N-400 Which boxes to check for traffic tickets?

[brideofabrit 1]

I apologize if this has been asked before - I have been searching the forums for a while and haven't found exactly what I am looking for.

I am filling out my husband's N-400, and will be including two minor traffic violations. I know documentation is not necessary for them, but I am listing them on the application just to be honest.

I am confused about which of the following boxes should be checked:

#15. Have you ever committed a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?

#16. Have you ever been arrested, cited, or detained by law enforcement officer for any reason?

#17. Have you ever been charged with committing any crime or offense?

#18. Have you ever been convicted of a crime or offense?

My husband received a speeding ticket and an improper turn ticket, both of which resulted in fines. I am thinking I need to check "yes" for all of the above questions. Am I correct?

[v333k 59]

One suggestion is to read the naturalization guide, which can be found at http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/M-476.pdf

It explains some of the information in more details.

HTH

[brideofabrit 1]

One suggestion is to read the naturalization guide, which can be found at http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/M-476.pdf

It explains some of the information in more details.

HTH

I have read the M-476, but I'm still unclear on which boxes need to be checked. My understanding is that minor traffic tickets do need to be included on the N-400 to demonstrate good moral character, but does a traffic ticket constitute a "crime or offense"? Hoping someone else who included their traffic tickets on the N-400 can weigh in and explain exactly how you did it.

Edited July 30, 2010 by brideofabrit

[w8inglongtime 29]

I apologize if this has been asked before - I have been searching the forums for a while and haven't found exactly what I am looking for.

I am filling out my husband's N-400, and will be including two minor traffic violations. I know documentation is not necessary for them, but I am listing them on the application just to be honest.

I am confused about which of the following boxes should be checked:

#15. Have you ever committed a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?

#16. Have you ever been arrested, cited, or detained by law enforcement officer for any reason?

#17. Have you ever been charged with committing any crime or offense?

#18. Have you ever been convicted of a crime or offense?

My husband received a speeding ticket and an improper turn ticket, both of which resulted in fines. I am thinking I need to check "yes" for all of the above questions. Am I correct?

I wouldn't necessarily call a traffic ticket a crime because people typically get arrested and jailed for crimes so answering yes to all of the questions will be wrong IMO. If anything #16 will look like the one to say yes to because it asks if you've been cited for "any reason"?

[jasminelily 1]

This is a repeated discussion, if you can do a search, you will find them brought up here on VJ pretty often.

Now I'm going to say what I've done, before anyone else try to argue what should or shouldn't have done, I want to say that's just what I've done because I did what I felt that's right and I'm not asking anybody else to do the same. To all those people who wants to call me a paranoid, please feel free to. So what if I am?

I've one parking ticket and one traffic ticket, non-alcohol related and under $500 fine. I've answered yes to all of those questions. I've attached copies of related documents and evidence of how I took care of those tickets plus an extra sheet of paper describing the tickets in detail. I personally think that it proves of my good morality because I've done my due diligence. Disclosing the tickets won't hurt the application so I don't see any harm in disclosing them. I'm sure they can dig up whatever they want during the background check so they would have already known about the tickets before the interview; so you might as well disclosing them to avoid an excuse of "hiding related evidence that MIGHT hinder the IO's decision". Now I'm going to bring the originals to the interview in case the IO wants to look at them, by then the IO can decide if those tickets are related to the decision or not.

Knowing myself, I won't be able to sleep if I don't disclose them on the application. Many may argue that is not necessary because you can mention to the IO during interview, well I want to say that there's not going to be any tape recording of the interview and how do you know the IO is documenting or writing down what you said or better yet "exactly what you said or the meaning of what you said"?! Disclose them and submit what's need with your application will prevent any "you say I say" situation in the future. In a not so pretty description, I call that a "CYA". I can assure you that different IO, different people who answer the mis-information line, different people working at your local info-pass can advise you many different ways and you will never get a same consistent answer until they fix the instruction, but at the end, the application is "yours" so it's your own decision that you have to make about disclosing them or not, not any one else. One last thing I want to say is that I wish the wording of the questions and the instructions could have been much concise and clear about what they really want.

[NickD 202]

[#15. Have you ever committed a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?

Is a catch all question, if you did commit a major crime and was convicted, USCIS can deport you for lying on the application. But your deporation orders will occur in a court of law where you can defend yourself.

#16. Have you ever been arrested, cited, or detained by law enforcement officer for any reason?

After completing my wife's biometrics heading north on Hy 41 we were stopped and detained by a police officer, should we report that? Was a major accident ahead, we were the first, but all traffic was detained. I do not believe we had to report that incident.

#17. Have you ever been charged with committing any crime or offense?

If this occurred to you, you should know this. You can be charged with almost anything, find this question to be ludicrous because later you can be found innocent. But you must report this regardless and show you were proved innocent.

#18. Have you ever been convicted of a crime or offense?

Here you have been found guilty of committing a crime, this must be reported.

M-476 clearing states not to report traffic tickets where the offenses are non-alcohol related and the fine is less than $100.00, and you only have two. In cases where an offender has many violations, even minor where his/her license is taken away, the fine would be in excess of $500.00 and would have to be reported. You really don't want to be overly scrupulous on this subject, just read and follow the instructions. Reading and studying the entire M-476 manual is clearly stated in the general instructions for the N-400. Do you want to admit to not following this guide?

[brideofabrit 1]

jasminelily, I agree with your approach. It may go above and beyond what they require, but I like to put everything on the table. I think we will do the same that you have done. After much digging through the forums I found at least one other person who did exactly the same thing. In my opinion the questions are rather ambiguous, but I will explain on a separate sheet of paper exactly why we marked "yes" for each one, so they are clear that it is just the two traffic tickets that we are reporting.

There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the issue. In my opinion the M-476 is very clear in that ALL offenses must be reported.

"You must report all offenses that you have committed including any that have been expunged..."

In the next paragraph it goes on to state that you must provide documentation for all offenses EXCEPT:

"Note that unless a traffic incident was drug or alcohol related, you do not need to submit documentation for traffic fines and incidents that did not involve an actual arrest if the penalty was a fine of less than $500 and/or points on your driver's license."

The M-476 does not exempt anyone from reporting traffic tickets, but simply from providing the extra documentation that is required for more serious crimes. If they wanted to exempt traffic tickets altogether, they would have stated that in the paragraph before, where it is mentioned that all offenses must be reported. They could easily have said "You must report all offenses that you have committed except traffic tickets...yadda yadda yadda..." They didn't. I realize that many people do not report traffic tickets at all and sail through just fine, but that is not the approach we will be taking.

Thank you for your help everyone.

[NickD 202]

Best method is not to have any traffic violations to report, wife came from a country with no speed limits and a corrupt police force where they can be bribed for even intoxicated driving offenses. Couldn't comprehend why are speed limits are so slow with the wonderful roads we have, but that is the way it is. Constantly pointed out speed traps and the tricks they used to issue a ticket like not letting you resume 55 mph for a half mile out of a town consisting of one church and one bar. Can't resume 55 until you pass that sign. Or to be very careful with your speed going down a steep hill, or not hitting resume on your cruise control after leaving an interstate. One big game to raise extra funds for God knows, whose pocket, plus the increase in your insurance rates. Pointing out constantly whenever we see a cop stopping somebody, they are not here to protect us, but to hang us. Very common ticket is a rolling stop, make sure the car is completely stopped and watch your mirrors can scan your eyes constantly.

Really watch where you park, many streets have different parking laws depending upon the time of day, better to find a legal place to park then to go back to learn your vehicle was towed away with a very steep towing fine.

While she was negative at first, did comply and was ticket free, so she had nothing to report. Doesn't help either when a cop has a ticket quota to meet if he wants to keep his job.

[Captain Oates 910]

jasminelily, I agree with your approach. It may go above and beyond what they require, but I like to put everything on the table. I think we will do the same that you have done. After much digging through the forums I found at least one other person who did exactly the same thing. In my opinion the questions are rather ambiguous, but I will explain on a separate sheet of paper exactly why we marked "yes" for each one, so they are clear that it is just the two traffic tickets that we are reporting.

There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the issue. In my opinion the M-476 is very clear in that ALL offenses must be reported.

"You must report all offenses that you have committed including any that have been expunged..."

In the next paragraph it goes on to state that you must provide documentation for all offenses EXCEPT:

"Note that unless a traffic incident was drug or alcohol related, you do not need to submit documentation for traffic fines and incidents that did not involve an actual arrest if the penalty was a fine of less than $500 and/or points on your driver's license."

The M-476 does not exempt anyone from reporting traffic tickets, but simply from providing the extra documentation that is required for more serious crimes. If they wanted to exempt traffic tickets altogether, they would have stated that in the paragraph before, where it is mentioned that all offenses must be reported. They could easily have said "You must report all offenses that you have committed except traffic tickets...yadda yadda yadda..." They didn't. I realize that many people do not report traffic tickets at all and sail through just fine, but that is not the approach we will be taking.

Thank you for your help everyone.

Dash dash and double drat

I would love to argue with you but I can't coz you are right

As usual, the people at USCIS have written an uneducated fuzzy instruction which is totally ambiguous

My application packet is sealed and ready to go

I will have to open it now and tick the box and add an explanation sheet

Yes I agree there is a 99% chance I don't have to, but knowing how bloody wooden they are, they could interpret it as 'must say yes, but need not submit documentation'

That 1% chance is enough to make me waste another Walmart envelope my ripping this one open and amending the answer

Thanks for that thoughtful post

ps thanks OP - good job you raised it

Edited August 2, 2010 by saywhat

[Sand 5]

Hi, Well I guess i am going to check all of them. because of my speeding ticket.

[kenzie2 3]

What if you get a ticket for riding your bike on the sidewalk, do we need to answer yes for that?

[Brother Hesekiel 2,235]

I apologize if this has been asked before - I have been searching the forums for a while and haven't found exactly what I am looking for.

I am filling out my husband's N-400, and will be including two minor traffic violations. I know documentation is not necessary for them, but I am listing them on the application just to be honest.

I am confused about which of the following boxes should be checked:

#15. Have you ever committed a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?

#16. Have you ever been arrested, cited, or detained by law enforcement officer for any reason?

#17. Have you ever been charged with committing any crime or offense?

#18. Have you ever been convicted of a crime or offense?

My husband received a speeding ticket and an improper turn ticket, both of which resulted in fines. I am thinking I need to check "yes" for all of the above questions. Am I correct?

First, do not, I repeat, do not fill out another person's N-400, unless you want them to commit perjury on their citizenship application. Another option would be to fill out the bottom as the preparer, but why? Translate the questions to him, tell him where to mark a box, but let him do it as the law requires this from him!

15. No, unless your husband wants to come clean now for crimes he got away with

16. Yes. List citations.

17. No.

18. No.

[NickD 202]

In regards to those four questions based on minor traffic violations, we answered NO to those questions. Stepdaughter did not get into trouble with this, but her IO did ask her if she received any tickets. She answered yes and told him about her two. Then he said a decision cannot be made at this time as he wanted proof that her fines were paid. But in the letter she received from the field office, it clearly stated, she did not have to provide this proof. But wanted a response to battery charges when she was 17 months old.

That was too absurd for me, contacted my senators office, but the woman in charge just left for a two week vacation, the was frustrating, but when she got back, was over in minutes. A miscommunication they called it.

Did tell my stepdaughter when she told me about those fines and proof to go back instantly and show him here driver's license, she wouldn't have that if she didn't pay those fines. But she said no, she would get the proof. It was just four days later when the senators immigration woman talked to the field office, she got her oath letter in the mail.

When that same field office misplaced my wifes' application, she never got a traffic ticket, with my old senator, they emailed her oath letter to me just two hours later.. But he was on the USCIS budget committee.