The necessity of getting all the necessary clearance well ahead of a trip to the United States is demonstrated by what recently happened to coach Lorene Hatelt. Hatelt, a resident of Brampton, Ontario, is an eight-time world champion para-triathlete and paralympic gold medalist. In January, she was preparing to coach junior athletes from Ontario in Florida during the March Break. One requirement for this was to get a “vulnerable” police record check. She applied with Peel Regional Police, expecting to get clearance within two months. It was not the first time Hatelt had gone through a background check, which would normally come back clean in a matter of days.
However, recent changes to the way in which the RCMP handles background checks means that she may not be able to travel in time for the March Break event. Because some people with criminal records had changed their name in order to get a clean background check, a policy was adopted whereby if an applicant`s birth date matched that of a person in the criminal record database, they would be required to provide fingerprints. Hatelt`s fingerprints were taken on 28 January; Because Peel Regional Police does not have a fingerprint scanner, her prints had to be mailed to Ottawa. In such cases, it can take up to 120 days before a check is returned. On the other hand, applicants who live or work in Halton Region fall under the jurisdiction of Halton Regional Police, the only department in Canada with a Real-Time ID Scanner, which electronically connects your fingerprints to the RCMP database. In this case, the results come back within minutes!
This is why it’s more important than ever to get a criminal record check or US entry waiver application done well ahead of the planned travel date. Under the current backlog, the RCMP may not come around to processing a background check before it`s time to take the trip.
