Any US expats here get a PR visa in another country? I am working on getting my permanent residency visa here in Australia. Yesterday I just mailed in my paperwork to the FBI for my background check. Their webpage is telling me that the processing time is a brief 12-14 weeks. Not sure why it is taking them so long, unless there is that big of a backlog to cause a delay in processing. My background check with the Australian Federal Police cleared in about a week.

I guess I have watched too many old crime/police shows. I had to get my fingerprints for the FBI check, and was disappointed when the police here in Sydney did it digitally, I was hoping to get the ink onto my hands and press it onto the paper.

Your FBI background check falls in line with other types of FBI background checks for dozens of purposes.

My wife and I volunteer as campground hosts at national parks, state parks, USFS parks, US Army Coros of Engineers campgrounds, etc. Each application requires a newly updated FBI background check.

Thankfully we had electronic fingerprints done in 2014, so we don't have to do them again until 2019.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of requests for background checks going on to the FBI every day. For non-criminal purposes.

If you go to a store and buy an ink pad and paper, you can sit at home and do that all day long!

I thought all fingerprinting was electronic these days?

10-15 years ago I got my fingerprints taken for my ID, with ink and paper, but it wasn't that fun as it was invisible ink !

One of the things my wife and I discovered is that older women are extremely difficult to impossible to fingerprint by ink and paper.

Apparently prolonged use of hand creams and cosmetics causes the fingertips to retain moisture and make the loops and swirls very difficult to display properly.

When they did her electronic fingerprints several fingers had to be done several times before they got a good enough image.

What is the process for Australian PR? About how long does it take?

csturdiv wrote:

Yesterday I just mailed in my paperwork to the FBI for my background check.

The FBI gets involved when you want to leave your country?

best regards
Thomas

A deep Background check here involves a request from the Federal Central Registry. The Name of the government agency is irrelevant, as long as you don't need a permission to leave the country

tommy1808 wrote:

csturdiv wrote:

Yesterday I just mailed in my paperwork to the FBI for my background check.

The FBI gets involved when you want to leave your country?

The Land of the Free!!!

Was it ever??

tommy1808 wrote:

csturdiv wrote:

Yesterday I just mailed in my paperwork to the FBI for my background check.

The FBI gets involved when you want to leave your country?

best regards
Thomas

I'm pretty sure it's a requirement from the Australian side.

At least for a Schengen visa you have to provide a certificate of no conviction or similar from your country of origin and any other countries you have lived before being granted permanent resident status.

It's bad enough that they have to pay taxes when abroad.

tommy1808 wrote:

csturdiv wrote:

Yesterday I just mailed in my paperwork to the FBI for my background check.

The FBI gets involved when you want to leave your country?

best regards
Thomas

The requirement is from Australia. Just as the US requires criminal background checks as a minimum for anyone wanting to immigrate to the US. The US doesn't have a permanent residency status/ visa - only an immigrant visa though once arriving in the US the immigrant has no requirement to obtain citizenship, so they can remain a foreign citizen the rest of their life.

Being a permanent non-citizen in the US has two legal distinctions different from citizens. They cannot vote, and their travel out of the US is restricted. They must pass a new US criminal background check before they can leave the US and they must file partial year income tax returns and be fully paid. That is if they wish to return to the US. There is also a limit to how long they can remain outside the US.

(For some countries, we require that the checks be done by US law enforcement officers, which is part of the reason it takes more than two years to get an immigrant or refugee visa from some countries. In other countries where local law enforcement will not cooperate with US investigators, or the applicant cannot be positively identified, and they residence and activities tracked from birth - that person will never get a US visa. These changes were put in place in 2012.)

JJJ wrote:

It's bad enough that they have to pay taxes when abroad.

That is not a problem for me yet. There is a threshold on foreign income that where if you are under it, it is not taxable, but you still have to report it to the IRS.

And my 12-14 week wait (I am thinking longer as I had to mail it from Sydney to the east coast of the US, and they then need to mail it back to me) will be ok. My current 457 visa to work in Australia does not expire until Sep 1 2018, I'll be more relieved when I have everything filed and only have to wait.

rfields5421 wrote:

One of the things my wife and I discovered is that older women are extremely difficult to impossible to fingerprint by ink and paper.

Apparently prolonged use of hand creams and cosmetics causes the fingertips to retain moisture and make the loops and swirls very difficult to display properly.

When they did her electronic fingerprints several fingers had to be done several times before they got a good enough image.

Be a moron and pick up something hot. You'll need those fingerprints done again.

rfields5421 wrote:

One of the things my wife and I discovered is that older women are extremely difficult to impossible to fingerprint by ink and paper.

Apparently prolonged use of hand creams and cosmetics causes the fingertips to retain moisture and make the loops and swirls very difficult to display properly.

When they did her electronic fingerprints several fingers had to be done several times before they got a good enough image.

My mother has the same issue - machines cannot read her fingerprints properly - but she never used much cosmetics. Apparently some diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis) cause those deformations as well, and in her case a worksite accident in which she got zapped pretty badly by a short-circuit and burned some fingers did not help either. The first time she entered the U.S. after fingerprinting was implemented it took her 45 minutes to go through immigration once she stepped up to the officer (and by the end of it the CBP officer was so stressed out he took a picture of my dad instead - the next time she entered the U.S., when she was by herself, was not fun...).

rfields5421 wrote:

The requirement is from Australia.

Why are you letting facts get in the way of a good old-fashioned anti-american rant from the usual suspects?

rfields5421 wrote:

Just as the US requires criminal background checks as a minimum for anyone wanting to immigrate to the US.

As someone who has gone through the US permanent residency process, if that happened, it was on the background, and I was completely oblivious to it. I did have to answer questions on whether I had a criminal record, of course, but was not asked to provide any documentation to that effect. It was probably the only thing I was not required to document, too (even had to prove I did not have syphilis or tuberculosis, even though I had been living in the US for 8 years already...).

The key is which country did you come from and when.

In 1974, the US embassy in Manila required a clearance letter from every city where an applicant had lived since age 12. Back then the Philippines local government even kept track of voting records. Those had to be approved before a passport was issued. They kept track of how a person voted / who for on every ballot position.

We had a young lady move into our neighborhood in 2002, an immigrant/fiancé from France. She knew that a criminal background check had been done on her.

csturdiv wrote:

JJJ wrote:

It's bad enough that they have to pay taxes when abroad.

That is not a problem for me yet. There is a threshold on foreign income that where if you are under it, it is not taxable, but you still have to report it to the IRS.

Not income, but rather salary. If you have a property in your country of residence (and it's a civilised nation) they will report that income to the IRS and you'll have to pay American taxes on it. Pensions also work very different in different countries, you may find yourself having to pay to the IRS for that as well.

An American co-worker of mine racked thousands in consulting and legal fees (and was on the brink on losing her Florida house) because of fiscal treatment of pensions and a small income she had on a Spanish property.

One of my high school classmates recently gave up his US citizenship after 25 years in Australia. Over the increasing complexity of taxes.