Local Police Certificate or RCMP?

[Carlawarla 1]

SpiritAlight,

I've read your post a few times, and then IR5FORMUMSIE's response. I'm kind of confused. I don't see anywhere in your posting that you received an absolute discharge. You received a $50.00 fine I thought? If you did, that's not an absolute discharge. The fine will show on your CPIC, fingerprint check. I have never heard of someone getting anything expunged from their record, albeit there is a pardon, but that is not recognized in the US. It's very possible a local police check or court check would turn up nothing, but if a fingerprint check comes back with a record, then you'll need to verify this with a fingerprint check through the RCMP. If you do have a record, and it's a CMIT, which I believe your convictions are, then you're going to have to look at preparing a waiver.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about your conviction.

Carla

[Carlawarla 1]

hi there i dont normally do any talking on the boards its mostly my fiance he does most of it anyways me the canadian, well i've been trying to figure out how and what police checks i need short story is i was charges with shoplifting in 93 and i dont really remember much of what happened in court all i really remember was that if i stayed out of trouble for a year i would have no record. Well i took the nursing program so i have had the name check and a rcmp fingure printing background check the whole nine yards done and they have always come back saying i have no record and what not its all good, but the problem is the court house has nothing on file for me the lady there told me to get a background check done and see what it says wich i have done several times. I had to have it done every year i took nursing, so i went and got a new one and put down it was for immagration to the US and still comes back clean and this is from the same police station that i was charged at i would think they would have something on file

Ok anyways thats the short version lmao i just dont know what i do next get another rcmp one done should i ask them to disclose any pardons i know i didnt apply for a pardon but i'm clueless atm and starting to confuse myself any feed back would be great

It would help if we knew what kind of conviction you had. An absolute, or a conditional discharge. It sounds like you had an absolute discharge, which does in fact mean that you have no criminal record, if you did as the court ordered and stayed out of trouble for that year.

Again, like SpiritAlight, it may make your mind more settled as well as to not get caught in a web at the interview time, by simply getting a fingerprint check done now.

Carla

[SpiritAlight 1]

SpiritAlight,

I've read your post a few times, and then IR5FORMUMSIE's response. I'm kind of confused. I don't see anywhere in your posting that you received an absolute discharge. You received a $50.00 fine I thought? If you did, that's not an absolute discharge. The fine will show on your CPIC, fingerprint check. I have never heard of someone getting anything expunged from their record, albeit there is a pardon, but that is not recognized in the US. It's very possible a local police check or court check would turn up nothing, but if a fingerprint check comes back with a record, then you'll need to verify this with a fingerprint check through the RCMP. If you do have a record, and it's a CMIT, which I believe your convictions are, then you're going to have to look at preparing a waiver.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about your conviction.

Carla

Hello and thank you Carla.

My fine was $150, or so it states on the fingerprint RCMP check I had done through an agency in March of this year.

So my police check is done.

However, strangely enough, I went to the RCMP HQ here in Montreal in May and asked some questions, and that investigator did not tell me about the discharge info that IF5formumsie posted here.

I am not going to accept being labeled a CMIT for something that was a petty offense. It was for something of less than $30 and it was 18 years ago. I was under great personal stress, and was not myself. This is what I hope my interviewer will give me the chance to tell him....the truth.

I will be asking about that discharge form as well as the waiver...although I was already told by a few people (I saw a person who charges to do Pardons and Waivers in May) including the guy who uncovered it at the Washington border in early '07 that if I was indeed telling him the truth (which of course I was), he said all I would need was a summary conviction.

I didn't know what that was.

I showed the RCMP agent I went to meet with in May the results I had from my fingerprint check and he said, "Here is your summary conviction," (the info in red in my initial long post) as I was telling him that is what I was told to obtain. I didn't know I had it.

Court records are non-existent. I have a clean record with the provincial and federal court, and the municipal court in Laval, QC said all records prior to ?? (I forget) were destroyed. So I cannot even get more details on what happened exactly and where. I have honestly forgotten the whole thing...that whole time in my life....gone! I have print-outs with all this info from all the courts.

I'm not sure if I am being clear, as this is highly emotional and it is late...I get incoherent after a certain time. Not to mention the A.D.D. and slight dyslexia. Ha! Oh, I work with it.

I am still finding it hard to believe it came up after my countless times crossing borders and all the background checks that must have taken place in all the jobs I've had. If it had come up, I would have taken care of it years ago. Damn it! Bleh.

Thank you again for the support of all you wonder-full VJers. (F) (F)

Edited October 22, 2007 by SpiritAlight

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

SpiritAlight,

I've read your post a few times, and then IR5FORMUMSIE's response. I'm kind of confused. I don't see anywhere in your posting that you received an absolute discharge. You received a $50.00 fine I thought? If you did, that's not an absolute discharge. The fine will show on your CPIC, fingerprint check. I have never heard of someone getting anything expunged from their record, albeit there is a pardon, but that is not recognized in the US. It's very possible a local police check or court check would turn up nothing, but if a fingerprint check comes back with a record, then you'll need to verify this with a fingerprint check through the RCMP. If you do have a record, and it's a CMIT, which I believe your convictions are, then you're going to have to look at preparing a waiver.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about your conviction.

Carla

Hello and thank you Carla.

My fine was $150, or so it states on the fingerprint RCMP check I had done through an agency in March of this year.

So my police check is done.

However, strangely enough, I went to the RCMP HQ here in Montreal in May and asked some questions, and that investigator did not tell me about the discharge info that IF5formumsie posted here.

I am not going to accept being labeled a CMIT for something that was a petty offense. It was for something of less than $30 and it was 18 years ago. I was under great personal stress, and was not myself. This is what I hope my interviewer will give me the chance to tell him....the truth.

I will be asking about that discharge form as well as the waiver...although I was already told by a few people (I saw a person who charges to do Pardons and Waivers in May) including the guy who uncovered it at the Washington border in early '07 that if I was indeed telling him the truth (which of course I was), he said all I would need was a summary conviction.

I didn't know what that was.

I showed the RCMP agent I went to meet with in May the results I had from my fingerprint check and he said, "Here is your summary conviction," (the info in red in my initial long post) as I was telling him that is what I was told to obtain. I didn't know I had it.

Court records are non-existent. I have a clean record with the provincial and federal court, and the municipal court in Laval, QC said all records prior to ?? (I forget) were destroyed. So I cannot even get more details on what happened exactly and where. I have honestly forgotten the whole thing...that whole time in my life....gone! I have print-outs with all this info from all the courts.

I'm not sure if I am being clear, as this is highly emotional and it is late...I get incoherent after a certain time. Not to mention the A.D.D. and slight dyslexia. Ha! Oh, I work with it.

I am still finding it hard to believe it came up after my countless times crossing borders and all the background checks that must have taken place in all the jobs I've had. If it had come up, I would have taken care of it years ago. Damn it! Bleh.

Thank you again for the support of all you wonder-full VJers.

Spirit and Ontarkie, let's see if we can figure this out. Thanks Carla (( times 12 for pointing out the fine (I'm not real good at multi-tasking)), that changes things a bit (not too much, don't worry Spirit). If there was a fine it is considered a conditional discharge more or less, however, since the court record is destroyed I can't really tell you the exact disposition of the case and the reasoning but this is the most likely scenario. Basically court said "baby did a bad thing but you're not a monster, pay the fine and behave." It seems that you had one conviction only (for fraud under $1000). For one conviction you will not need to apply for a waiver. Even if the USCIS doesn't care about whether you received the discharge or not. The petty offence exception applies since even if the court imposed tha maximum sentence as it would be less than 1 year and there was only one conviction. The purge will remove your conviction from the Canadian Police Computer (CPIC) but not necessarily from the USCIS and FBI computers. Absolute discharges are purged after one year under the current law and conditional discharge after three years of good behaviour. That's why Ontarkie doesn't need to fill out a purge form, her indiscretion happened after January of 1992 so the police computers were automatically purged. This doesn't mean that Ontarkie's record is purged, it just means that access to her record is restricted. Once a purge (i.e. pardon) has been effected your fingerprints will not be found in any normal fingerprint search. On any US forms she will need to acknowledge it. The CMT means nothing. It is an arbitrary designation that even the US courts can't agree on. Both Gandhi and Mandela spent many years in prison (and would not have been allowed to enter the US even if they were let out of prison at the time), so what does that mean? As Cardinal Richelieu noted, "treason is only a matter of dates." Why quible over something that happened close to two decades ago?

The summary conviction is basically the way the Crown proceeded in prosecuting you. It is equivalent to a misdemeanour in the US. If the crown had proceeded by way of indictment you would need a waiver (the penalties are much more severe) but since your police check shows your conviction as a summary offence, you are OK. You will not to fill out any additional forms for the USCIS but only to declare the incident and you can explain the circumstances if need be. The fingerprints are only there to make sure that you haven't any other bad things, that's all.

Hope this clears things up.

[SpiritAlight 1]

Thank you once again Mumsie!

I hope I didn't overwhelm you with my zealously long PM; I do get excited easily. Hahaha!

This information is so great.

I could not rest until I got to the bottom of this part of the process....some kind of understanding and what to expect.

The waiting was paling in comparison.

Today is a great day!

I got through to the NVC and got good news.

My new replacement modem for internetting arrived today, as my old one sucked.

A package full of gifts from a long distance good friend.

And it was so warm in Montreal that I got sunburnt out in my tank top at the park. Crazy for late October.

I feel the luck shift into high gear. WHEE!

Thank you for existing Visa Journey Forum.

Edited October 22, 2007 by SpiritAlight

[Ontarkie 14,134]

thank you Carla and IR5 its been drivin me nuts trying to figure it out i had alot of stuff going on back then like Spirit and blocked it all out, i will be going next week to the OPP station to get the figure printing done for the RCMP check just to save me the what ifs later, I tend to worry alot lately. Thank you both again.