criminal record

[salmaniakhan]

Two years back i have steal some makeup from the shop ,shopkeeper saw me and call police and police took me to police station they did my dna ,fingerprints etc.i have to pay �85 as a penality fee i just want to know i have got criminal record or no now i am going to usa so i have to fill in visa iat i have arrested & i have got criminal record forever after this incident i never done this thing in my life as i am in guilt plj help me

[dzug]

Under US immigration law you have and will always have a criminal record. That means you will have to apply for a visa if you wish to enter the USA legally. Although your offence wasn't all that serious it is recent, which means there is a good chance you would be refused a visa.

However you can enter the USA under the visa waiver scheme if you lie about your offence on the form you get to fill in on the plane. It seems generally accepted (though no one knows for certain) that the US will not have been passed details of your record for minor offences.

I'm assuming you have a British passport.

[jno]

if you're travelling on an Indian passport you will need to apply for a visa, I think, as the visa waiver scheme doesn't apply to Indian nationals. In theory you have to tell them you've been arrested even if no conviction followed (what was this �85 fee? Some sort of Indian practice?) But there's at least a possibility that if you don't tell them they'll never know, especially if it happened in India.

[munchie63]

If the passports Indian, then a visa will be required.
The form will definately ask about any offences.

If you decide to lie, remember that the embassy is in London, and it's quite likely that they do have acces to our police records. The info might not be passed on to immigration in the US, but the embassy here could quite easily collect court records etc for their own purposes.
If they catch you lying, you'll be banned from the US for a period of probably 10 years.
As it was a minor offence, although still quite recent, you'd be better off being honest, in my opinion.