Paddy,

I had my interview moved because I would be out of the area for a lengthy period of time, such that it would cause a conflict. The fingerprints are only good for a year and I was in danger of having my oath ceremony scheduled over a year from when I was fingerprinted. I think that's the reason I was able to have the interview moved.

The traffic violation issue was something he was very interested in. He went through each item slowly and discussed each one. In my favor was the fact they all occurred outside of the United States, they all occurred over 5 years ago, they all occurred before I adjusted status.

Please note, even after your interview you are still not off the hook. You have to fill out the I-445 before your oath ceremony. One of the questions on this form is:

"Have you been arrested, cited, charged, indicted, convicted, fined or imprisoned for
breaking or violating any law or ordinance, including traffic violations?"

So, even if you delay your court date until after your interview, it may not help if it occurs before your oath ceremony.

Regardless of how your court case ends up, I believe you are still responsible for reporting it because the wording is "cited". You were issued a traffic citation so you have been cited, at least from my perspective.

I've never heard of anyone being declined over a speeding ticket but I have heard of people being denied for not revealing citations. They can run your name and see you were cited so I would just fess up when you get to the interview and bring them a revised N400 page showing the details of the ticket. It's not going to hurt your chances.

Paddy,

Here is an article about Vermont naturalizations.

http://www.samessenger.com/112304.html

Vermont has 500 people per year naturalize.

New York City has 3,000 per month!

Hi sphyrapicus3 thanks for the link. It was an interesting comparision between the state of Vermont and the city of New York..........just goes to show that in terms of getting through the process a whole lot quicker, i was right to move to vermont. Two questions for you sphy, was the guy in the newspaper article the guy who interviewed you and what form is the I-445 as I can't find it anywhere?

Affirm.

I meant N-445, Notice of Naturalization Oath Ceremony

Hi there Lani, I doubt that the USCIS will give you a problem because you are not working as long as you are not living off the government.Currently I am not working because my wife and I have switched roles until her father returns....so I am a stay home dad until the end of next week.

Anyway getting back to your original question, I haven't had my interview yet but I am going back to see them tomorrow to get an update on my case. I have decided that as I live only 20 minutes away from the St.Albans office that I will keep going back to get updates every 2 to 3 weeks. I should of expected this but the reason why is because the USCIS f-u-c-k-e-d things up again. Back in december, I was shocked when I was told by the immigration officer on duty that all my background checks were done and that I should be getting an interview date for february or at the latest march. She had to repeat this information to me a number of times because I found it so hard to believe that things had APPARENTLY moved so quickly. Anyway, I didn't hear anything for close on a month so I decided to go back and see what the problem was. I was told that the USCIS were still performing a name check on me. I explained to the officer that I was told the previous month that all the checks had been done and that the officer went out of her way to convince me that this was the case. His only reply was that she must of misread the information.
Tomorrow, I don't expect the USCIS to let me down again by giving me a straight answer as it would be totally out of character. I realistically believe that I will be reporting back here tomorrow with yet a different response than I got on all the previous occasions.

Lani,
do yourself a favor and don't do what I did and that was forget to send some required documents. I was in such a hurry to file my application that I forgot to send them certain documents such as marriage certificate and tax information etc. Unlike the green card application where the USCIS could reject your application if it is missing certain documents, the for the N-400, I was told to simply bring them to my interview whenever that is. So my advice is go to the USCIS website and look at the instructions for filing the N-400( I think there is a list of documents that you need to send that is attached to the actual application)

Lani,
another thing. If you are so worried about what the USCIS thinks about you not working then why don't you go out and get any job you can find just before your interview, even if it is cleaning bathrooms or working at Mickie D's

As for my a N-400 timeline here it is:
Applied on september 16th 2004 in PA
Notice of receipt october 11th 2004
Moved to Vermont Nov 2nd 2004
Sent Address change to USCIS 2004
Fingerprints december 9th 2004
Fingerprints returned december 20th 2004
Still waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eventhough this process is frustrating, vermont appears to be a lot quicker than other parts of the country........namely PA.

Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I have found out one thing about the process that I didn't know before. I always felt that moving to a new state during an immigration application could severely delay the process. But I was told that no application is distributed from the service center until all the background checks are done. Consequently, when I got to Vermont my application was still in the state.

Here's an update for anyone interested. Well the USCIS were inconsistant yet again today when I went down to see them at St.Albans......they were so nice!!!!!! Not only did they tell me that my name check went through a few days after my last disappointing visit last month but that I should get an interview sometime in April. However after asking if they had any cancellations, they gave me March 8th for my citizenship interview. They were so nice that they are going to try and get my file sent from the service center to their office(approximately 1.5 miles away)this week so that they can give me a cancellation date next week. If I am being realistic though, I doubt I will get that but I won't count any of my chickens until I have the notice of interview in my hands.
Taking into account my experience so far, I still believe in my original statement that moving to Vermont was the right decision. From my first contact with the vermont office back in December, the process has taken approximately 3 months so far. Hopefully, I'm a little closer to my dream of working for the USCIS!!!!!!!!!!!!