When you have a criminal record, options for 2nd citizenship narrow greatly but usually don’t foreclose the possibility.
A few strategies/tools that we use:
1. Post conviction relief to dismiss the conviction.
For U.S. immigration, ONLY “due process” related dismissals “remove” the conviction for immigration purposes. In other words, a scenario in which you were wrongfully convicted. But in many other countries, especially, European, even “rehabilitative” post-conviction dismissals are not considered disqualifying for immigration/natz purposes.
2. Legal opinion letters.
Written by an expert in the jurisdiction of conviction to a) explain what the conviction means IN TERMS OF THE LAW OF OF THE RECEIVING COUNTRY and b) advocate on behalf of the applicant, weaving in sympathetic factors. Legal opinion letters work best in scenarios where receiving country has discretion to approve or deny the residency or natz application based on the conviction. I write these for American applicants with CA convictions seeking citizenship abroad.
3. Seeking residency or citizenship in a country that doesn’t about or for evidence of any previous convictions.
Yes, there are still such countries. Eventually if enough applicants with criminal record seek the benefit that country, other sovereigns (especially the U.S., UK and EU) take notice and do things like restrict visa free access or pressure the country to change the eligibility criteria. For ex. this is what happened in 2022 with Hungary’s simplified natz program which requires NO evidence of home country police report from applicants. As a result, naturalized citizens can no longer travel visa on ESTA to the U.S. For this reason, I don’t list these countries publicly.
The possibility of 2nd citizenship with a criminal conviction depends on:
1. What conviction was for;
2. How long ago it was;
3. Law of the receiving country;
4. How sympathetic the applicant is otherwise (I call this “positive attitude equities”); and
5. The quality of the applicant’s advocate/lawyer
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