13 traffic tickets and applying for N 400 Naturalization - Very Worried

[simanonymous 0]

Hello,

I have 13 traffic tickets in the last five years. Most of them are from last year. The traffic tickets include speeding tickets, parking tickets (meter expired), and red light photo enforcement, ez pass violation. All tickets are paid and I never went to jail. None of the tickets are above $500. My driver's license was suspended once for one day due to late payment on one ticket. It was reinstated the very next day. I am very concerned about this. I have the following questions:

1. Will immigration officer at the Naturalization interview deny me Citizenship because of bad moral character because of the number of tickets and/or driver's license suspension?

2. What can I do to remedy this. For instance, can I do volunteer work and/or defensive driving course to prove good moral character?

3. Has anyone been in this situation before?

4. If I get denied because of this, how soon can I reapply?

Please help I am really concerned.

Thank You.

[Jon York 156]

Traffic violations aren't considered "moral" violations. I don't think you'll have any problems. Just tell them you were adjusting and still learning the American ways. Generally nobody here considers traffic tickets to be very serious. And certainly they're not considered crimes. Especially since you paid all your fines quickly and remedied the problems as soon as you found out about them.

[Ian H. 207]

Ok first of all parking tickets and ez pass violations are not the same as traffic tickets. You should get used to knowing that they are different. These kinds of tickets carry no points, they don't affect your insurance, and they don't affect your license, unless they remain unpaid.

Red light camera tickets aren't considered traffic tickets either because they can't know who was driving the vehicle, therefore they carry no points or affect your insurance, unless they remain unpaid also. Also based on the number of tickets I can almost swear you live in NY, do you?

1. In any case, the only traffic tickets you have are the speeding tickets, assuming that there aren't other moving violations you committed. That said, traffic tickets don't affect the moral character part of the application unless they involve drugs and/or alcohol, or if you were arrested.

2. The defensive driver course is good to reduce points on your record and to give you an insurance discount. It's not needed to prove anything to the IO because these tickets won't affect your application.

3. I've probably gotten just as much tickets as you, 3 traffic tickets in 7 years (speeding, improper turn, "shoulder riding"), a good amount of parking tickets, and one ticket for not paying the bus, which wasn't my fault. I was already a citizen before this, but trust me, this doesn't affect your application.

4. You won't get denied because of this.

Good luck.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Ian H.

[Ian H. 207]

By the way, the application asks if you've ever been cited, detained, arrested, etc by an officer of the law, you would answer yes, because traffic tickets are citations. You would just attach an explanation to the the tickets you received and which times you were pulled over. Same thing on the day of the interview.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Ian H.

[simanonymous 0]

Based on the tickets I have and I am applying after approval of I 751 good faith marriage waiver. Will they reevaluate my marriage and cause troubles to approve Citizenship and/or try to take my green card away.

Is the risk of denial worth the trouble of applying in this case? Please advise.

Thank You

[JimmyHou 610]

Based on the tickets I have and I am applying after approval of I 751 good faith marriage waiver. Will they reevaluate my marriage and cause troubles to approve Citizenship and/or try to take my green card away.

Is the risk of denial worth the trouble of applying in this case? Please advise.

Thank You

As mentioned above, the tickets shouldn't affect your approval. The worst that will happen is that they will ask you to demonstrate that you paid everything off.

The marriage issue is another matter. They may choose to look into your marriage again. It's up to your interviewer.

They will only take away your greencard of they determine you obtained it fraudulently. Being denied citizenship does not mean that your greencard will be revoked.

Edited November 8, 2014 by JimmyHou