I have a sealed U.S. criminal record for a charge that was dismissed.

[huassdf]

How will this affect my immigration to Canada? Do I have to report it on the forms? I was told by my criminal lawyer and the court system that since it is sealed I can legally say that I have not be charged or convicted of a crime, however; I did not ask them if I am legally required to tell the Canadian government about this on an immigration form.

If I do have to report my sealed criminal record which is a dismissed charge with no conviction, how will the Canadian governemnt go about building my Canadian criminal record?

Will the Canadian government seal my record just like in the U.S. where it is not available to be viewed by the public or will they put it on my Canadian criminal rap sheet show that the Canadian public can see it?

 

[huassdf]

Anyone have an answer?

 

[Kedeisha]

are u able to ask the lawyers that

 

[canadianwoman]

The charge was dismissed, but you are still supposed to report any arrests on the immigration application.
The Canadian gov't won't make it public in any way.
Get your FBI clearance, and see if anything about this shows up there - if it does, you will have to report it on the application.
But I think you should ask a Canadian immigration lawyer about this.

 

[traveler86]

I am in a very similar situation. I was wondering what you ended up doing. I had a misdemeanor record while I was an international student in the US. I was 19 at the time. The record was not a problem when I was in the US or travelling to or from the US. Then I got the records sealed after 4 years, my last year of college. Now I got into a university in QC-Canada. Since I have a sealed record I can say no to any arrests or any criminal offence. But should I declare no on the visa application to Canada? If they find out I could always say I have the legal right to say no? Will they see my records in the US when I am applying for a visa in Ukraine. They may be able to see my criminal record in Ukraine but will they check all the other countries I have been to? And at teh port of entry when they scan my passport will they see a sealed record? Please help!

 

[Creampop]

You must submit a police certificate for every place you lived for 6 months or more, so sealed or not if it is on your FBI certificate they will see it. and if you don't include it and they find it not only will it delay your app. they will see it as you were trying to hide it.

Although "expunged" and "sealed" are often used synonymously, a sealed record is not physically destroyed and will not, legally speaking, be entirely erased. It will usually remain visible to certain government agencies, such as law enforcement and the criminal courts. A sealed conviction may still be considered in some legal proceedings to be proof of a prior conviction.

 

[Belinasha]

I'm interested in this as well if anyone gets information. My husband has an expunged non-conviction and was never arrested..it showed up on the FBI as non-convicted and there was no arrest. It's expunged and I found info in the CIC manual that they look at the equivalent as a Canadian Pardon. He is legally allowed to say he doesn't have a record and on the application there isn't anywhere to put any info since he was never arrested, never convicted and the charges were expunged from the record. His state clearance is clean also. The FBI has the expungement order, but since it's a state issue, they don't have have to expunge it from their record if they choose not to. We've written them to request this, but we're hoping with the documents we've submitted, they'll just see the expungement and see that in their manuals, they consider it a pardon for Canadian comparison.

 

[traveler86]

They have not asked for a police certificate for countries I have lived in! Would a sealed record show on FBI?

 

[infohound]

I'm interested in this as well if anyone gets information. My husband has an expunged non-conviction and was never arrested..it showed up on the FBI as non-convicted and there was no arrest. It's expunged and I found info in the CIC manual that they look at the equivalent as a Canadian Pardon. He is legally allowed to say he doesn't have a record and on the application there isn't anywhere to put any info since he was never arrested, never convicted and the charges were expunged from the record. His state clearance is clean also. The FBI has the expungement order, but since it's a state issue, they don't have have to expunge it from their record if they choose not to. We've written them to request this, but we're hoping with the documents we've submitted, they'll just see the expungement and see that in their manuals, they consider it a pardon for Canadian comparison.

It looks like you made it to Canada? What happened with your husband's sealed record? What kind of information did you have to give?

 

[Belinasha]

We've successfully went through the process and my Husband has landed. We ended up getting my husband's expungement documents so we submitted them after we applied (about 4 months, after I got sponsorship approval). When filling out the forms, since it was expunged, we put "no" for a criminal record since an expungement makes it legal to say that he's never been charged with a crime. My husband's charge showed up on the FBI check and we submitted the whole application with it without an explanation. Once we had the actual court documents to submit to show everything (the charge and the expungement order), we gave an explanation and it didn't seem to be a problem. I'm not 100 percent on American laws because it varies from State to State, but most of the time if the charge is expunged or sealed, you don't have to admit to it. I would suggest to submit any court records to show that it's actually expunged or sealed and a short explanation of what happened just to shorten and help the process. Sometimes a sealed record will show up on an FBI check as my Husband's did as it's not a requirement for the FBI to update their files according to a particular State's laws since they're the Feds, but if you can show proof of the expungement or seal order, that should suffice.

As for police records from other countries, I believe you're supposed to submit them all when you submit your file. Sure, they may request them at a later date, but that's just going to cause delays for your file since they'll request them, then you submit them. This just opens up another can of worms since you don't know if they'll even receive them by the time they expire. You may send them by courier when you receive them, but knowing CIC, they might not match them up with your file in time (police checks are only valid for 3 months). We were requested to submit another FBI after we applied. It took 6 weeks for us to get the FBI check back and we sent it in. By the time they matched it to our file, it was a day short of expiring (3 months for them to match it to our file). Because of this, they then requested another one and gave us 5 months to do so. About 1 month later they told us to ignore the request for another FBI but our file was still held back for those 5 months. Oh..if I could do the process all over again, I'd do a few things differently!

 

[infohound]

We've successfully went through the process and my Husband has landed. We ended up getting my husband's expungement documents so we submitted them after we applied (about 4 months, after I got sponsorship approval). When filling out the forms, since it was expunged, we put "no" for a criminal record since an expungement makes it legal to say that he's never been charged with a crime. My husband's charge showed up on the FBI check and we submitted the whole application with it without an explanation. Once we had the actual court documents to submit to show everything (the charge and the expungement order), we gave an explanation and it didn't seem to be a problem. I'm not 100 percent on American laws because it varies from State to State, but most of the time if the charge is expunged or sealed, you don't have to admit to it. I would suggest to submit any court records to show that it's actually expunged or sealed and a short explanation of what happened just to shorten and help the process. Sometimes a sealed record will show up on an FBI check as my Husband's did as it's not a requirement for the FBI to update their files according to a particular State's laws since they're the Feds, but if you can show proof of the expungement or seal order, that should suffice.

As for police records from other countries, I believe you're supposed to submit them all when you submit your file. Sure, they may request them at a later date, but that's just going to cause delays for your file since they'll request them, then you submit them. This just opens up another can of worms since you don't know if they'll even receive them by the time they expire. You may send them by courier when you receive them, but knowing CIC, they might not match them up with your file in time (police checks are only valid for 3 months). We were requested to submit another FBI after we applied. It took 6 weeks for us to get the FBI check back and we sent it in. By the time they matched it to our file, it was a day short of expiring (3 months for them to match it to our file). Because of this, they then requested another one and gave us 5 months to do so. About 1 month later they told us to ignore the request for another FBI but our file was still held back for those 5 months. Oh..if I could do the process all over again, I'd do a few things differently!

Thanks for the information. I also have a sealed record, but it does not show up on the fbi check. Do you think Canada would know I have a sealed record or not? Also, what things would you have done different?

 

[Belinasha]

If your record doesn't show on the the FBI check, then you're golden. You don't have to admit to anything.

The one thing I would have done differently would be to have reapplied for another FBI check right after we submitted our application so it wouldn't have caused a delay, just in case they needed another one. I would have also gotten my husband's copr delivered through his mother's address in the U.S. instead of in Canada since we would have been able to track it by sending a courier envelope with the passport request. They mailed my husband's 1st COPR to our old address and it caused a ton of headaches and delays which nobody could give us answers to and it's taking a long time to fix. They did sent a new COPR to our current address but the new one is causing the problems. Hard to explain. Since it took so long for our case to go through compared to the majority who filed at the same time as us, we would have applied inland just so my husband could work. It probably would have only meant us waiting another 2-3 months but at least he would have a work permit instead of sitting at home for a year and a half.

 

[infohound]

If your record doesn't show on the the FBI check, then you're golden. You don't have to admit to anything.

The one thing I would have done differently would be to have reapplied for another FBI check right after we submitted our application so it wouldn't have caused a delay, just in case they needed another one. I would have also gotten my husband's copr delivered through his mother's address in the U.S. instead of in Canada since we would have been able to track it by sending a courier envelope with the passport request. They mailed my husband's 1st COPR to our old address and it caused a ton of headaches and delays which nobody could give us answers to and it's taking a long time to fix. They did sent a new COPR to our current address but the new one is causing the problems. Hard to explain. Since it took so long for our case to go through compared to the majority who filed at the same time as us, we would have applied inland just so my husband could work. It probably would have only meant us waiting another 2-3 months but at least he would have a work permit instead of sitting at home for a year and a half.

How long after you send your application in the first time was it before your husband crossed the border to Canada? Did they give him any trouble at the border about his record?

 

[Belinasha]

My husband (then fiance) crossed over into Canada with me on September 11, 2011 a few months before we applied in March 2012. We crossed over at the Thousand Islands Bridge by car. The border guard didn't ask many questions and my husband had a clear State Criminal record check from Iowa with him. His criminal record doesn't show up on his state record, just the FBI. My husband also didn't have a passport, just his passport card since the card was the quickest one to get at the time. The guard didn't scan anything it seemed, he held on to both my passport and his passport card the whole time and didn't put them down or do anything with them.

 

[Kumar0378]

Hello everyone, I know this is an old thread. But I am facing a similar situation. My wife has a misdemeanor case in Ohio and the records got sealed by request. We then did a FBI background check which came as nothing found. Do I still need to declare this in our PR application?