criminal rehab application

[SnootchieBootchies]

Hi,

My wife is a permanent resident of the U.S. Her permanent residency application to Canada was denied a little over a year ago because of a 4-year-and-8-month-old shoplifting infraction (which is not a criminal conviction -- an infraction in California is less severe than a misdemeanour) in the  U.S.  We hired a lawyer to appeal the ruling and to obtain a Temporary Residence Permit (TRP) for my wife.  The lawyer was successful in getting a one-year TRP for my wife but the appeal never got beyond us receiving the appeal record.  Based on my conversation with the border officer when my wife moved to Canada this summer, it appears that the CIC did not intend to hear our appeal as my wife would soon be allowed to apply for criminal rehabilitation soon anyway.  So that's where we are now, focusing on the criminal rehabilitation process.  Looking through the forms, the application seems very straightforward.  So my questions are as follows:

Would it be recommended to hire a lawyer to make the criminal rehabilitation application on our behalf or is it something that we could do ourselves and obtain a successful result?

As I mentioned, the shoplifting infraction is now approx. 4-years and 8-months old.  She was ordered to pay a fine and was forbidden to enter store in which the shoplifting took place for one year.  The criminal rehabilitation application guidelines state that an application can be made FIVE years after the end of the sentence.  Would that one-year ban from the store be considered a sentence, which would mean we would still need to wait another 16 months (instead of 4) to make our application?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

SnootchieBootchies

[RobsLuv]

Wow, interesting.  How did the lawyer go about getting your wife a TRP when she was refused on an outland ap? 

And I am questioning this stuff about not hearing your appeal because she's going to be eligible to apply for rehabilitation soon.  How do they know - you have a valid question about the timeline for it . . . and it's my understanding that granting a rehab application can take up to a year.  So I think you should push not to have your right to appeal denied over some "technicality" . . . understanding that there's a lot of waiting and expense involved with appeal and, apparently, Minister's counsel doesn't have to do anything s/he doesn't want to at an ADR conference so you might not get anywhere with that, even after waiting for a year.  They don't even have to answer to the real reason the application was refused.  But until someone can tell you that you're not going to be in limbo waiting for months on end for some rehab application to come through so you can start all over again with a new PR application, I'd find out what I could from the person who's supposed to be working for you - your lawyer.  He needs not to take the easy way out at your expense and he needs to find out what's really on the line and give you some options and direction.  Don't get stuck the way we have.

[SnootchieBootchies]

Hi Robsluv,

Thanks for your comments.  I think we corresponded via private mail about 8 months ago.  I would love to hear about whether you were successul in getting an appeal or ADR date.  As of right now, my lawyer still tells me we are waiting on getting a appeal or ADR hearing date.  However, when my wife moved to Canada (with her TRP in hand), we were interviewed by an immigration officer when we drove across the border, and what he told us made us think that we won't be getting an appeal date.  This immigration officer was completely unfamiliar with our case, and when he typed my wife's name in the computer, he told us that we will be applying for criminal rehab in 6 months time.  I told him that we were actually in the process of appealing the inital PR application decision.  He shrugged his shoulder and told us that based on what was in our files, the CIC is waiting for the criminal rehab application.  This led us to believe that maybe the CIC is not granting us the right for an appeal because my wife is so close to applying for criminal rehab.  Maybe my assumption is wrong.

I believe we received our appeal record a month after you did.  Where are you now in the appeal process?  And I will give a call to my lawyer and question her more about the appeal.

As for the TRP, our lawyer did successfully get us a one-year TRP.  The lawyer used a couple of forms -- IMM5257 (Application for a Temporary Residence Visa Made Outside of Canada) and the IM1444 (Application For Criminal Rehabilitation -- even though it was still a year from when we could legitimately apply for criminal rehab). We also provided pictures, e-mail correspondence, love letters, phone records to prove our relationship was bonafide. Also included character reference letters from community leaders who know my wife and can vouch that the one-time offence (which occured during a personal crisis in her past) does not define her character. Also included my salary information and my wife's job descriptions and past job performance reviews. Even a letter from a California lawyer describing the difference between an infraction and more serious convictions such as misdemeanours and felonies. All this was part of our "application" as I understood it.  We received the TRP three months later than the lawyer expected but we did eventually get it.

SnootchieBootchies