N-400 question 10 (16)

[papatel 0]

Hello friends..

I am in process of filling our N400 for Naturalization.

I have confusion on what to answer for question 10 (16) where it asks

"Have you ever been arrested, Cited, detained, by any law enforcement officer"

I have got couple speeding tickes in last few years.

Should I answer yes for that.

Also what do I do, if I dont have exact dates of my employment started and ended as I had 2-3 jobs in last few years

How will that affect my application process

thanks

[Italian_in_NYC 259]

No need to disclose speeding tickets, if they didn't lead to an arrest.

[antda 13]

Hi Papatel,

In answer to your questions:

1) In terms of your speeding tickets, this is what the USCIS officially says about the following about arrests, citations, etc.:

7. If you have ever been arrested or detained by any law enforcement officer for any reason and

no charges were filed, bring:

An official, certified statement from the arresting agency or applicable court indicating that no

charges were filed.

8. If you have ever been arrested ir detained by any law enforcement officer for any reason and

charges were filed, bring:

An original or certified copy of the record(s) arrest and the complete court disposition (dismissal

order, conviction record, or aquittal order).

9. If you have been convicted or place in an alternative sentencing program or rehabilitative

program, bring:

A. The sentencing record of each incident and,

B. Evidence that you completed your sentence, such as probation record, parole record, or

evidencethat you completed an alternative program or rehabilatative program. Copies must

certified copies from the issuing agency.

10. If you have ever had any arrest or conviction vacated, set aside, sealed, expunged, or otherwise

removed from your records, bring:

An original or certified copy of the court order vacating, setting aside, sealing, expunging, or

otherwise removing the arrest or conviction.

"Note: Unless a traffic incident was alcohol or drug related or serious personal injury to another

person occurred, you do not need to submit documentation for traffic fines and incidents that did

not involve an actual arrest if the only penalty was a fine of less than $500 and//or points on

your driver license."

2. As for the employment dates, if you don't have the exact dates, just give an approximation, the best of your ability. For example, employed from Janurary 2006- December 2007, and June 2008 - December 2008, or Winter of 2007 and Summber of 2008 (or something along those lines, whatever your real-life example is). As well, if you are submitting tax returns, perhaps you can check your employment records based on that too? Just remember as much as you can about your employment dates, and tell the truth when asked about such.

The bottom line: Disclose when need to. Tell the truth when asked about such. Don't lie. And you should be ok there...

Hope this helps too. Good luck on the rest of your immigration journey.

Ant

Hello friends..

I am in process of filling our N400 for Naturalization.

I have confusion on what to answer for question 10 (16) where it asks

"Have you ever been arrested, Cited, detained, by any law enforcement officer"

I have got couple speeding tickes in last few years.

Should I answer yes for that.

Also what do I do, if I dont have exact dates of my employment started and ended as I had 2-3 jobs in last few years

How will that affect my application process

thanks

Edited October 20, 2009 by Ant+D+A

[lucyrich 20]

No need to disclose speeding tickets, if they didn't lead to an arrest.

Perhaps, but there's no reason to keep them a secret, either. You won't be denied citizenship for disclosing them. You don't have to provide any documentation related to them. Disclosing them is very cheap insurance.

If they didn't want you to disclose citations or detentions, the question would have been written, "Have you ever been arrested", not "Have you ever been arrested, cited, or detained". A speeding ticket is a citation. The word "citation" is usually written right there at the top of the paper.

You see, after you're done with this whole naturalization thing, you are permanently a citizen of the US, and the US government cannot take away your citizenship for any reason unless you voluntarily revoke your citizenship. Look up "Afroyim v. Rusk" for details. The supreme court says some very nice things about citizenship in its ruling, how in the US the citizens are the sovereign ones, and the government serves the citizens, so the government doesn't have the right to unilaterally break that relationship, while the citizens do. But I digress.

While the government can't say "you were naturalized, but now we'll revoke your citizenship", the government CAN go back and say you were never properly naturalized in the first place, if they want to badly enough, and if you provide them with ammunition in the form of a failure to disclose. Any failure to disclose a material fact, even something as minor as a speeding ticket, may give them grounds to say your naturalization wasn't properly performed, and therefore, despite the fact that you've held a certificate of naturalization and a US passport for all these years, you were never really a US citizen.

Chances are you won't become a target of an overzealous official anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter so much. But what benefit is there in taking that chance? BTW, I'm not just making up the hypothetical situation. They HAVE done this many times, including the case of a woman who was growing a houseplant which police mistook for marijuana. The police took her in for questioning, but then determined the plant wasn't marijuana, so they let her go. She had never done anything wrong, it was all a police mistake, so she didn't think she had to disclose the incident. She filed her N-400, was naturalized, and everyting seemed fine, but then the USCIS later denaturalized her for failure to disclose. Read about this and other cases here: http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=3480

When you read the N-400 and instructions carefully, you find that you don't have to provide any further documentation for minor traffic offenses, but you are not freed from the obligation to disclose them. So go ahead and admit that you got a couple of traffic tickets (they can probably look it up for themselves, if they're that interested). It won't hurt your chances for naturalization. You don't need to provide any documents. And it just may help your chances for naturalization, and/or keeping your citizenship at a later date.

[Italian_in_NYC 259]

I read cases that have been delayed, sometimes even denied because of idiot IOs that either requested crazy paperwork or thought that having a few traffic tickets was poor moral character.

I'm not taking any of those chances. The instructions are poorly written and they're clearly meant to have the applicants disclose arrests. I asked already 3 times to IOs over the phone whether I should disclose them or not and they all said no, one was even laughing.

I'll just say yes at the interview ONLY if specifically asked about traffic tickets, otherwise the don't ask, don't tell policy is king.

If they want to denaturalize me in the future for a couple of tickets, then be it, I can live with that. But I doubt it will ever happen.