It is “common knowledge” outside the USA that the USA immigration control won’t let you in if you have a drug conviction (or presumably terrorist related stuff). There are obvious exceptions (Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Gerry Adams etc).
My question is this.
Firstly is it true that the US Immigartion service has this information, and if so where do they get it from?
They may have some information, but they don’t have the ability to cross-match that data everywhere. Besides, all they ahve is your name. if you are a major wanted terrorist and entered under your own name, they’re gonna try to keep you from getting on the plane, much less leaving it a free man. But they probably aren’t going to pick up Jose “Smith” who deals drugs in Panama.
Just sayin’, I ain’t no security specialist.
I don’t know the details about how USCIS gets info on people who are either processing nonimmigrant visas at consulates abroad, or who are applying for adjustment of status in the U.S. (green card processing). They have the FBI run fingerprint and database namechecks for adjustment of status processing (fingerprints are a required part of the process), and namechecks for nonimmigrant visa processing, but I don’t know what databases they use, or where the info in those databases originates (or how frequently and comprehensively it’s updated). They aren’t too forthcoming about the source of any info that isn’t based on criminal convictions, for obvious reasons: it might compromise U.S. national security if they were to reveal intelligence methods and sources. And as biometrics become a requirement for visa processing, I assume they will start to run fingerprint checks for nonimmigrant visa applicants as well.
I’ve done a bunch of green card cases for clients at U.S. Embassies overseas, though, and part of that process is that anyone over the age of 16 has to produce affirmative police clearances from every country where they have lived for 6 months or more since the age of 16, and any country in which they have ever been arrested or convicted of anything. Some convictions are not a big deal, but others are; much depends on the nature of the offense, the wording of the statute under which the person was convicted, and the sentence.
Eva Luna, U.S. Immigration Paralegal
P.S. Some convictions can be waived by law; you just need to apply and have a convincing argument if you qualify. But this is also a very messy legal area, and requires specialized analysis. I’m sure Paul McCartney can afford to hire good lawyers. Also, I wasn’t aware he had drug convictions; are you sure you aren’t mixing him up with John Lennon? Lennon’s immigration case was quite messy and required protracted litigation, as I remember.
I believe they ask the visa applicant in the application form under penalties of perjury if they have ever been convicted of any crimes. Other than that I doubt they have access to all minor convictions of everybody around the world.
Unfortunately that site is blocked here; I’ll have to check it from home. But in the meantime, would you satisfy my morbid curiosity and tell me when this apparent pot incident occurred, i.e. was it after he’d gotten a green card and/or U.S. citizenship (which I don’t know offhand if he ever did, anyway) through his marriage to a U.S. citizen?
BTW, anecdotally I can tell you that my office has had a number of client surprises involving long-ago and/or minor convictions, and occasionally some recent and not-so-minor issues. We ask about these things upfront on all our standard template questionnaires. It’s always fun when a client tells you about some youthful indiscretion that even his/her spouse doesn’t know about. And it’s even more fun to deal with the associated client confidentiality issues, since we are generally hired by the foreign national’s employer, who also has no idea about the conviction. We usually try to get the employee to ‘fess up to management him/herself, because we need the employer’s authorization to expend resources to write a brief on the criminal issue. But it’s always awkward.
Also, at least along the U.S.-Canadian border, when I worked in Immigration Court, I believe the U.S. and Canada share criminal databases for immigration purposes, because I saw tons of cases in which a person was denied entry to the U.S. for a conviction which was certainly minor enough not to have anything to do with international terrorism, usually a long-ago drug possession conviction.
Although I think my favorite case along those lines was a guy who was applying on the U.S./Canada border for admission as a tourist (“visitor for pleasure” in the technical terminology); he was denied when a database search revealed a Canadian conviction for soliciting prostitution. Visitor for pleasure, indeed. 
If, like me, you are British, you don’t need a visa for the US. However it is a requirement that you get a visa if you have been convicted of a crime, and it is pretty much taken as read that if the conviction is drug-related you are doomed to fail (unless you are a Jimmy Page type with a good lawyer and who is likely to make and spend a lot of dosh in America).
So if someone who has such a conviction doesn’t declare it (I’m talking something like minor personal posession here - not being a Scarface type). Are they likely to get picked up by US immigration, and if so how would they know about the conviction?
I really have no way of knowing how lucky unrepresented people are in getting away with this sort of thing, as I don’t normally deal with unrepresented people for obvious reasons. I imagine people do get away with it; I have no idea if the U.S. is doing routine data sharing with the U.K. on minor convictions in this sort of situation.
I also have no idea how much success unrepresented people have in applying for visas with something like a minor drug possession conviction on their records, for the same obvious reasons. But you know, there is a procedure for applying for a waiver of the conviction, which a lot of people don’t realize. The discretionary factors for the waiver include the nature of the conviction, whether it is the only offense, and how long ago the conviction was. If you were busted for possession of a single joint 20 years ago, it might not be such a big deal. But a truckload of coke is probably another story. And if you lie on a visa application, that is fraud, and you are likely to be banned from entering the U.S. for a long, long time, if not the rest of your life.
Paul McCartney:
On January 16, 1980, former Beatle Paul McCartney was arrested at Narita Airport in Tokyo after customs officials found 7.7 ounces of marijuana in his luggage. >>>>>
I’d forgotten that he’d married a yank, but there are loads of Brit rockers with drugs busts that get in (Jagger/Richards, Page, Lynnot (Irish) the Gallaghers, etc). Presumably they have the contacts and money to get working visas.
The waiver of the drug conviction is related to, but separate from, the work visa. You have to qualify for both, and the criteria and adjudication processes are quite distinct (and need to be dealt with long in advance). It’s a matter of whether the person qualifies both statutorily and as a matter of discretion, although having a lawyer who can articulate properly how the person qualifies can certainly help. But the conviction waiver is a quite formal process; It’s not like Keith Richards can go up to the immigration inspector, promise to be a good boy, and they’ll let him through.
As for Paul: yes, having U.S. citizen or permanent resident relatives are another one of the factors to be considered in waiving a conviction. When did he and Linda get married? Before 1980, in any case; he may have been a permanent resident or U.S. citizen by then in any case, which is a whole different ball of wax. U.S. citizens can’t be deported unless they gained their status through fraud, and the lisit of things that will get a permanent resident deported is very different than the list of things that will get a Brit denied a tourist or working visa.
I never dealt with this area when I was working in immigration law either, but it’s always been my impression that most people denied a visa because of a past conviction are those suckers who owned up to it on their visa application. I do know of at least one case (from my old law firm) of a woman who “forgot” about her DWI; she managed to get into the US on an H1B but it turned up in the background checks that were done when she applied for a green card. I also know of a fairly high profile former Irish republican prisoner who was able to holiday in America recently, although most of them who aren’t now very senior members of Sinn Féin are still barred. I can’t imagine why he would have been let in when the others aren’t so I assume he didn’t mention it and whoever processed his application hadn’t heard of him.