Travel Ban in the United Kingdom for Criminal History

Question

I was convicted of a crime in the US approximately 37 years ago in 1987. The sentence I received exceeds what the United Kingdom terms a ban (I served four years). Is there any way that I can get some type of waiver or a visitor's visa? I will be flying in from Ireland from the US.

Answer 1

The rules for admitting people with criminal records to the UK are very strict.

9.4.1. An application for entry clearance, permission to enter or permission to stay must be refused where the applicant:

(a) has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas for which they have received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more; or

(b) is a persistent offender who shows a particular disregard for the law; or

(c) has committed a criminal offence, or offences, which caused serious harm

An immigration officer has no discretion and will automatically refuse the application.

"UNLOCK", an organization that lobbies on behalf of those with criminal convictions, says of this law:

Where this paragraph applies, unless refusal would be contrary to the Human Rights Convention or the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, it will only be in exceptional circumstances that the public interest in maintaining refusal will be outweighed by compelling factors.

It's possible that after 37 years your conviction and sentence have been legally removed from your record (meaning that you can officially state that they do not exist). Serious offences normally stay on your record unless they are explicitly expunged. The legalities of this are far beyond the scope of a website devoted to travel. You could try asking on our Law site, but you would be much better off consulting a lawyer.

Answer 2

You can just try your luck, assuming you're OK with getting deported

You're flying from the US to the UK via Ireland, meaning you'd be passing passport control in Ireland and then flying to the UK where flights from Ireland are not routinely checked. This means UK immigration officers are unlikely to ever see your passport but Irish immigration will definitely inspect it. According to the Irish Immigration Act:

(3) Subject to section 2(2), an immigration officer may, on behalf of the Minister, refuse to give a permission to a person referred to in subsection (2) if the officer is satisfied—

...

(d) that the non-national has been convicted (whether in the State or elsewhere) of an offence that may be punished under the law of the place of conviction by imprisonment for a period of one year or by a more severe penalty;

Ireland is not a part of the Five Eyes agreement and it doesn't ask about your criminal past by default, so there's a chance you'd be able to enter Ireland. My understanding of the law is that you're not required to voluntarily divulge information about your past, unless explicitly asked about it by an immigration officer. Afterwards there's a very high chance you'd be able to board your flight to the UK without a problem. The UK doesn't do exit immigration checks, so you will likewise not see an immigration official on your way back to the US.

But if you do get flagged, you'll have to answer honestly about your criminal past and you might end up getting deported back home. This can be an unpleasant experience: we have a report from another Travel.SE user where they (almost) got deported back home. If you're OK with taking such a risk, I'd just buy a ticket to the UK via Ireland as you've originally planned and hope for the best.

I estimate an ~85% chance of your plan succeeding. But this is a very rough guess, I could easily be wrong in either direction.