When I moved to the US from Canada, the banks couldn't access my credit file in Canada -- even though they use the same fucking credit bureaus in both countries! I had to give AT&T $500 cash just to get a cell phone account, and another $500 cash so my wife could have an account too... even though we had already bought our iPhones in cash -- we had no debt with AT&T. They literally needed a $500 deposit in case we ran up some crazy bill with long distance calling (text and data were unlimited).
With a lot of work, we were finally able to get a mortgage even though we were putting about 45% down. The bank issued us kind of trail credit card that they issue all immigrants. I ran into another consultant at a client site and we had lunch together. He was fresh off the boat from India and when he pulled out his credit card we laughed because I held up the same immigrant Visa card. Easier than China, ya... but it's pretty silly here too. How equifax here can't get my stellar credit history from equifax Canada blows my mind.