Save my Soul : DS 156 Question # 38

[SOS]

Mine H1 is approved. I am going for Hi visa stamping. There is a question in DS-156 for point # 38 :-

"Have you ever been arrested or convicted for any offense or crime, even though subject of a pardon, amnesty or other
similar legal action?"

For my case, divorce has happened. And before dicvorce , my wife filed a false criminal case(Section 498A IPC, cruelty against wife by husband/his relatives) against me and there was arrest also happened. This legal case is the nature of Matrimonial offense(private offense). The intent of the criminal case was to put pressure and get more money in alimony. My wife also sent the copy of FIR to Indian US Embassy.My lawyer also filed a criminal case(Section 315 IPC, act/omission which causes death of unborn child) against my wife. The court summoned my wife and in laws in that criminal case filed by us. After this with intervention of well wishers and Lok Adalat, both the parties compromise and got consent divorce. High court quashed both the criminal cases in lieu of compromise. Court did not charge sheeted me for the criminal case filed by my wife as the compromise happened before this stage comes.

My marriage gone through a painful patch. Due to all the these criminal cases going in court, I could never think of going to US for last three years. Now my company won a project where there is need of of me. As I had acquired lots of domain knowledge while working for my company during the last three years, the project depends heavily on me. The project duration is of 1 year and it requires position of the nature of architect.

I need to write "yes" as for my case for Question # 38 in DS-156 , the arrest has happened. Conviction has not happened for my case.

There are three possible cases for my visa stamping :-
1) Visa is given
2) Visa process takes times to go for criminal background check
3) Visa is rejected.

Please advise in which case my visa stamping will go.
If there are 0% chances for case 1, then I need to discuss with my line manager, so that she can plan for alternate resource.

Please also advise what should I write for Question # 38 in visa form. I may not be understanding the question properly .

Does one false criminal case against me, it has closed all the doors for going to US. I will never be able to go US.

I read there is concept of waiver, does I need to apply for waiver. Will I get waiver for my case. One is eligible to apply for waiver if there is conviction. For my case, only arrest had happened. No conviction. So I am not eligible to apply for waiver. please advise.

[gogol75]

You should get a visa

Sorry to hear about your problems.

Let me understand this. You say that your wife sent a copy of the FIR to the US embassy. Why did she do that? If I understand correctly, you have never travelled to the US (am I correct?). Have you ever applied for a US visa before? If you haven't ever applied for a US visa, your wife sending the FIR to the embassy makes no sense and the embassy people would have surely ignored it.

Essentially the arrests that happen within the United States cause problems. I don't think the US embassy would do a background check in India. In that case you could answer "No" and get the visa.

Having said that, honesty is the best policy. If you say "Yes" to the question, please take some documentation with you. Write in your own words what happened. Also if you could get a court letter sating that you were not convicted that would be best. Every person is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. An arrest alone does not make a person guilty.

The US embassy will not deny you a visa simply because you have had legal problems. You were not convicted of a crime.

Good luck.

[SOS]

Thanks for your reply and giving me relief. I liked your suggestion that I should get a document from court that I was not convicted for any offense.The legal cases are quashed but what if I had been punished for any other offense while in courts.

Here are some of the facts for my case:-

I had been to US on B1 visa for 3 months in Sep, 00 from my current employer. I went to US embassy for H1 visa(through diff company) in Mar,01 but I was asked to bring some more documents like W forms of the employee in US of the sponsoring company, photos of the office etc. I could not get those documents while asking so many times from sponsoring company. After some times, even my current employer processed H1 visa. Due to personnel issues, I shifted my job near to my home town in Sep, 01.
The FIR was filed in Dec, 01. I had not applied any visa after Dec, 01 as of today.

Once again, thanks for your advise.

[bharatindian68]

We should give NO here as these incidents are in India