Traffic tickets and naturalization (threads merged)

Speeding Ticket with court appearance required

Hi People,

I am going to mention my traffic ticket for speeding for which "Court appearance was required" box chcecked. so I appeared in court pleaded guilty and paid fine. This was for speeidng at 70 on 40(construction zone).

I read somewhere in this forum that in the interview IO asked if you had been to court. I had been to court but it is just for speeding.
For second speeding ticket I appeared in court to plead guilty to a lesser charge of obstructing and paid fine.

I got transcripts for both paying $10 fee.

MY question is does the above seem like a problem? Is court appearance for speeding(no DUI or anything) a big issue?

Thanks
 
Not a big deal assuming fine was less than $500, but you will almost certainly need to provide court certified disposition.
 
do traffic offence(speed camera) outside the US need to be reported on N400?

not sure if this is too late already, since my N400 was already mailed out more than a week ago.

I have never had any traffic violation while inside the US. So I answered "NO" on the N-400. Now that
I think about it, did the question apply to traffic offenses
outside the US?

This is what happened to me:

I visited my home country roughly a year ago(2006),
I received a speeding ticket, courtesy of the speeding
camera. I still have a driving license in my home country
and the photo & ticket was mailed a week later to my
address on file, which was my grandparents' home address.

I paid the fine immediately at the local 7-11.(yes, the
police there have contracts with the 7-11 company to
accept traffic fines)

It was, however, a large fine, which is roughly $450 in US
dollars. Speeding is a big fine item there, as well as a
money maker... :) $450 fine for 13km/hr above the
posted speed limit. (that's only 8 miles above!)

The speed limit was 110km/hr and the speeding camera
took a picture of me doing 123km/hr. I do NOT dispute
that I was speeding. My face was clearly visible in the photo.
I broke the local speed limit so I must pay. But still, :) 123km/hr
is rougly 75 miles per hour.(who doesn't drive near that speed on
US interstates? :D )

I do have a copy of the ticket/photo, as well the receipt showing
that the fine was paid.(at 7-11, no less) They are not written
in English. My home country's embassy say they can certify
a translation of those documents for a fee of US$10. Should
I do that and bring those documents to my interview, just in case?

Apperciate any advices in advances!

Edit: P.S. this is what the photo looks like:

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/6199/scanned23590pg0.jpg

:(
 
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The question is worded:-

Have you ever been arrested, cited or detained by any law enforcement officer (including USCIS or former INS and military officers) for any reason?

It has to be mentioned. However, do not worry. You can update your N-400 during your interview. Good luck.
 
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A fine is a citation. No ambuguity there. However since no "person" was involved, one may argue that it was closer to a "parking ticket" than a "routine traffic stop". I would personally mention it. It will not result in your N-400 being denied. Not mentioning it does carry the miniscule risk that later on somehow USCIS finds about it and penalises you for not mentioning it. It is not worth it. Just update your N-400 at the interview and produce proof of payment.

Nice car!!! I am on my second BMW these days :)
 
I had apparently run a red light once in Delaware (looked like yellow at the time). A camera took my picture. As part of the deal in Delaware this offence is not considered a traffic violation i.e. it does not have points, it does not go into your traffic records, it is just civil liability of sorts. This is the only way politicians agreed to pass the law and allow cameras to be installed in the first place.

You pay the state 75 bucks and they forget about you.

There is no way I would consider that to be a law enforcement officer's citation. There is no law enforcement officer anywhere and there is no citation.

TwoScoops, mentioning your ticket cannot hurt, but I would be practical here as well.
 
I would argue against reporting this speeding ticket if you have to go by the words. This is because you were not cited by "any" law enforcement officer.
 
Point is it is not in the US, did you get cited in the US for a foreign ticket? No, so don't worry about it. Even if it was in the US, it's still under the $500 mark and if no drugs/alcohol were involved it's not something you need to put down.

I've had the photo radar ticket in the US, didn't even remember it until now. They're only worried about ones that fall into (over a certain money amount - usually these are extreme speeding fines, or ones that you have been detained by an officer like DUI or injury cases).

I'm not even sure if criminal cases outside the US would even be able to be checked anyways. Many criminals come here and the US has no way of checking their records beyond US borders...
 
Since we are on that topic, I run a toll plaza once in New Jersey. It was one of those exits off the atlantic expressway where they did not have a changing machine. I did not have 25-50 cent on me at that time... I am positive that thing took a picture of my license plate.

I hope I do not have to report that to USCIS...
 
Guy, guys..

Triple Citizen said:
The question is worded:-

Have you ever been arrested, cited or detained by any law enforcement officer (including USCIS or former INS and military officers) for any reason?

It has to be mentioned. However, do not worry. You can update your N-400 during your interview. Good luck.
Click to expand...


Do you not think you are all getting carried away here? We are on this forum as we are above the norm in our particularness. Some perspective.

Immigration authorities are simply not going to know about foriegn speeding violations, they will not know if you have a foriegn licensce - unless you tell them or offer the information (or if they ask).

Personally, I would take the view of not offering more information then is asked for. The above sentence clearly pertains to the USA (even though it does not explicitly say so).
 
Practically speaking, I would forget this expensive lesson ever happened. You could declare it if you feel super-honest, but if you've got a picky IO, doing so may cause you more trouble than you need.
 
Traffic ticket warning!!

I had my interview today - for details see my post in the NYC thread - and I have something to share about the much discussed traffic tickets.

I had two speeding tickets (2001 and 2006) both of which I pad, way less than $500 for.

With the IV letter I got an additional sheet with an expanded list of documents required for the interview. It ha specifically said that no documentation was needed for traffic tickets less than $500.

Guess what! When we got to the tickets, the officer asked for proof of payment. I had the original court disposition letters as well as the credit card receipt for one and the credit card statement for the other. He kept all the originals (with the exception of the credit card statement) and returned copies to me. He showed it to his supervisor who ok-d everything and he said it was fine this way.


Bottom line: bring documentation if you have listed ANY traffic violations.

Good luck.
 
wow. i guess it really depends on what kind of IO you get!

the NY IO's seem to have been asking for task transcripts more than other DO's.

glad that you were so prepared with your documents.

congrats:D
 
teddybear said:
wow. i guess it really depends on what kind of IO you get!

the NY IO's seem to have been asking for task transcripts more than other DO's.

glad that you were so prepared with your documents.

congrats:D
Click to expand...

My wife was asked for tax returns. She did not have official transcripts only what was filed by our CPA including W-2 copies. That was accepted. They did not ask about my tax returns.
 
teddybear said:
wow. i guess it really depends on what kind of IO you get!
Click to expand...

Absolutely! As with many things in life, there is a great deal of room for the IO to exercise his discretion or be a complete pain in the posterior. 90% are reasonable people, the other 10% seem to have something to prove. Maybe its an ego/power thing? :(
 
Upstater said:
I had my interview today - for details see my post in the NYC thread - and I have something to share about the much discussed traffic tickets.

I had two speeding tickets (2001 and 2006) both of which I pad, way less than $500 for.

With the IV letter I got an additional sheet with an expanded list of documents required for the interview. It ha specifically said that no documentation was needed for traffic tickets less than $500.

Guess what! When we got to the tickets, the officer asked for proof of payment. I had the original court disposition letters as well as the credit card receipt for one and the credit card statement for the other. He kept all the originals (with the exception of the credit card statement) and returned copies to me. He showed it to his supervisor who ok-d everything and he said it was fine this way.


Bottom line: bring documentation if you have listed ANY traffic violations.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, this is the ways USCIS works. I always refer people to the document checklist on this formum and also always advice people to get Traffic Ticket info from courts etc.
 
Just depends I guess. I know many including myself that never needed to document the tickets and never had an issue, even when they were brought up in the interview. A few like yourself obviously got an interviewer that did ask. There never is any set rules, just a good % chance it won't happen. If this was the case, I'm happy I never needed to. I've had over 20 speeding tickets (in about 14 states) since I've lived here (10 years), some were just warnings, had rolling stop and been in court 2 times. By doing research I realized I didn't need to put any of them down (I was confused too with the N-400).

Officer just asked about court and if I've ever been. So I told him yes, all he cares about was if they were under $500 or DUI. That was it. My case, however, was pretty air tight so that might be another reason. If you have other issues in your interview that they're questioning, then they very well might want more information like tickets. On top he didn't even want to see my tax transcripts either, even after I showed him I had them, he didn't care to look at them.

Yes you'll always get the rare instance where something doesn't follow the general rules. Thing is, if you have a questionable N-400 then yes it's a good idea to get all your information for everything. If you have a straight forward one, you probably don't need to get info for all your tickets. And if the rare instance you get a officer that just feels like being a pain, then all you have to do is after the interview get the documents and just send them in if necessary...
 
Thanks for info and a question

Guys,

Rather than worrying about it, I went ahead and mentioned tickets on N-400 and also paid $10 to get transcript of docket(thats what they call court dispositions in NJ). Is that all that they will need or do I need to get that traffic record from DMV..(I think it also costs $10).

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
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