I submitted what was supposed the initial step of a potential application for rehabilitation for a DUI offense committed over 10 years ago, which has been expunged by the US court since all of the necessary steps and time have passed, which would normally mean I would be deemed rehabilitated by Canada already, if I'm reading everything properly.
Everything I've read online and in the government process documentation said that when you're in this specific situation, you should check "For Information Only" at the top of the form, and NOT submit a fee receipt on the first attempt, so that the Canadian officials can reply to you, and recommend the next steps you should follow in the process, which could include returning a letter saying you are clear for travel, not clear for travel, or need to pay the fee and advance the application to be cleared for travel.
Unfortunately this did NOT work out, despite what it said in the documentation, all of my paperwork was rejected just today by the New York consulate, and returned to me with a form rejection letter with the box checked that the fee payment receipt was not included, and no comments or other more detailed letter, or any other additional information whatsoever from the officials were included, to provided the advice the processed promised me, on how or if I should proceed with the rest of the process.
I was trying to do all this, because of the recent stricter legislation changes in Canada for DUI, and a fear of being rejected straight away at the Windsor border crossing for an expensive upcoming trip a couple months from now (I started collecting paperwork and applying as soon as I found out I needed to make the trip but some of these documents took quite some time to retrieve).
I don't live anywhere near a crossing, or a physical consulate or embassy, whereby I could try and take care of everything related to this ahead of time in person either. Technically there is a consulate nearby (San Francisco), but the telephone number doesn't have a way to talk to a human and on the website it's specifically marked as providing no immigration and visa service at all. So I don't think I've got a cost effective way of trying those approaches for help.
I'm really worried what to do next because I've heard full rehabilitation applications take basically forever to process if I've got to resubmit this as a full application with the fee included instead of just asking the advice which has just failed.
So now I wanted to see if anybody from the community has got some more experience what I've got to do next in order to straighten this out or retry it.
Everything I've read online and in the government process documentation said that when you're in this specific situation, you should check "For Information Only" at the top of the form, and NOT submit a fee receipt on the first attempt, so that the Canadian officials can reply to you, and recommend the next steps you should follow in the process, which could include returning a letter saying you are clear for travel, not clear for travel, or need to pay the fee and advance the application to be cleared for travel.
Unfortunately this did NOT work out, despite what it said in the documentation, all of my paperwork was rejected just today by the New York consulate, and returned to me with a form rejection letter with the box checked that the fee payment receipt was not included, and no comments or other more detailed letter, or any other additional information whatsoever from the officials were included, to provided the advice the processed promised me, on how or if I should proceed with the rest of the process.
I was trying to do all this, because of the recent stricter legislation changes in Canada for DUI, and a fear of being rejected straight away at the Windsor border crossing for an expensive upcoming trip a couple months from now (I started collecting paperwork and applying as soon as I found out I needed to make the trip but some of these documents took quite some time to retrieve).
I don't live anywhere near a crossing, or a physical consulate or embassy, whereby I could try and take care of everything related to this ahead of time in person either. Technically there is a consulate nearby (San Francisco), but the telephone number doesn't have a way to talk to a human and on the website it's specifically marked as providing no immigration and visa service at all. So I don't think I've got a cost effective way of trying those approaches for help.
I'm really worried what to do next because I've heard full rehabilitation applications take basically forever to process if I've got to resubmit this as a full application with the fee included instead of just asking the advice which has just failed.
So now I wanted to see if anybody from the community has got some more experience what I've got to do next in order to straighten this out or retry it.