Z Visa criminal background check (U.S. citizen)

[Gibbs]

Has anyone (hopefully a U.S. citizen) been through the Z visa process recently? My new company is telling me when I return to the U.S. I must have a criminal background check done. Does anyone know if this can be a local police station criminal background check or does it have to be a FBI check? I am really hoping it is not an FBI check because from their website it says the check may take 4-6weeks. After I get the check I must mail it to my company in China who must then have it officially translated by a govt. translation service then they can apply for their proper license (I think the Alien Employment License). Then they mail this license to me in the US where I must take it along with my visa application and other stuff to the Chinese Embassy in NYC. From my estimates this process will take about 10 weeks. Is this accurate? Can anyone share an experience with this? I am the company's first foreign employee in about 3 years so the HR dept. also seems to be unclear about the exact process. Thank you.

[bobdog]

Wish I could tell you. I am doing the Z visa thing now. Luckily for me I have been living in Macao for a long time and had residency there so they accepted a criminal recedes check from them instead. Since it was already in Chinese and English I didn't have to worry.

7 or 8 years ago I needed one from the US for Macao though. All I did was stay up late one night and made a phone call to the local police Dept where I used to live in Connecticut. I told them what I needed and why. To them it was a bit of a novelty having never had such a request before. They processed it and mailed it to me free of charge.

Don't know if that's an option for you. But I am pretty sure it wouldn't need to be FBI

[muirm]

I am just wrapping up my Z visa process (the AEL has been received and is in transit to me) from the US and I have not needed to get a criminal background check. My company contracted an emigration firm to handle things, though, so it is possible they acquired the background check on my behalf without my knowledge.

[LaoDing]

I wouldn't work for an institution that put me through all that. There are plenty of place that require no check or a dot com check (should be an accepted one though). If you're going to ask me to be hand printed and finger printed like some psychopath then forget it! FBI check can take up to three months.

I'm not clear on this stuff yet, but it seems the same people who are approved to release credit info can also be approved to release criminal background info, and these are the orginizations considered legit for the CBC. I have not heard of mailing and translating, but I don't know. Why would they need to mail it back again?

Good luck! I need one for my daughter and it's driving me crazy trying to figure out the skinny on it.