Citizenship

So I wanted to share my experience so that you can see that there is still hope no matter what your situation. I received my green card in March 2010 based on a VAWA petition. In April 2011 I had an incident on my daughter’s school bus. In June 2011 the local sheriff came to my home and said that they had a warrant for my arrest, stemming from the said incident. I was mortified, but was advised that I can turn myself in later that night after I had my daughter sorted out. I did as instructed, was arrested, booked, fingerprinted, and mug shot taken. I spent the night in jail, saw a judge in the morning and bonded out on $5,000 bail.

I went to court in July 2011 and pled Nolo Contendere on a misdemeanor charge of disrupting a public school bus. I received 1 year non report probation, anger management and $100.00 fine.

Fast forward to March 2015. I decided that I wanted to file my N-400 for US citizenship, but was a bit skeptical because of the arrest and all. I was worried that they will consider it a crime of moral turpitude and that it would be grounds for denial. I contacted several attorneys who told me that I should wait at least five years after the arrest because that would show good moral character. Nevertheless, I decided to go ahead and file anyways.
March 23rd, 2015: Filed N-400 and included final disposition of the case (certified from the court), notice of probation completion (also certified from the court) and copies of my degrees. At that point I had a BS degree and two MS degrees and was working on a third MS and PhD at the same time. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt and could only help.

April 16th, 2015: We received your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization
April 27th, 2015: We scheduled you for a fingerprint appointment.
May 15th, 2015: Went to Atlanta GA support office to have fingerprints taken.
May 19th, 2015: We are scheduling your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, for an interview.
June 16th, 2015: We scheduled an interview for your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization.
July 21st, 2015: Attended interview and testing
August 26th, 2015: Your Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, was placed in line for oath ceremony scheduling.
September 4th, 2015: Received notice to appear for oath ceremony on September 11th, 2015.

Interview: My officer was very nice. My appointment was at 2:30 pm and I got there around 1:50 pm. Checked in down stairs, then the clerk (happened to be a lady from my church) advised me to go to the third floor and wait to be called. It seemed like I was waiting forever (turned out to be about 10 minutes), but then an officer came out and called my name. He asked for my notice and instructed me to step inside of his office.

Once inside, I was asked to raise my left hand and say I do to the oath that he repeated. I was instructed to have a seat and he began reviewing the information that was on my application so that he can make any changes that needed to be made, and to see if anything had changed since I filed. He asked about my trips outside of the US and a couple other basic questions.

He then told me he would begin the testing and I was asked to read a sentence. I can’t quite remember, but I think that it was something to the effect of “Mexico is on the border of the United States.” I was then asked to write the same sentence on another sheet of paper.

I was then asked my six questions which he checked off as I answered:
1. What is the supreme law of the land?
2. What did the declaration of independence do?
3. How many us senators are there?
4. If the president can no longer serve, who becomes president?
5. What does the presidents’ cabinet do?
6. What ocean is on the east coast of the United States?

Whew, I aced the interview and the test. The immigration officer then congratulated me and said that I had passed the interview and the testing and that he was recommending me for U.S. citizenship. However, he said that he could not give me an oath letter right away because my file was huge (and it was), and needed to be looked at by his supervisor. He said that it was nothing to worry about, but of course I was still worried, thinking that they may change their minds because of the arrest. He did give me a letter stating that I had passed everything and was recommended for citizenship. The immigration officer was just so nice.

I was on pins and needles waiting for my letter, and just when I was not thinking about it because I figured that it would take a while, there it was in my mail box. So this is the end of my journey and next week this same time (and believe me, I am counting the seconds, minutes, hours and days…literally), I will be a US citizen, gods willing.
So I hope that this will give someone hope, no matter what.
Soon to be new US citizen.