DHS Trip resolution, does it ever get resolved?
 

I am posting this here to ask for help, here is my story.

I am employed with an American company but live an work in Canada, we manufacture and distribute/repair medical devices throughout the world. I started with the company three years ago and travelled to the US at least four times for training etc. Some of those trips were by aircraft and some I drove from Toronto after flying there from Winnipeg.

Some of the accounts I serve are in Ontario and in the interest of saving time I decided to drive across the border which would shave 45 minutes off my trip. At the border I filled out the standard forms, one of which seemed different than any other I had filled out...it asked if I had ever been arrested.

I answered truthfully and said I had been arrested but never convicted, the officer searched his databases while they searched my service van for three hours. In the end I was refused entry and was told I needed to get a waiver for my arrest for "simple possession", there was a conviction on my record apparently.

I began the process of clearing this up by hiring the services of a Toronto company to assist me with gaining the "waiver", it was during this process that I discovered that the Police department had a improper database entry saying I was convicted of this offense. I will be honest with you all, I was arrested for this charge but never convicted of the offense, the judge ordered the removal of the charge after three months probation...this was 22 years ago. I went to the court offices and because it was a mistake it was removed at no charge, I was told by the clerk that "once this is removed from your record there will be no record of it anywhere on the system".

I explained the issues I was having at the border and she said that it would be best to have a copy of my record before the removal and after since it will no longer be available after that day, I have retained this information for my records and sent it to the Toronto "Waiver" company for their use in processing my waiver.

At this time I was thinking why do I need to get a waiver for an offense I was never convicted of, I decided to petition DHS through the DHS trip resolution website and was sent an e-mail with a number to check the progress of my claim for resolution.

That was 9 months ago, I check the website weekly as I am under pressure from my employer to go to the US for training. You could say it is getting to the point where my job is becoming at stake, I feel powerless to do anything about the issue and to be honest I have invested $3000 with the Toronto Waiver company already for an problem that was a Police database problem.

I might mention that I am required with my job to repair equipment at Government level III laboratory's and my applications for clearance have been delayed because of this problem. I seem to be the chicken before the egg.

At this point I don't know what to do, wait for a DHS resolution or proceed with the waiver application for a conviction I never had. It's possible that my application for a waiver might be delayed for months/years because of my pending resolution through DHS...if they ever do resolve anything. I have not found a single person to date on the web who has had anything resolved through DHS.

Has anyone ever heard of anyone who has had a resolution through DHS? Have they delayed "waiver applications" because of their investigation? From what I understand a waiver application can take upwards of a year to complete.

To be honest I am at the end of my rope and ready to say uncle and change professions, its not like I can't get another job. The whole process has been demoralizing and stressful for my family...I have lost enough sleep over it and am ready to throw in the towel.

Any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

I'd get a good immigration lawyer. It might be easier to change your name and get a new passport with a new passport number.

Brilliant answer

You know, the problems I have with this, and I think the IOC as well, is if you answer honestly, a reasonble person would see this situation for what it is. I have a 13 year old who doesn't like to do his homework. Not at all unusual, I think. Not doing his homework buys him an extra chore or two which usually consists of extra homework that I assign.

He lied about it once. That brought wrath down upon him in a form that only an ex-marine drill instructor could comprehend. Frankly, I could care less if he honestly flunks out of school. But if I were limited to one thing I could teach him, is that it is better fail miserably honestly, than to succeed beyond reason dishonestly.

Unfortunately, our government, through its actions and attitudes is teaching just the opposite. This is a man who has a past. I suspect nearly all who went to college in the past, at least in Ann Arbor, have a past. He was honest about it, there was an error in the government database and now he may lose his job because our government is too stupid to amend its databases and too arrogant to care. This is the insanity that rightfully led to our severing of ties with England. Yet, 250 years later, we appear to be returning to where we started.

First, the government has absolutely no business asking about arrests. The presumption of innocence doctrine means that this person is completely innocent of a crime. The police can arrest anyone at any time for any reason, or for no reason whatsoever. Hell the TSA threatens it for carrying cash. Asking about a conviction, sure, but arrests? Arrests are as meaningless as the filing of a civil lawsuit, until a judge and jury say they are meaningful.

Our government is increasingly forcing us to become deceitful, to live our lives. This is wrong. We here have been focussing on the TSA, but DHS (otherwise should be known as the Committee for State Security) owns the TSA, and CBP, and INS or whatever newspeak they are presently called, owns all these agencies. And the fish rots from the head down.

This is why many on this board refuse to speak at all to the TSA. Anything that is said, voluntarily can be taken down in evidence and used against you. Bierfeldt's replies were brilliant.

The worst part is the "possession charge" was the result of an undercover officer offering me a gram of hashish outside a bar that was emptying out, I was drunk and said "sure!"...no money even changed hands. At the hearing I represented myself and luckily the judge saw this arrest for what it was. I was placed on probation for three months and this charge was supposed to have been wiped out permanently. The RCMP has no record of the offense and did their job, the local police did not do theirs and it stayed on a local police office record till I found out about it. As a matter of fact the border guard needed guiding to the exact precinct I was taken too since he found nothing on the national database either. Basically I screwed myself and had I lied on the form it would have stayed buried forever.

I feel stupid and being 40 years old now embarrased beyond belief (I never told my wife about what I did when I was 18, now she knows!). I am not a drug user and never was, heck I don't even drink except the odd one on holidays to be sociable. From my investigation of the laws had I driven home and killed someone while I was drunk and was convicted of DUI I would have no problem crossing the border...they could care less? I will take a blood test...urine test you name it...I have nothing to hide.

At this point in my life I understand what the game is, its a money grab...so I have put up the money to get a waiver for a non-existent conviction. There is no point in getting angry and railing against the system...these are all things I can't change. I am pretty positive any "waiver" application would get stonewalled because of my appeal, my level III clearances are...why would this be any different.

DHS does not have an ombudsman to appeal to, I am at the mercy of a system that does not even provide a phone number to talk to a live person. I left a voice mail and I get an e-mail response.

Here is a link to the DHS webpage for checking control numbers, my control number is 2059576 so you can see for yourself.

https://trip.dhs.gov/status.htm

Not much point in holding my control number confidential, I am hoping hits from a website might open someones eyes down there and "fast track" my application...I can always dream can't I?

Maybe deep in the organization someone is watching and will take a personal interest, if Nelson Mandela can get an exemption maybe I can too....maybe I need to stage a hunger strike and get it televised.

I could lose a few pounds.:o

I can't be the only one in this situation, there has to be less literate people out there being held hostage who are at the mercy of DHS and have given up.

I just need a yes or no answer, either I am exempted or not and take my money and let me get on with my life. My employer has been patient as I have been trying everything to get this taken care of, the waiver application and police records checks etc took 8 months prior to this DHS application and I am stuck. There have been hints that if I cannot resolve the issue they may have to fire me because travel internationally is part of my job description...I will quit before it gets that far.

BTW I was "employee of the year" for the last two years hence their leniency towards my situation. I think they are scared to do anything since they could be involved in a lawsuit, someone will pay thats for sure if I don't get some action and lose my job as a result of this.

Before it gets to all that, I just need to find someone who has been through the process and got an answer one way or the other...did it take 6 months? One year?

I need answers.:(

Chuck: I think you're an honest guy. You completed the form honestly, you answered the questions honestly and I think you honestly don't understand what's happened here. You wrote:
and then
Here's the deal, you don't get probation if a charge is dismissed. Probation is a sentence, a punishment for a conviction. Instead of a fine or jail time, you "get probation." Simply put, if your description is accurate, you do have a conviction "on your record, in the system" ... somewhere. The RCMP (or a police agency in general) doesn't really independently maintain conviction records: a court does that, the court that generated the conviction. When you wrote...
..."guided" them to the right jurisdiction ("precinct") the record of your conviction showed up and that's where you find yourself now. This sort of thing isn't unusual, see other parallel discussions at: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ada+conviction and http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ada+conviction
I can't agree more with the first part of that suggestion, you DO need a good lawyer and it should probably be a good immigration lawyer AND a good criminal lawyer. One would be able to work on the DHS aspect of your situation, the other on the efforts to actually have the conviction removed. I'm sure there are other references but check out: this link as, perhaps, one place to get more information not to mention this link on Canadian "criminal admissibility." While these are related to entry INTO Canada, they're going to be a good place to better understand some of what's going on and references there may help you find someone IN Canada that can help. Best of luck.

Perhaps it was a nolle prosequi or a stet? I presume they have some such procedure in Canada, too.

OP, I'm guessing the local precinct may have an arrest record, which is different from a conviction record.

~Irish

Where did you get the idea that you can't enter the US unless you get a TRIP approval?!?!?! :confused:

That has absolutely NO impact on admissibility. Even if you are given a TRIP redress number, you can still be denied entry into the United States. If you have the waiver in hand, I suggest you simply try to cross the border again and be honest like you were last time. As long as you are honest, the worst thing they will do is send you back. He told you to come back with a waiver, not a TRIP redress number, right? Again, where did you get the idea that you can't enter the US unless you get a TRIP approval? TRIP is meaningless-- you wasted 9 months waiting for a number that means nothing. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

See also:

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/gen/4127...html?s_src=RSS

Again, TRIP is useless and meaningless. Period.

Thanks Rusty,

Your right I was convicted, due to the circumstances of the offense it was supposed to be removed from my record after the probation period (the judge seen it was a setup and said so in his judgement). Every agency except for the local police precinct removed the conviction from their database, I have had it since removed as there was no charge for doing so and I think they knew it should have been done 22 years ago.

At this point I will just go through with the waiver and get it done, my concern is will DHS stonewall my application? My clearances at the labs I service have been delayed, they won't tell me why. There is no doubt in my mind they are delayed because of my refusal of entrance at the border and there is inconsistencies because of this mark (which no longer exists!) on my record.

This is a disaster for me as you can imagine, I agree a lawyer is what I need at this point...it is impossible to negoitiate the system without someone who knows who to contact and what to do. The entire system is setup to prevent personal contact with anyone in these departments, they want to pass judgement entirely without interview.

In hindsight I should have just lied, they would never had any reason to look if I had been dishonest and would have never found it unless I guided them. I feel like an idiot for being an honest person to begin with.

Worked for me
 

Re: Petty crimes. If you are convicted for a small crime and you complete probation the court will often allow you to change your plea from guilty to not guilty and the conviction will be squashed. However the arrest will stay on your record. Local police only have record of the arrest, the court will have the outcome of the case?

I went thru TSA because I was on a list and could not print boarding passes and they always gave me a hard time at the border. One time they put me in a cell for about 4 hours and raked me over the coals. (But they let me in) I have 30-year-old drug convictions (serious) and I am always going to "hotspots" in 3rd world countries. (With my Church to do Christian ministry).

It took about 12-13 months but my name dropped off the list. My status went from "pending" to "closed" and they never notified me. I booked travel and everything was good for a year or two!

However, it seems the level of stink-eye at the border seems to be going up again. I am so used to going to secondary I just naturally head there. I was unable to print bording passes one time but was allowed another time? I dread my name is coming back to the "lista."

I did some research today and went to the precinct that arrested me since they were the one that had the record originally, I asked them to check my record for the arrest/conviction and it is no longer there...my record is now blank.

I know my interpol record is blank, my RCMP record is blank, and now my local records are blank. I hope to drop by the airport this week and see DHS and talk to a supervisor and appeal to their common sense...I want them to look at my records themselves and tell me I still need a waiver for something that doesn't exist.

At some point common sense has to come into play here...I'm not holding my breath.

Sigh.:(

While I'm hoping that having the arresting agency remove the record of your arrest clears up everything, I wouldn't be surprised if DHS still treats the matter as a conviction and holds it as a reason to deny you entry.

You are unfortunately experiencing an inherent problem with the sealing, expungement or wiping of records--there are lots of records. If you get arrested by a local police department, they will have a record, as will the court that hears your case, as will the jail or other facility where you were booked (I know that not all of these terms and practices translate to Canadian law). The court may order your record expunged after you have completed probation, counseling, rehab or whatever, but either not everyone gets the word, or it drops between the cracks someplace. And every time an inquiry is made that results in a "hit" from an outfit that has a record that was supposed to have been sealed, the agency that made the inquiry will have the record, too.

This is what has happened with DHS, and the Canadian court has no jurisdiction to order the U.S. government to erase a record of conviction, even if the record wasn't supposed to have been reported in the first place. In this case, the DHS is (in theory) more concerned with your past conduct than with the legalities, and has complete discretion as to whether they retain the information, discard it, or ignore it.

I sincerely hope that you can resolve your problem, as it's kind of silly to regard an ancient minor indiscretion as a testament to a person's character. In fact, it speaks to your character that you told the truth in the first place. In this case, though, yours may be the good deed that shall not go unpunished.

So get a certification from the arresting agency that your record is clear . . . :confused: You seem to be making this too complicated. They cay you have a conviction. You do not. Get a piece of paper with a court seal that you were not convicted when you were arrested-- or were "discharged" from the court without conviction. US CBP isn't really going to care about what you say your local precinct says about what should or shouldn't be in the computer.

I have the piece of paper you are talking about and submitted copies to DHS, I have verified at the police station where I was taken when I was arrested that nothing shows on my record...I even asked the station head if there was a "secret" database that is maintained that would still blacklist me (he assured me there is not).

The problem is I have no other method of clearing this up other than DHS since they are a one stop portal for clearing these things up for foreign travellers.

Really all I want to know what is a reasonable timeline for this process to occur? Nothing has changed on my DHS resolution page and there is no one to contact to even speak to a live person, e-mails get sent back with a standard response to date.

I'm going to speak to an immigration lawyer and see what can be done, I really have no re-course than to wait or attempt a waiver application for a charge that doesn't exist...god knows how that will delayed as a result.