K-1 - I-129F - Police/court documents and criminal history questions

[penguin00 3]

Hello all,

 

I am the petitioner and I need to collect the necessary documents related to my criminal history for my I-129F packet. I am looking for some clarification/insight regarding what I need to provide for 2c/4a/4b.

 

Some 15-20 years ago I received 3 or 4 charges/convictions for possession of marijuana. One of these charges occurred when I was a minor and I took a diversion course instead of going to court. For any other charges, I took plea offers and plead guilty. These are the only things on my record (nothing trafficking-, violent-, or AWA-related). So, I know I need to answer YES for 2c due to having three or more arrests or convictions, not from a single act, for crimes relating to a controlled substance or alcohol. 

 

Question #1: 

 

Below 2c it mentions: If you were ever arrested or convicted of any of the specified crimes, you must submit certified copies of all court and police records showing the charges and disposition for every arrest or conviction. I have been doing a lot of research into what constitutes court and police records. From my understanding, for the court records portion, I will need to get dispositions from the court for all of my cases. In theory, this sounds like it should be no problem and I plan to go to the courthouse to obtain those documents. However, I am a little confused regarding the police records portion. Can anyone provide clarification into what type of police records I should be requesting and providing in my packet? 

 

Question #2:

 

4b asks to provide information about each of those arrests, citations, charges, indictments, convictions, fines, or imprisonments and include the dates and outcomes. For each case, do I just list the date of each arrest, each charge that occurred during that arrest, and then the final outcome of the court? Like a quick mini-summary of the dispositions? How formal/informal does this information need to be? Can anyone provide insight into the best approach for providing this information? 

 

Thank you so much in advance.

[TBoneTX 47,783]

Welcome to the forum!

 

Others here will have specific suggestions.  In general, your success throughout this entire legal-immigration process depends on your reading carefully, interpreting literally, and answering completely & honestly.  It seems that you're trying to do this; however, a temptation is to read more into a question or instruction than what it literally says.  Being aware of this tendency might help you to narrow some things down, at least partially.

 

Functionally, the intent of the petition's requests for this information is so that your fiancé/fiancée is fully aware and informed of your background, and the visa interview at the consulate will include questions about his/her knowledge.

 

Apologies if you're already aware of the above, but it periodically bears restating.

[penguin00 3]

42 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

Welcome to the forum!

 

Others here will have specific suggestions.  In general, your success throughout this entire legal-immigration process depends on your reading carefully, interpreting literally, and answering completely & honestly.  It seems that you're trying to do this; however, a temptation is to read more into a question or instruction than what it literally says.  Being aware of this tendency might help you to narrow some things down, at least partially.

 

Functionally, the intent of the petition's requests for this information is so that your fiancé/fiancée is fully aware and informed of your background, and the visa interview at the consulate will include questions about his/her knowledge.

 

Apologies if you're already aware of the above, but it periodically bears restating.

 

Thank you TBoneTX for the welcome and for the reminders/advice! Funny, I was just reading your profile a little bit ago.. What a coincidence :)

 

Yes, I do plan to be 100% transparent. My fiance is aware of my history so there should be no surprises during the interview and I plan to share/discuss the documents I am able to obtain with her as well just so she is completely knowledgeable ahead of time.

 

I guess the basis for these questions is because I want to include the exact documents they expect to receive in order to avoid scrambling for an RFE. Also, because the 4b section seems sort of nebulous in terms of how I should detail the information. 

 

Thanks again! 

[TBoneTX 47,783]

You're welcome.  Others here will come along with specific advice, surely.  You're to be commended on your transparency, both actual and intended.

[Dashinka 26,059]

8 hours ago, penguin00 said:

Hello all,

 

I am the petitioner and I need to collect the necessary documents related to my criminal history for my I-129F packet. I am looking for some clarification/insight regarding what I need to provide for 2c/4a/4b.

 

Some 15-20 years ago I received 3 or 4 charges/convictions for possession of marijuana. One of these charges occurred when I was a minor and I took a diversion course instead of going to court. For any other charges, I took plea offers and plead guilty. These are the only things on my record (nothing trafficking-, violent-, or AWA-related). So, I know I need to answer YES for 2c due to having three or more arrests or convictions, not from a single act, for crimes relating to a controlled substance or alcohol. 

 

Question #1: 

 

Below 2c it mentions: If you were ever arrested or convicted of any of the specified crimes, you must submit certified copies of all court and police records showing the charges and disposition for every arrest or conviction. I have been doing a lot of research into what constitutes court and police records. From my understanding, for the court records portion, I will need to get dispositions from the court for all of my cases. In theory, this sounds like it should be no problem and I plan to go to the courthouse to obtain those documents. However, I am a little confused regarding the police records portion. Can anyone provide clarification into what type of police records I should be requesting and providing in my packet? 

Not positive relative to arrest records, but most police departments maintain a records unit to get things like a police report from a crash.  If you know the police department that had jurisdiction over your arrests, I would start there and see if they have an option to request your police records.

8 hours ago, penguin00 said:

 

Question #2:

 

4b asks to provide information about each of those arrests, citations, charges, indictments, convictions, fines, or imprisonments and include the dates and outcomes. For each case, do I just list the date of each arrest, each charge that occurred during that arrest, and then the final outcome of the court? Like a quick mini-summary of the dispositions? How formal/informal does this information need to be? Can anyone provide insight into the best approach for providing this information? 

 

Thank you so much in advance.

Yes, this appears to be a quick mini-summary of your arrests (maybe more detail than you showed above).  Since all the court and police records are included as part of 2c., this appears to be a summary form of those for quick reference by the USCIS staff.

 

Good Luck!

[penguin00 3]

Thank you Dashinka! Today, I plan to go to the courthouse and hopefully the police department as well to see what I can collect. 

 

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

  Since all the court and police records are included as part of 2c., this appears to be a summary form of those for quick reference by the USCIS staff.

 

Ah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. I am assuming this can be pretty informal then and just needs to be a 'statement of facts' summarizing each case and their outcome. 

[JeanneAdil 7,209]

send copies / u may need originals when completeing the AOS process here in the USA

[Dashinka 26,059]

23 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

send copies / u may need originals when completeing the AOS process here in the USA

Keep in mind the OP is the USC petitioner, but I agree with sending copies and retaining the original documents from the courts/police.

[Edward and Jaycel 2,072]

1 hour ago, JeanneAdil said:

send copies / u may need originals when completeing the AOS process here in the USA

NO! Send the certified, with seal court records to USCIS. This is why I got an RFE on my I-129F. They wanted the certified, sealed court dispositions. As for the police records, most departments have a FOIA request process. Use that to request any arrest/incident reports for your case. In my specific case, I got a response from the police agency that the records were so old that they met their protocols to destroy the records and I sent this response from them into USCIS along with the certified, with seal court dispositions. If you think you will need these papers for your AOS (Jaycel and I did not require them for her AOS) order extra copies from the court.

[Scott-Ilyn 93]

3 hours ago, penguin00 said:

Today, I plan to go to the courthouse and hopefully the police department as well to see what I can collect.

In my case, most of the information I needed was in the court documents (including police reports).  So, start at the courthouse first.

[penguin00 3]

Thank you all. I went to the courthouse to request certified copies of my dispositions. I'm supposed to get those in 7-14 days. Have a good feeling they will be able to provide what I need. 

 

I also went to the police department. They were a bit difficult to work with. I got a copy of my criminal history and they stamped it "true & certified" after questioning them about it. It's just a single piece of paper on letterhead with a short list of dates, crimes, and dispositions. But I feel like this probably isn't going to be what USCIS wants to see from the police side of things? I guess I expected to obtain police reports for each case.... Not really sure. I might return to them in a few days and see there's anymore records I can possibly obtain from them.

Edited Wednesday at 06:32 PM by penguin00

[Edward and Jaycel 2,072]

38 minutes ago, penguin00 said:

But I feel like this probably isn't going to be what USCIS wants to see from the police side of things?

 

I think this may be just fine with them as long as you have court certified dispositions. The FOIA request response I got from the police agency wasn't even a physical letter, just an email response.

 

[JeanneAdil 7,209]

3 hours ago, Edward and Jaycel said:

NO! Send the certified, with seal court records to USCIS. This is why I got an RFE on my I-129F. They wanted the certified, sealed court dispositions. As for the police records, most departments have a FOIA request process. Use that to request any arrest/incident reports for your case. In my specific case, I got a response from the police agency that the records were so old that they met their protocols to destroy the records and I sent this response from them into USCIS along with the certified, with seal court dispositions. If you think you will need these papers for your AOS (Jaycel and I did not require them for her AOS) order extra copies from the court.

I am wrong so please delete my answer 

[TBoneTX 47,783]

1 hour ago, JeanneAdil said:

I am wrong so please delete my answer 

Thanks for your admission and request, but it was corrected in the thread, as so often happens.   

The extra discussion is actually helpful.