[treshawks]

My husband and I are adopting from Ukraine. He was arrested five years ago for unpaid traffic violations. He went to court and had them taken care of. Is this considered a criminal conviction and will it show up on the fbi fingerprinting check? If so, what does this mean for us? Will Ukraine decline us, will INS decline us? I read of people getting their record expunged? How do we go about this?

[sak9645]

... it is CRITICAL to disclose ANY brush with the law -- no matter how trivial and whether the record was said to have been expunged -- to your social worker during your homestudy.

You are likely to have little trouble getting homestudy approval if your spouse's only infraction of the law, ever, involved traffic tickets. Just be prepared to explain why the traffic tickets mounted up, so that the social worker won't think your spouse is a chronic scofflaw who will set a bad example for a child. Remember that a police clearance is part of a homestudy, and if the arrest shows up on the police and you did not disclose it to the social worker, you will almost certainly NOT receive homestudy approval.

The homestudy report goes to the INS with your I-600-A. If the FBI fingerprint check turns up an arrest that was not mentioned and explained in the homestudy, the INS will almost certainly deny your petition to bring a child into the U.S., even if you had homestudy approval. The FBI background check has been known to turn up information that was thought to have been expunged, as well as information about very trivial matters, such as an arrest 20 years earlier for disorderly conduct during a protest march, which the person involved may have forgotten.

Each foreign country has a different policy with regard to criminal violations. China, for example, will not accept people with a criminal record -- BUT indicates in its rules that if a person committed a minor crime (not involving child abuse, domestic violence, or substance abuse) many years ago, never repeated the offense, and showed a genuine remorse and desire to live a decent life, he/she would probably be allowed to adopt.

Talk to your placement agency about the arrest, and get its "read" on how such an offense would be viewed by your country of choice. Many placement agencies can advocate on behalf of clients with regard to "gray area" situations like this one.

Sharon