Step 1 of the Professional Visa for Ecuador is all about getting your degree registered with SENESCYT in Ecuador. SENESCYT is the agency that manages registered degrees in Ecuador. Certainly Step 1 is a bit of a paper work drama.
Step 2, is your BACKGROUND CHECKS!!!
Really this is a needed step for ALL types of visa for Euador.
What do you need?
If you are coming from the good ole USA, you need 2, not one but 2 background checks. The State and the Federal. As you may guess both background checks need to be Apostille. They also have to be notarized (in Ecuador) and translated to Spanish. Unless your Spanish is really really good, Pay someone to do this. It is usually included in any immigration package deal. Certainly the one I am using it is included.
A big warning on background checks, you need them within 6 months of applying for the visa. This is a tight window.
You do not want to do it until your degree is registered. The timeline for the degree registration is difficult to judge, and once it is registered it is good for ever.
If you start too late, you may have to delay your trip.
It took me 4 weeks to get the federal check apostille. My wife took 7 weeks. It just depends on the backlog.
What is a bad background?
What are you allowed to have on your background check? Ideally nothing. This is where being squeaky clean, or at least not caught is important. I tried to find a list of items that will disqualify you but I was not successful. In general, countries do not like to inherit another country's problem children, so it's best you stay on the straight and narrow. If I had to guess from what I have seen in other countries any of these can cause you issues: DUI, any violent, drug selling or trafficking. It is all up to the person reviewing the background checks. These are humans.
How do I get checked?
Federal Background
The federal can be easy if you are willing to pay up some cash. I took the easy path, you may see a theme here. There are companies with FBI contracts and can process a federal background check in no time.
I used: https://www.nationalbackgroundcheck.com/
Prices change, so check the site for what they charge now but i think I paid $120ish. The process was simple:- Find a finger print location near you (There is a national network, so it was not hard)
- Make an appointment at the finger print location. Don't for get two forms of IDs (Read their requirements)
- Less than an hour after I was finger printed, I had the background check results. It was official, I am a very boring person.
You get an email with an electronic copy of your background check. A couple days later you will get the physical copy.
Once you have your background check you need to get it apostille. For federal, there is 1 and only 1 place that will apostille your document, The State Department of the United States. You can go it alone to the State Department, or follow the general theme of pay someone else to deal with it. As it turns out, the background check place I use, has a buddy company that will take another chunk of money from you and deal with the State Department: https://www.apostillecourierexpress.com/ They charged another $100ish. They will even take the electronic document that you received in email and print it and have it apostille. This makes the process pretty easy.
Of course this is where the whole background check slows down. It took them 4 weeks to get my documents back from the State Department and my wife took 7 weeks. Your tax dollars at work.
State Background
How do you do a state background check? Short answer is, unless you live in Oregon I have no clue.
Google for your state.
In Oregon, it was simple, we ran down to the local sherifs office, got fingerprinted and sent that to the State Police for a background check. I can hear you ask, cannot you use the finger prints from the federal check? Of course not, you must pay someone else. The requirements are different and everyone wants their slice of money.
It took less than 2 weeks to get the background check from the state police.
We had to pay a small extra charge to have it notarized. Then we sent the notarized background check off to the Secretary of State to be apostille.
For your state, I would suggest looking at the Secretary of State site for whats is required in a document to be apostille. Then find out how to get a background check that meets those requirements. Usually through the state police.
Whats Nexts?
As you get documents in, have your lawyer review them via scans before sending them or taking them too Ecuador.
If they are good, getting you and the background check documents to Ecuador is the next step.
In my case, I sent them via FedEx so they could start on the translation while I arranged transportation.
Next section will be what I did in Ecuador.
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