I have received an offer for employment in Switzerland and will begin the paperwork soon. 11 years ago I was arrested for felony assault in the United States but it was determined I did not do anything and it was dismissed outright - no conviction or sentence of any sort.
Does anybody know:
I'm fairly certain a US criminal background request will turn up arrests in addition to convictions, but when the Swiss authorities request a criminal background as part of a B permit application do they only care about convictions?
Is anyone familiar with whether a US criminal record will make the distinction between convictions and arrests in this case?
Is there an appeal process where I can try to show that the charges were dismissed outright?
Anyone have experience with this or can direct me to more official channels which might give me some help before I uproot my life to move to Switzerland, only to find my permit has been revoked/rejected?
Thank you for the help.
Can’t help with the arrest side of things, but as for uprooting your life that wouldn’t be the case since the permit has to be approved in advance hence all the paperwork. So you will know before you make the move whether it’s okay or not.
You could use the contact form here
https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home…s/kontakt.html
for the Federal Migration Office to check anything you’re not sure of.
Welcome to the Forum.
Why not request a copy of your FBI report now, and see what it says? Then you'll know whether you should be fretting or not.
https://www.fbi.gov/services/informa...ng-fbi-records
Do not under any circumstances uproot you life until you actually have the been approved for a permit. It is not just about the criminal record, there are other reasons as well, such as you don't have the skill set required, there are too many people available in CH/EEA/EU with your skill set already, they have reached their permit quota already etc...
Hi -
I use to do FBI and local background checks using finger prints when I was a reserve cop in NYC. I was the recruitment officer for my unit.
First rule - what you get is not always acurrate and certainly not complete. There were times i picked up an arrest locally but not in FBI system. Many locals including state are not good in uploading. And many times I could not see final disposition. The courts also are not good at uploading disposition. For arrests i captured I could see the violation and level. but disposition was often missing.
Often the candidate if I got a hit, and had no disposition and if they told me the cases was dismissed, they still had to go to the court house and get the final disposition. I needed the record. Also if they were convicted of a lesser crime, say a violation level, depending on the violation I would ask for final disposition if missing, see what the penalty was, that would give me sign of the severity of the violoation in the court's eyes. I'd need it anyways if I was going to DQ the candidate. I'd have to run it past the precinct captain anyways if I wanted the candidate.
Note to point, 80 percent of the time I knew already if they had been arrested from thier truth full answers in the application, the other 20 percent, well that's a signal for DQ if they answer no to an arrest and then I pick something up (I'd ask if they understood the question though).
In summary get your FBI report first. See what you see. Who knows the arrest may be missing. YOu may have the disposition missing...then, you're in a craphole. Gotta go to your court house, stand in line with chumps and get your disposition. Hopefully your lawyer has it too, that can work, if they have an official attestation.
In my case for CH, I did not submit FBI, as I lived my entire adult life in the confines of NYC (born there too), the local NYPD finger prints were suffcient for me, easy peasy, 1 week processing at 1 PP. No questions asked by Swiss. And no, CH has no documentation I was a reserve (Auxiliary) cop in NYPD so that didn't influce thier decision or lack of interest in FBI prints. the didn't seem to care I didn't live in NYC my whole life, no Long Island PD (Nassau or Suffolk) checks were asked (not they would know them PDs).
Assuming you were arrested by state or local law enforcement, you might pursue expungement or sealing of your arrest record under applicable state law. The expungement or sealing order is then entered into your state record check which then propagates into the FBI III (called "Triple I") record check. In many states an 11 year-old non-conviction record can be expunged.
You can try but it ain’t gonna happen any time soon - and I would not assume anything is propagated. I still got hits for so called sealed records (usually in these cases the applicant was arrested as a teen for something stupid, said records were so called sealed, but I still got a hit. They were surprised I found out. Maybe my Fingerprint card submissions was handled differently, as it was coming from a Law Enforcement agency - I don’t know never had a reason to question that- but I got them so called sealed records. I was looking for record not a certificate of conduct per se.
Get the fingerprint cards in (hopefully the cop that does it knows how to do it well - they can be rejected) - meanwhile get your disposition, have it translated, noetrized and apostlized just in case - I don’t think you’ll have an issue with your disposition ready. (Incase you’re not a good conduct).
Good luck!
Parkadam, good point that the reliability of the process can vary by state. It sounds like your experience is in New York. Here in New Hampshire the total time from the filing of a meritorious expungement petition in court to deletion of the arrest record runs about 45 days. The system is audited for errors by our DPS staff and it works reasonably well. If OP's arrest was in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras, yup...stuff is going to be messed up.
OP, maybe try a two track approach. Seek expungement if available so that the arrest doesn't haunt you for the rest of your life. Also, prepare to explain and prove the circumstances of your arrest and non-conviction to Swiss authorities.
ha Xcdave - well, i did this now over 12 years ago, maybe more, so who knows how New York State has progressed (among others). I'm sure better but not sure how much.