Criminal Record Question

My husband has been offered a post doc position at Stanford starting this fall. I assume he would be under a J-1 visa.

He has a criminal record for a summary conviction (uttering threats) from 9 years ago. It has been pardoned in Canada but I realize the U.S. does not recognize these.

He's traveled to the U.S. before in the last couple of years and it has never come up at the border, but I've heard that it is random whether or not they look up your record.

Some websites I go to say ANY criminal record makes you inadmissible to the U.S. (unless you have a waiver), whereas other sites say that that you have to have been arrested or convicted for two or more offences for which the aggregate sentence was five years or more to be barred from entry. I'm not sure which is accurate...

He's phoned a U.S. border crossing and they weren't sure either...

Our main concern now is that there is not enough time to apply for a waiver. Plus we're not even sure if he would need one.

Thank-you for any help you can provide.

-- Thu Apr 29, 2010 1:52 am --

Anyone?

We phoned one company that does pardons/U.S. waivers and they said that the U.S. will let you in with one summary conviction (providing you have your court documents with you).

But other similar companies say NO criminal record.

We phoned a border crossing and they really didn't know.

Who do you think I should phone to find out if the one summary conviction thing is true?

We're really worried about this - if anyone can help we'd be most grateful!