We have family planning to travel to the United States and especially Los Angeles. Some will depart from New Zealand and others from Australia. Some have had difficult circumstances in their lives. What are the entry requirements around the USA where convictions might have been characterised in one or two of these members lives?
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2On this site we expect you to have done some minimal research of your own before asking questions like this. Please tell us what you have already found out, and then if you still have questions ask them again here.– DJClayworthCommented Jul 23, 2023 at 13:32
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4What are the citizenships of the people involved? Are they all AU or NZ citizens?– jcaronCommented Jul 23, 2023 at 14:04
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1 Answer
If the people involved are all Australia or New Zealand citizens, you will need an ESTA before you can even board a flight to the US.
Getting an ESTA is a quick online process. You start an application, answer a lot of questions, pay a small fee, and at the end you will get an answer telling you if your ESTA has been approved or not, often in a few minutes, otherwise within a few days.
The ESTA application includes a number of “eligibility” questions, including about criminal convictions (though they are quite precise about which ones matter), drugs, etc.
Start filling out the form (it’s free to do so), you will get to those questions. If any of the answers to those questions is “Yes” then you will most likely see your ESTA rejected and will need a visa which in turn will most likely require a waiver of ineligibility, all in all a complex, very long (think years), possibly expensive process, with no guarantee of a positive outcome.
If none of those questions elicits a “Yes” (you should of course be honest), then go ahead with the ESTA process and wait for the answer. While an ESTA does not guarantee entry into the US (it’s just a prerequisite to even be allowed to board a flight to the US) it is usually the sign that there shouldn’t be an issue. There will be further checks both before your flight departs (when the airline sends your data to the US for verification), and upon arrival in the US, but usually, unless your situation has changed unfavourably, you lied in your application, or have ill intent in the US, there shouldn’t be much reason for a refusal at those stages.
If any of the people involved are citizens from countries not participating in the Visa Waiver Program, then you have to skip directly to the visa application, which by itself is quite a long process (it can take months or years to get an appointment for the interview). This may also require the waiver of ineligibility process. As above, this is a very slow, complex, and possibly expensive process, with no guarantee of a positive outcome.
