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My husband was arrested in 2001 and 2002 for assault misdemeaners. It sounds worse than it was but bottom line he was arrested and although the charges were dismissed in both cases I worry that it will cause a problem with INS. We are in the process of selecting a social worker and I have talked to one about our situation. She assures me that I can obtain a favorable homestudy and get immigration clearance. I am still worried however and wondered if anyone else out there has dealt with this. We live in Dallas.
Thanks.
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Who was he accused of assaulting? The fact that he wasn't convicted is a plus, but it really depends on the situation -- it's troubling that they were fairly recent and two separate occaisions -- it will have to be thoroughly discussed in your homestudy. If the charges were baseless, then there shouldn't be a problem, but the arrests will come up on the FBI clearance so your homestudy should have a detailed explaination.
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Whether it's in your homestudy or discovered via fingerprinting, be prepared to provide USCIS with additional documents re the arrests. They requested an "original certified court disposition" of a juvenile incident in which my husband was involved, but no such document exists because the records were expunged 20 years ago. We submitted a signed document bearing the court's seal and stating that they had no records on my husband and one week later got our USCIS approval. I think all you can do is submit everything and see if they ask you for more.
Hi! I have the same worry. What ever happened?Did everything turn out ok? my e-mail address is missymayrenee@yahoo.com.
Camille123
My husband was arrested in 2001 and 2002 for assault misdemeaners. It sounds worse than it was but bottom line he was arrested and although the charges were dismissed in both cases I worry that it will cause a problem with INS. We are in the process of selecting a social worker and I have talked to one about our situation. She assures me that I can obtain a favorable homestudy and get immigration clearance. I am still worried however and wondered if anyone else out there has dealt with this. We live in Dallas. Thanks.
Just wanted to update this thread for others who may be in the same situation. We hired an attorney and had both arrests expunged from his record. There are various ways you can qualify for expungement. Not having convictions is one way and how we qualified. It took money and time but eventually it happened. Once charges are expunged you will need to follow up with local, county, state and federal governments to make sure they have completely removed them from their systems. All of this took about a year.
We recently received our approval from Homeland Security to adopt a foreign born child without any questions asked. We did disclose the arrests in our homestudy. She mentioned them in the homestudy that went to USCIS just in case they showed up. But we knew in advance the arrests would not show up. We mailed in our own fingerprint cards to the FBI before we started our homestudy to make sure they would not show up. But we felt like we should not lie and told our social worker from the beginning. Our agency and social worker opted to not mention it in our homestudy version that was included in our dossier.
Bottom line, is try to keep your nose clean. Any and all choices you make can affect your entire future no matter how small it may seem at the time. But don't let mistakes stand in your way. There are recourses and you should seek them out. We don't have our child yet but with approval from our government we are half way there. :D