police certificate DV2022

[QB75]

Hi,
I'm a DV2022 winner. My question is about the police certificate requirement. one of the requirements for police certificate is the following:

"If you are 16 years of age or older, you must submit a police certificate from the following locations:
- any previous country or countries of residence if residing there for more than 12 months."

It says above "if residing there for more than 12 months" , what does that mean? Do they mean 12 consecutive months?

For my case, I did a master degree in California back in 2007-2009. During this time, I never stayed for six consecutive months inside the US because I had to leave the country every five months and return to Saudi Arabia to renew my re-entry visa as I couldn't stay more than six months outside the Saudi Arabia.

Do I have to get a police certificate for the time I spent in USA?
If I do, how and where do I apply and how much does it take to get one?

Thanks a lot for your help.

QB

 

[SusieQQQ]

Residing for more than 12 months means it was your normal place of residence. Vacations or short trips away do not break such residence so yes, you were residing there for more than 12 months. However if you continue to read the instructions on police certificates you'll see you don't need to get them for the US.

 

[QB75]

Thanks a lot and yes, you're right, there's a note under the table and it says "
Note: Present and former residents of the United States do NOT need to submit any U.S. police certificates."

So in this case, I don't need to get one from the USA.