Fellon / Visa

[Blaine]

I served time for a felony eleven years ago for assault with GBI, Street gang related, Weapon.

I have not been in trouble since.
I have a plumbing and Hvac company that I am closing and wish to retire, after the recent death of my wife due to cancer.
Does any one know what my chances of obtaining a permanent visa in Argentina might be?

 

[steveinbsas]

Before you can obtain permanent residency you must either marry an Argentine or have temporary residency for at least three years.

When applying for temporary residency you will have to provide"criminal reports" from each country you have lived in for more than one year in the past three. If you provide a report that shows a prior felony I don't think your chances of getting a temporary resident visa will be very good, unless you find a lawyer in Argentina with experience in dealing successfully with cases like yours.

If you can live outside of the country in which you committed the felony for three years prior to "retiring" to Argentina you might be able to avoid the issue entirely.

 

[ElQueso]

I don't know, Steve. It could depend on a couple of things, but I would surely agree a lawyer is needed with the attempt.

First, they are only supposed to look at the last 5 years of criminal history. On mine, admittedly, they looked at the previous 29 years. I had a felony (I stole a street sign in college and got arrested and charged with a felony!) and it caused me a little problem that delayed my residency for nearly a year while it was reviewed by a judge. My lawyer had told me we may need to resolve the situation with a bribe in the form of a gift certificate equivalent of about $330 USD, but my lawyer managed to get my case passed by the judge without a bribe.

I have a close friend who spent time in prison (18 months) for drug distribution-related charges, within around the same time frame that I had my street-sign problem. He got temporary and then permanent residency with no issues whatsoever. His felony was a bit more serious than mine

We both used the same lawyer.

Blaine, I don't honestly know if your issue will be problematic or not. Steve may be right about the three years out of country where the felony occurred, but I've not heard about that one.

 

[Rich One]

Blaine, ask El Queso's Attorney....

 

[ElQueso]

Blaine, ask El Queso's Attorney....

Yeah, I sent him a PM.

 

[steveinbsas]

I don't know, Steve. It could depend on a couple of things, but I would surely agree a lawyer is needed with the attempt.

First, they are only supposed to look at the last 5 years of criminal history. On mine, admittedly, they looked at the previous 29 years. I had a felony (I stole a street sign in college and got arrested and charged with a felony!) and it caused me a little problem that delayed my residency for nearly a year while it was reviewed by a judge. My lawyer had told me we may need to resolve the situation with a bribe in the form of a gift certificate equivalent of about $330 USD, but my lawyer managed to get my case passed by the judge without a bribe.

I have a close friend who spent time in prison (18 months) for drug distribution-related charges, within around the same time frame that I had my street-sign problem. He got temporary and then permanent residency with no issues whatsoever. His felony was a bit more serious than mine

We both used the same lawyer.

Blaine, I don't honestly know if your issue will be problematic or not. Steve may be right about the three years out of country where the felony occurred, but I've not heard about that one.

I'm curious about the " They are only supposed to look at the last 5 years of criminal history." comment.

When I applied for and obtained my temporary residency in 2006 migraciones required the criminal report(s) for the previous five years, but I don't remember it there was a minimum about of time one had to live in a country before the report was required. I actually had lived in Mexico for almost all of the previous five years, but never a full twelve months of any of those years.

Migraciones told me to provide a criminal report from the USA and that would be sufficient.

I don't have a criminal record, but I imagine if I had any felonies more than five years prior to applying for residency (and they appeared on my criminal report), migraciones would certainly "look" at them before granting residency.

 

[ElQueso]

According to my lawyer, looking at (or taking into account) the last 5 years criminal history was the law, and it was how my lawyer eventually got my case out of court and back into processing my residency.

As with many things here, however, what the law says and what one actually has problems with are often two different things.

 

[steveinbsas]

According to my lawyer, looking at (or taking into account) the last 5 years criminal history was the law, and it was how my lawyer eventually got my case out of court and back into processing my residency.

As with many things here, however, what the law says and what one actually has problems with are often two different things.

I remember a post that someone made in the past year about providing the criminal report(s) to migraciones. There was an issue with the jefe and they had to provide more documentation than they expected (possibly reports from countries that they had not lived in for more than one full year in the past three).

PS: Even if migraciones is only supposed to take into account the last five years, can you imagine them granting residency to someone with multiple convictions of robbery, assualt, or drunk driving, even of they occurred more than five years ago?

 

[ElQueso]

In this country, yeah, I'd think there's a decent chance.

 

[steveinbsas]

In this country, yeah, I'd think there's a decent chance.

Perhaps with a lawyer and a gift?