stoneycase
Registered Users (C)
Hi All,
I wiped out a previous thread because i wanted to change the title. I'm posting this to help anyone in a similar very sticky situation and the new title can be searched easier since i had problems finding any information on this topic.
The situation is my brother was cited, not arrested in the fingerprint mugged sense, but arraigned in court for a COMT 10 years ago.
He was told by his Criminal Lawyer that it's a citation, there is nothing to worry about, and to answer no for any immigration forms.
He did not disclose the citation on the I-485 and a couple other immigration matters, it never came up in interview since it's not on record.
As we were filing the N-400, he mentioned to me the incident, so I called the court to get a disposition and found that they had issued a warrant and the case was not closed. The warrant was clearly a clerical mistake, shows payment on the disposition yet warrant was issued, so we were able to fix that. The disposition also showed a guilty plea, we had a lawyer withdraw the plea and dismiss the case. No probation was issued then, $300 ticket, put on advisement for 6 months and case to be dismissed if no further contact with LE, not sure the max sentence.
On the N-400, after speaking with a couple lawyers, we decided to go with full disclosure. Yes on Q16, Q17, Q18 (since case originally had a guilty plea), and Q23 (fully explaining why he did not disclose the citation on previous applications).
What we have to maintain is that there was no fraud due to the fact that he never had the intent to mislead, he was given false information by a lawyer, and due to his embarrassment of the situation and bad information, never disclosed the matter.
The crime by itself would not have caused the denial of the I-485.
So we are keeping our fingers crossed, taking a lawyer to the interview and hoping for the best.
If anyone has any additional information on this, please add to the thread. Again, this was a difficult topic to find any info on which is why I wanted a clean thread.
Also, if anyone knows a great lawyer that does phone consults, I wouldn't mind consulting with one more before filing this.
I wiped out a previous thread because i wanted to change the title. I'm posting this to help anyone in a similar very sticky situation and the new title can be searched easier since i had problems finding any information on this topic.
The situation is my brother was cited, not arrested in the fingerprint mugged sense, but arraigned in court for a COMT 10 years ago.
He was told by his Criminal Lawyer that it's a citation, there is nothing to worry about, and to answer no for any immigration forms.
He did not disclose the citation on the I-485 and a couple other immigration matters, it never came up in interview since it's not on record.
As we were filing the N-400, he mentioned to me the incident, so I called the court to get a disposition and found that they had issued a warrant and the case was not closed. The warrant was clearly a clerical mistake, shows payment on the disposition yet warrant was issued, so we were able to fix that. The disposition also showed a guilty plea, we had a lawyer withdraw the plea and dismiss the case. No probation was issued then, $300 ticket, put on advisement for 6 months and case to be dismissed if no further contact with LE, not sure the max sentence.
On the N-400, after speaking with a couple lawyers, we decided to go with full disclosure. Yes on Q16, Q17, Q18 (since case originally had a guilty plea), and Q23 (fully explaining why he did not disclose the citation on previous applications).
What we have to maintain is that there was no fraud due to the fact that he never had the intent to mislead, he was given false information by a lawyer, and due to his embarrassment of the situation and bad information, never disclosed the matter.
The crime by itself would not have caused the denial of the I-485.
So we are keeping our fingers crossed, taking a lawyer to the interview and hoping for the best.
If anyone has any additional information on this, please add to the thread. Again, this was a difficult topic to find any info on which is why I wanted a clean thread.
Also, if anyone knows a great lawyer that does phone consults, I wouldn't mind consulting with one more before filing this.