 and welcome to our channel. Today I'm going to make a video on criminal rehabilitation. I've prepared seven tips on how to prepare and complete a strong criminal rehabilitation application. So the first tip is the personal statement. Any criminal rehabilitation should include a good personal statement from you, the person that is the applicant, a personal statement that explains in detail when the act was committed, what was the act and what was the details around the act. It should also include the dates of the charges and the conviction. This is important because it's going to allow the officer to understand the circumstances around the offense. So often what I see from my clients is, for example, theft, petty theft, assault charges, DUIs, and often it happens when people are a little bit younger, 18, 19, 20, 22, and now they're much older and for example they want to come visit to Canada or they're being sponsored by a spouse to Canada and they have this on their record. And even though sometimes it's hard to go back and remember events, these events because it was a long time ago and maybe you're not proud of it and you're ashamed, I really advise my clients to sit down and take the time to write the personal statement because even though the officer is going to have the police clearances, an FBI report for example, or the court judgment, probation documentation, sentences, things like that, those documents often don't allow the officer to understand what actually happened because for example if somebody, I don't know how to, for example, the DUI, but maybe there was circumstances around that. For example, you were struggling with depression or you had just gotten some bad news about something and it was a difficult time in your life, maybe you were having some financial difficulties, which is very possible. This is life, life is not always easy and sometimes things happen when we're younger or it doesn't have to necessarily be that we're younger but sometimes we have periods of time where life is just difficult and certain things happen like criminal convictions. So it's good to take the time and write, I usually recommend to write like a good two, three pages. It's not important that it be very long, it's about the quantity of papers that you write, the pages that you write, but the quality of it, but usually I find that a good personal statement is a couple of pages that really goes into detail about your personal situation, even though it's private, even though you may not be comfortable to write that, it's good to really spend a couple of hours, review it a couple of times and write a good personal statement for your application. I find that this really makes a big difference when the officer is reviewing your criminal rehabilitation application. The second tip is to make sure that you include in your application original clearances. So for example, if you are a citizen of the United States, you have to include original clearances from all the state that you lived in for more than six months since the age of 18 and you have to include an original FBI report. It's very important, currently those are the requirements. It might change when you watch this video, but it's been like this for many, many years. It's important not to submit copies, you have to get the originals and sometimes it may take some time to get the originals, but you have to go through those hurdles and obtain those documents. And you have to make sure that those clearances are valid. Sometimes what happens, for example, a client retains me, let's say in January 2019 for criminal rehabilitation and we start doing the paperwork. I give my client the list of documents, they apply for the clearances, we get the clearances in the FBI report, let's say in February or March 2019, but then there's some missing documentation, the personal statement is not done or other things happen and now the client wants to file in September 2019. Well now we can't use those clearances anymore because it's been a couple of months that they, not that they're expired necessarily, but it's a little bit outdated for immigration. So it's important that when you start the process for the criminal rehabilitation you really do the legwork and you're prepared to prepare and get all of the documents because submitting clearances that are outdated might result in the application being refused or returned to you. Third tip is to ensure that you give all the right court documentation. So depending on how your offense was dealt with in the court system, if it was in a trial, if it was only a plea agreement and then there was just documentation, if it was just a disposition, however it happened we need to include the documentation. So that includes court judgment, court transcript. If you were on probation, the terms and conditions of that probation, if you completed your probation letter from your probation officer stating that you completed the probation, if you had to pay a fine, proof that you have finalized and paid the fine, if you had to do some community service or you had to attend like an AA program or some other programs, all documentation is related to that because to be eligible for a criminal rehabilitation depending on how much time you have to have had completed the sentence, we need to prove to the officer that you completed your sentence and sentences include completing probation, completing mandatory programs, completing jail time, completing community services. Tip number four, well tip number four was what I just talked about, ensure that your sentence was completed and that you have evidence of this. For example, I had a client who had a certain offense and completed everything, probation, imprisonment, everything, but there was an outstanding fine and he hadn't paid it yet because he had moved and he had lost track to make that payment and it was many many years later, it was like eight, nine years later, but we couldn't apply for the criminal rehabilitation up until the time that he had completed this complete sentence so he had to pay that fine and then we were able to apply so that's really important to make sure that you've completed all of the sentences. Tip number five, if you're applying for criminal rehabilitation, it means that you're coming to Canada for some reason, maybe a permanent reason or a temporary reason. If it is a temporary reason like you want to come visit some friends or family, it's important to include in your application your ties to your home country so if you are for example from France, you should include employment details, employment letter, tax documentation, if you have any assets, property, house, car, to show to the officer that yes you are on your way to getting hopefully currently rehabilitated, you want to come visit Canada and at the same time you're demonstrating that you're not going to overstay in Canada, that you're not going to work illegally in Canada, that you have a life in your home country for example in France and here are all the documentations to show that you have a life but also you have a balanced and organized life in your home country. Tip number six, you have to include in your application the foreign law so if you are convicted for example in let's say Germany of assault, minor assault charge or something like that, the officer needs to see and assess what that offense would have been if it would have if those acts were committed in Canada, what would the equivalent conviction be and for that the officer needs to look at the foreign law so you need to see under what statute or what rule you were convicted under and print out those laws from the German code, the German criminal code and include that in your application. And tip number seven, it's important to include an explanation as to why you believe you are eligible for rehabilitation so depending on what type of conviction or convictions you had, if it's major or complicated and you're not too sure, I really recommend to hire a lawyer for this. What we do as lawyers is we prepare a strong submission letter, it's a cover letter where we outline the whole background, this is in addition to your personal statement which we would include in the file, we would include all the details of what led to the offense, we would include information about how the sentences are completed, we would do what we call a criminal assessment so we would compare the foreign law to the law in Canada and we would make argumentation as to why if this offense had happened in Canada, you would have been convicted of this type of conviction and because of that because this many years have passed, you are eligible for rehabilitation, you also include strong submissions on your life, the reason why you want to come to Canada, how you have a balanced life in your home country and you want to come and visit Canada or you want to immigrate to Canada and why you deserve to be rehabilitated and how much you have changed from the person you were to the person that you are now. So we're really going to details in this application because the decision making process is a discretionary one so it's not just fill out the form and submit it, sometimes you can do that and you might get an approval but most of the time officers were really going to details in these types of cases because immigration takes criminality quite seriously. I hope you enjoyed this video and if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact us. Thank you.