USCIS) use generic pre-generated phrases for RFEs and such, which makes it very hard to figure out what the issue is. It could be that the copy you scanned in for Dad was blurry or a bit was cut off. If so you will get the same message of 'submit a document per guidelines' as someone who submitted the wrong document would. It doesn't specify which guideline your document failed to meet. 

 

[VivaVictoria 0]

2 minutes ago, Villanelle said:

I suggest you focus on obtaining a new (current) certificate at this point. You are probably not going to get any specific answer to why it was rejected nor convince them to accept the expired one because it is currently expired. I suppose someone somewhere has the authority to override the rejection and enter it in (in a backdated fashion) so the system will show valid and accepted on the earlier submission date (so it can be used) but chances are small that will happen. 

 

You will find NVC (and USCIS) use generic pre-generated phrases for RFEs and such, which makes it very hard to figure out what the issue is. It could be that the copy you scanned in for Dad was blurry or a bit was cut off. If so you will get the same message of 'submit a document per guidelines' as someone who submitted the wrong document would. It doesn't specify which guideline your document failed to meet. 

 

It is just frustrating. Then my mom's certificate should not have been accepted either as it expired in mid Oct but it was accepted in Nov. I will wait for the supervisor's review, someone should know the answer. And it is very strange that the first two reasons for the rejection were not related to the expiration. It is not easy to get a new one as it can be obtained only in person at the Hungarian Embassy which is located in Moscow, and my parents do not live in Moscow, they had to travel there two times to get it (first time to request it and second time to get it) 😭I will try to ask the supervisor to override it and let my dad bring a current certificate on the interview. Btw, when the interview is scheduled for my mom, can she change the date? She won't go there without my dad as they are planning to come to the US together, that's why all the documents were submitted simultaneously for both cases.

[Villanelle 4,121]

Well I do hope a supervisor is able to sort this for you since its a huge hardship to get another certificate. Honestly the internal NVC process is not my area of expertise so I am hoping perhaps a user more familiar will join the discussion and be able to provide you with some guidance. Perhaps this thread should be moved to the NVC subforum? Check with the mods..

 

I can tell you that when it comes time for the interview to be scheduled the immigrant schedules it themselves so it shouldn't be a problem to have mom wait a bit for dads paperwork to be settled so they can set their interviews for the same time. NVC has a general one year contact requirement to keep cases active- I dont think this issue is going to take that long to resolve. 

 

Also make sure you have the document ready for when you speak to the supervisor in case they are able to help you. Again it needs to be scanned properly. If the file is upside down or sideways it wont be accepted. It needs to be clear and can not have any parts cut off so you may need to resize it down to 'letter' size if it is on a larger sized paper. The max size is 2mb and many times programs that reduce the file size also reduce the clarity. There are various posts (mostly in the NVC subforum) about tips on what programs to use or not use.  Its odd that moms certificate was accepted though if you scanned them using the same method and the papers themselves were similar in terms of layout and content except as I said pehaps Dads was scanned upside down? I would also suggest attempting to open the pdf on a different device then what you have it saved on. Many times our computers will do what can be described as  'auto display' corrections, so what you see on your device may not be exactly what the file shows when a different device opens it. You can also print the pdf to see exactly what it looks like but again check your printers settings to ensure its not auto cropping or adjusting size. It also might be a good idea to go to an Office Depot type store and have them create a pdf file for you or resize it properly if you are not that computer savvy. 

 

 

 

[alyfarhan 0]

I suggest to please obtain a new certificate. If the validity was 90 days and the review took longer than that then they will reject the document (depends on the reviewer too sometimes). Yes it is not your fault that NVC took long time to review but the document should be valid during the review process. 

[VivaVictoria 0]

To be continued...We obtained a new certificate from the Hungarian Embassy in March 2021, and this certificate hasn't been accepted either with the same standard  message "Please replace this with an acceptable police certificate from a correct issuing authority. Please use our Document Finder at https://nvc.state.gov/find for acceptable documents guidelines." I attached two screenshots of the certificate (top and bottom of the same page) that was issued by the Hungarian Embassy. I blacked out the personal info. I do not know what to do as there is no other document that you can get at the Hungarian Embassy. 

[ws1889 19]

On 5/11/2021 at 3:09 AM, VivaVictoria said:

To be continued...We obtained a new certificate from the Hungarian Embassy in March 2021, and this certificate hasn't been accepted either with the same standard  message "Please replace this with an acceptable police certificate from a correct issuing authority. Please use our Document Finder at https://nvc.state.gov/find for acceptable documents guidelines." I attached two screenshots of the certificate (top and bottom of the same page) that was issued by the Hungarian Embassy. I blacked out the personal info. I do not know what to do as there is no other document that you can get at the Hungarian Embassy. 

Hi, did you ever find a solution to this issue?

[VivaVictoria 0]

38 minutes ago, ws1889 said:

Hi, did you ever find a solution to this issue?

Hi, yes. It turned out that a certificate for non residents looks the same but it has another wording in the main body paragraph. I ordered this certificate from a third party agency and explained them what the certificate should say word by word, and they were able to obtain it for me.

[ws1889 19]

28 minutes ago, VivaVictoria said:

Hi, yes. It turned out that a certificate for non residents looks the same but it has another wording in the main body paragraph. I ordered this certificate from a third party agency and explained them what the certificate should say word by word, and they were able to obtain it for me.

Glad to hear that! Did you have to provide an official translation of the document from Hungarian to English?

[VivaVictoria 0]

Just now, ws1889 said:

Glad to hear that! Did you have to provide an official translation of the document from Hungarian to English?

Yes, I provided the original certificate with the certified translation from Hungarian to English.

[ws1889 19]

On 11/17/2021 at 10:41 PM, VivaVictoria said:

Yes, I provided the original certificate with the certified translation from Hungarian to English.

Sorry for the belated response, but thank you so much! If you have a company you recommend, please share. Wishing you all the best.