Hello all, I am new to this forum and hoping someone might be able to help with some insight on our situation.
I am American, my husband is British, and we are in the middle of the Green Card process. We live abroad, in France, and have lived abroad since we were married 6 years ago.
Our I-130 was approved a month ago and we are preparing our packed of information to be sent to the NVC at the moment. All has gone smoothly so far.
As a bit of background, my husband is a commercial airline pilot and holds two US visas already, the B1/B2 and the C1/D.
We have run into a sticky situation as we have just received my husband's UK background check from ACRO. To my surprise, it listed "No live trace" instead of "No trace." No live trace means that my husband does have something within his criminal record, but that it is no longer considered relevant to UK authorities and is thus not included in the report. He was surprised to see it, and said it must stem from the one time in his life he was arrested, about 20 years ago. He and a friend were jumped by a group of men outside a bar and when the police arrived, they arrested all of them, including my husband. At the police station my husband was found to be not at fault and released, but was issued a Simple Caution...which I understand to be something like a formal warning in the UK. The simple caution was for "Speaking in a loud voice or threatening manner to a police officer" which he admitted doing while protesting being arrested at the scene. The officer at the time advised my husband that the caution would disappear after 5 years and would not have to be declared in any official capacity past that time. So, basically, he forgot about it. He has had background checks performed throughout his adult life for each aviation job he's held, and this caution has never appeared, so he assumed it was well and truly gone from his record. He was never charged with a crime, never went to court, and there was no punishment associated with the record.
I assume that we can acquire the relevant police records needed to include with this background check and that because it was very minor, we should not run into problems there. He will be questioned at his interview and hopefully we should be Ok. However, I am very concerned that he did not declare this caution when applying for the DS-160 when getting his B1/B2 and C1/D visas earlier this year. He definitely answered "No" to the question about being arrested or convicted of a crime, because as he read the question, he thought he only needed to check "Yes" if he was actually convicted of a crime. I was not aware of this old caution when we filled out the forms together, unfortunately, so I thought nothing of it.
I am beyond anxious about what to do about this situation. Although it was not intentional, I am really afraid it will appear as if my husband was previously witholding information on the DS-160 when he presents this background check to the NVC. I wonder if there is a way we can provide this information in retrospect, although if my husband loses his visas he will also lose his job, so that feels risky. Would the embassy look favorably upon us admitting we had misread the DS-160 question and would like to volunteer the information to add to his file? I assume that doing nothing, and waiting to explain the situation at my husband's immigrant visa interview would not be looked very favorably upon.
Has anyone heard of a similar situation? I would be so grateful for any guidance, I have been able to think of little else since I got this news.
Past mistake on DS-160 might affect our green card?
in IR-1 / CR-1 Spouse Visa Process & Procedures
Posted
Hello all, I am new to this forum and hoping someone might be able to help with some insight on our situation.
I am American, my husband is British, and we are in the middle of the Green Card process. We live abroad, in France, and have lived abroad since we were married 6 years ago.
Our I-130 was approved a month ago and we are preparing our packed of information to be sent to the NVC at the moment. All has gone smoothly so far.
As a bit of background, my husband is a commercial airline pilot and holds two US visas already, the B1/B2 and the C1/D.
We have run into a sticky situation as we have just received my husband's UK background check from ACRO. To my surprise, it listed "No live trace" instead of "No trace." No live trace means that my husband does have something within his criminal record, but that it is no longer considered relevant to UK authorities and is thus not included in the report. He was surprised to see it, and said it must stem from the one time in his life he was arrested, about 20 years ago. He and a friend were jumped by a group of men outside a bar and when the police arrived, they arrested all of them, including my husband. At the police station my husband was found to be not at fault and released, but was issued a Simple Caution...which I understand to be something like a formal warning in the UK. The simple caution was for "Speaking in a loud voice or threatening manner to a police officer" which he admitted doing while protesting being arrested at the scene. The officer at the time advised my husband that the caution would disappear after 5 years and would not have to be declared in any official capacity past that time. So, basically, he forgot about it. He has had background checks performed throughout his adult life for each aviation job he's held, and this caution has never appeared, so he assumed it was well and truly gone from his record. He was never charged with a crime, never went to court, and there was no punishment associated with the record.
I assume that we can acquire the relevant police records needed to include with this background check and that because it was very minor, we should not run into problems there. He will be questioned at his interview and hopefully we should be Ok. However, I am very concerned that he did not declare this caution when applying for the DS-160 when getting his B1/B2 and C1/D visas earlier this year. He definitely answered "No" to the question about being arrested or convicted of a crime, because as he read the question, he thought he only needed to check "Yes" if he was actually convicted of a crime. I was not aware of this old caution when we filled out the forms together, unfortunately, so I thought nothing of it.
I am beyond anxious about what to do about this situation. Although it was not intentional, I am really afraid it will appear as if my husband was previously witholding information on the DS-160 when he presents this background check to the NVC. I wonder if there is a way we can provide this information in retrospect, although if my husband loses his visas he will also lose his job, so that feels risky. Would the embassy look favorably upon us admitting we had misread the DS-160 question and would like to volunteer the information to add to his file? I assume that doing nothing, and waiting to explain the situation at my husband's immigrant visa interview would not be looked very favorably upon.
Has anyone heard of a similar situation? I would be so grateful for any guidance, I have been able to think of little else since I got this news.