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10 years ago

Problems with FBI report?

10 years ago
Has anyone on this forum experienced problems with their FBI report in regards to permanent residency with Panamanian Migracion? We moved our business and ourselves here 1 1/2 years ago and applied to Migracion for permanent residency. I turned my FBI report over to Migracion which showed 6 arrests and 0 convictions, most of which occurred in the late 60's or early 70's and were very minor offenses ( I was a long haired hippy living in the deep south in my college years) and they didn't need much of a reason to hassle me. Anyway, we were refused on our first application for my FBI report. It turned out this was due to improper translation. Arrest was translated as "detenido" which in Spanish legal jargon means "imprisoned". This was corrected to read "arestado" which means you were arrested and found not guilty which there is no record of in Panama. We provided Panamanian police reports, letters from several local politicians who have known us for several years and a petition from over 100 of our neighbors stating that we are good law abiding citizens and work hard foe the betterment of our community. We applied for our reconsideration and were again turned down referencing my FBI report and it appeared that they had read nothing in our "reconsideration petition". We are again appealing to the Ministerio de Seguridad Publica, our final appeal. We have spent over $7000 in legal fees and permits now and over $200,000 in moving our business and residence here without any light of hope of being able to stay. Don't get me wrong, we both love Panama and the culture and people here, but what does it take?

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