I spent a few hours this morning figuring out how I’m suppose to get my criminal history report Apostille-ized… I received the report a few weeks ago but it was just a printout and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. So I e-mailed visa-immigration@doj.ca.gov asking what the next steps were. I received a response saying a new letter would be issued with a state seal and then I would have to contact the California Secretary of State.
I got the new letter (not sure if it would have just been sent automatically if I hadn’t asked) and then put it off for a couple weeks then went back and tried to figure out what to do. I printed out the DS-4194 from the U.S. state department website and started filling it out this morning when I read this:
Note: The U.S. Department of State will not issue an Apostille for state-issued documents.
Above this it stated:
State issued documents destined for use in Hague Apostille countries may be authenticated by the Competent Authority in the state where the document was executed. A list of these authorities can be found on the Hague website.
I clicked the link for the Hague website and found my way to this page http://www.sos.ca.gov/notary/authentication/
It included a list of required items to submit, one of which was “A cover letter stating the country in which the document will be used”. No forms or anything to print out. What exactly is this cover letter supposed to say is unclear. Do I just write SPAIN in big bold letters and sign it? All joking aside I ended up using a trusty Microsoft Word Cover Letter Template and writing the following (in between To whom it may concern and my signature, obviously):
“Please find attached a document from the State of California Department of Justice that requires an Apostille certificate for the country of Spain, for visa/immigration purposes.”
The website also stated:
“The California Secretary of State authenticates signatures only on documents issued in the State of California signed by a notary public or the following public officials and their deputies”
with a list of these public officials and their deputies including “State Official”, but “Criminal Identification Specialist I, Application Processing Program, Bureau of Criminal Information and Analysis” wasn’t explicitly listed, which is who signed my letter, but that sounded pretty official and it was also signed on behalf of the state attorney general and had the official state raised stamp/seal on it, so I assumed my document was legit.
The Secretary of State website also says that the paperwork can be mailed to the Sacramento office then links the words “Sacramento office” to a Contact Us page which shows the address of the Sacramento office and also another different mailing address. “So do I mail it directly to the Sacramento office or the mailing address?” I wondered. I decided to mail it to the mailing address which was also in Sacramento.
I made copies of everything and printed out my cover letter at my local FedEx Office then took everything to the post office. I wanted to track both the outgoing paperwork as well as the self-addressed stamp envelope so the postal worker suggested I use priority mail for both. I put my name and address on a priority mail flat rate small envelope with the pre-paid postage and then put that envelope inside a larger flat rate envelope along with the paperwork and a check for $20 and off it goes. So that’s done. Hopefully I did everything correctly. At least I didn’t mail the DS-4194!
Another update, I have my appointment scheduled for January 9th. There had originally been a link on the consulate webpage to make a Visa appointment through the VFS global website. When I was finally ready to make an appointment, I went to this link and all it would tell me was “There are no appointments available for the current month”. Ok, well what about next month or the month after that? I e-mailed the consulate and they basically just told me to keep checking back. I kept checking the VFS global website directly to no avail. Finally, I was poking around on the main consulate page again and saw a NEW link for making an appointment, not through the VFS global site, but another website called bookitit.com. This let me make an appointment for January 9th which is coming up fast! So let’s hope my Apostille-ized document comes back quickly, because I still need to get it translated. I’m cutting it close. What else is new…
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