06-12-12
Applicants from Mexico looking to secure Canadian Permanent or Temporary Residence know the difficulty of acquiring the state-issued police certificate(s) in addition to the Federal certificate from the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR). Citizenship and Immigration Canada has taken note of these difficulties and effective immediately will no longer request state-issued police certificates.
The CIC cites the increasing difficulty in obtaining the documents coupled with the infrequency of positive criminality results as cause for the change.
Applications for Permanent or Temporary Residence will now require certificates from both the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) and Secretaría de Seguridad Pública (SPP) for applicants who lived for six consecutive months or longer in Mexico since the age of 18.
Applicants and visa offices alike should welcome the change as the SPP certificate is easier to obtain, and also includes a search for law infractions from state databases.
Instructions on obtaining a police certificates from Mexican police authorities has been updated on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s (CIC) website: www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/security/police-cert/north-america/mexico.asp
Information regarding American state police clearances can be found on the FWCanada website at http://www.duicanadaentry.com/state-clearance-policies.html as well all up-to-date matters concerning immigration.
