Although Canada welcomes millions of visitors, workers, students and immigrants each year, each individual must meet admissibility requirements before being allowed to enter the country.
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If you are a foreign national who has been arrested or convicted of a crime, you may be considered criminally inadmissible to Canada. In determining a person’s criminal inadmissibility, convictions and arrests abroad are matched to Canadian laws and regulations and an equivalent is found in the Canadian Criminal Code.
If your offense is equivalent to a summary offense under Canadian law and it is your only criminal conviction, you may be considered admissible in Canada and you will not need permission to enter the country. However, if your offense is equivalent to an indictable offence, which is considered a felony, you may be deemed inadmissible to Canada and will need permission to enter the country.
The three main ways to overcome criminal inadmissibility
The three options available to people who want to come to Canada but must overcome criminal inadmissibility include:
- Submit an application for a temporary residence permit
- Submit an Application for Criminal Rehabilitation
- Legal opinion letter
TO Temporary Resident Permit (TRP) grants temporary access to Canada for a certain period of time. A TRP can be granted for up to three years, depending on the reason for entry. A TRP is used in situations where a traveler has a valid reason for entering Canada and the benefits of their entry outweigh any risk to Canadian society. A person can apply for a TRP at any time and does not require the completion of a criminal sentence.
The following examples explain when a TRP application is necessary to enter Canada:
- A person has been convicted outside of Canada of an offense which, if committed in Canada, is equivalent to an indictable offense punishable by a sentence of less than 10 years.
- A person has been convicted outside of Canada of an offense that would amount to a hybrid offense punishable by a sentence of less than 10 years. A hybrid offense is one that can be prosecuted in Canada either by summary process or by indictment.
- A person has been convicted of two or more offenses which, if committed in Canada, would amount to two summary offences.
TO Request for Criminal Rehabilitation it can be submitted to the Canadian government to permanently erase your prior criminal history for the purpose of entry into the country. The benefit of this application is that it is a one-time solution that does not require renewal. Once you are approved for criminal rehabilitation, you will no longer be considered inadmissible and you will not need a TRP to enter Canada.
To be eligible for criminal rehabilitation, you must meet the following criteria:
- You committed an act outside of Canada that would amount to an offense under Canadian law Criminal Code;
- Having been sentenced or admitted to committing the act; and
- Five years must have passed since the sentence was completed, including jail time, fines, community service, or probation.
Finally, if you have committed or been convicted of a crime, you can preemptively avoid being declared inadmissible to Canada by filing a legal opinion letter. This letter is a document drafted by a Canadian immigration lawyer and refers to the relevant sections of Canadian law to explain the consequences of a guilty verdict or finding that a person has committed a criminal act would have under immigration law. Canadian. This information would help the authority decide how to respond to criminal charges and how different convictions and sentences would affect your ability to enter Canada.
The effects of a conviction and the resulting inadmissibility could be severe for someone whose employment involves a recurring need to enter Canada or the individual has family members in Canada who are no longer able to visit.
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reference: www.cicnews.com