Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what is called Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude specifically in the context of Intellectual Property. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post, that's bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Department ramps up piracy inspections as tourists return. Quoting directly: "The Intellectual Property Department vows to tighten its inspection of pirated products, especially in tourist destinations as they are projected to proliferate after the country's reopening." Quoting further: "According to Deputy Director-General Jittima Srithaporn, the Department recently had discussions with the Royal Thai Police, the Department of Special Investigation, the Customs Department, owners of trading areas and intellectual property (IP) owners to set guidelines for the supervision, protection and suppression of IP violations." As we noted in another video I made contemporaneously with this one, Thailand is taking pirated IP far more seriously than they once did and we have seen a lot of the impact of that in the past few years and we are definitely seeing it as things reopen now. 

The purpose of this video is to talk about what are called I-601 Waivers. These are waivers of a legal grounds of inadmissibility to the United States. So in the event that one is denied a visa to the USA, be it a Tourist Visa or like, we are going to more focus for the 601 purposes, we are going to more focus on things like the K-1 Fiancé Visa, the US Marriage Visas including the K-3 Visa, the CR-1 Visa or the IR-1 Visa, if you are denied based on a legal ground of inadmissibility, you may or may not be able to overcome that denial through a waiver of that ground of inadmissibility depending on the circumstances. In cases involving what are called crimes involving moral turpitude, it may in fact again depending on the facts of the case be possible to obtain a waiver of that denial notwithstanding the ground of inadmissibility existing. I have seen a number of these in the past few years of waivers, we have had clients that need waivers involving the ground of an inadmissibility of crimes involving moral turpitude, CIMT, and yeah the IP Piracy is considered to be an act which is inadmissible for those who engage in it and whether they are convicted of it or not. If it's admitted, if it's a known fact that they are engaged in that, that can be a real whether or not they have been convicted. In most cases I have had these evolve where the client comes to us and it is after, usually they have been denied on the underlying Visa case, but they have a criminal record it's very, very minor. It's not something in Thailand that’s even a huge deal it's just a citation, pay a fine but it is on their record and it is considered a CIMT by Immigration Officials under US Immigration law and for this reason it can require a 601 Waiver to remedy.

So depending on your circumstances, if you are worried about this, if you have a CIMT violation on your record and you are looking to go to the United States, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.