Wondering about citation hearing...

My husband is a DREAMer and we are just beginning to fill out and file papers to adjust his status. Last night, due to my carelessness and stupidity, we were pulled over while he was driving on his expired license because I had forgotten to renew my license plate stickers. He was given a citation for driving on an expired license and we have to go to court to respond/plea/pay the fee within ten days (or a warrant for his arrest will be issued).

A lawyer I spoke with said that most likely, the judge wouldn't go into his immigration status at all, but that we should of course be honest about everything. It is possible that this will trigger deportation proceedings, something that so far has not been an issue. She said the worst case scenario was that he ran a risk of, like all undocumented persons, being picked up and taken in at the court. But she did say that this very rarely occurs.

Naturally I'm fixated on this final and most frightening possibility. Does anybody have any experience with being undocumented and dealing with a traffic citation? What should we expect and how should we prepare for the hearing? Should we use up our savings and have a lawyer with us or is this something we can do on our own? I know that barring his actually being taken into custody, this will probably not in any way effect our long-term plans to change his status. But of course I'm still completely freaked out about what *could* happen. Anybody have any advice for us?

Many, many thanks!
Salaam,
- Janet.

Honestly I don't think this should be a big problem. Make sure you pay the fine right away and attend to any court hearings he might get and fully accept the punishment. After this tell him to avoid driving because a second citation can definitely hurt his chances of adjusting status. Good luck on my behalf.

getting a ticket for driving without license or expired license is not a deportable/inadmissible offense. depending on which state you are from, the charge can either be a misdemeanor or infraction. most judges will bring it down to an infraction unless he/she is a total jerkoff.

go to court and plea guilty and pay the fine. if you dont want to pay the fine, you can plea not guilty and wait 3-4 months for trial. most likely the cop who gave you the ticket wont even show up, at which point your case is dismissed alltogether. unlike what afloo12345 said above, who seems to have no clue, even getting a second citation involving driving with expired license will not pose any problem in terms of your husband adjusting status.

when you and your husband go in for i-485 interview later on, just make sure you bring all the final court disposition regarding your tickets. the IO will probably look through those in 3 seconds and tell you they dont matter. but its good to disclose everything to the IO.

dont even stress. your "problem" isnt a problem at all in terms of adjusting status through US citizen. if anything, its a hassle trying to deal with the court because it takes months to take care of the ticket if the ticket mandates you to appear in front of a judge.

Well, there may be some complicating factors.

I just spoke to another lawyer who said that because my husband is originally from Pakistan and he was too young to do the special registration program while it was going on, there may be a chance that should the judge or a police officer at the court hear that he's an undocumented immigrant with those circumstances, they will go ahead and contact ICE, who will then come and pick up my husband from our home at some later date. He'd be taken in and we'd have to post a bond and from there he'd be in deportation proceedings until we were able to resolve his adjustment of status.

Of course, the other possibility is that he pleads guilty, we pay the fine, the judge never inquires about his immigration status and all this just goes away.

FREAKING OUT. I'm so worried that this whole thing is about to spiral out of our control.

where are you from? lets see if this incident resembles with this lady i spoke to while back. she had some tickets for suspended license, etc. came here legal and throughout the years she was residing illegal and her daughter sponsored her...she was called for her interview (green card)...but before that she paid all her tickets and sent the payment via post (certified with a return receipt). best thing to do is call the court and pay the fine and avoid going in front of the judge.

I'm an American-born citizen and we live in Pennsylvania. I don't think there's any way we can avoid going before a judge since the nature of the citation requires our presence, unfortunately. I suspect the officer who issued the citation did that specifically because his license had expired almost 5 years earlier, and she may have suspected that he was not here legally. He did enter legally but has overstayed his visa.

He is your husband, you are a USC and he is an overstay, there has to be something missing, usually marriage petitions are very quick and should take a couple months for him to get a green card and become a PR.

janet,

i understand your fears and concern but you really really really have nothing to worry about.

here's the most likely scenerio: you and your husband will go to court, and either pay the fine or fight the fine. thats upto you. ICE will not be there to pick your husband up unless he is sent to jail and booked, which is highly unlikely. unless you are from states like georgia or arizona.

here's the worst scenerio: lets say that your husband does get picked up by ICE and put in deportation proceedings. since he is already married to US citizen, and he has a i-485 and i-130 petition in his name, he will not be deported. so, make sure you have your i-485, i-130 receipts with you. the immigration judge will throw out the case and let him stay here until USCIS determines final decision on his case. they will not deport anyone with pending petitions that are likely to get approved. in your case, it is highly likely that the marriage based adjustment of status will be approved, as long as you can prove you guys are in bona fide relationship.

do not be stressed! your husband is going to be fine. worst case scenerio, you will have to handle with the judicial system for months, and thats about the only problem you'll have to deal with. but your husband will not be deported.

here's another advice in regards to paying your traffic fine:

did you send your husband's i-485 and i-130 applications? do you have the receipts? did you apply i-765 along with your application? if so, your husband will get his EAD card in about 2-3 months. then he can apply for his social security number, which he will receive in about 2 weeks. then he can go and apply for his new drivers license. when is your next court date?

if possible, you can plead not guilty, at which point a trial date will be set for you couple months from now. by that time, he will have his license, and he can take that to court and show it to the judge and the judge will probably dismiss the charge or bring down the fine.

Its what pretty much happened to my dad, the court date was set for a couple months and I do not know how but we was able to prolong it even longer and in that time got petitioned by my sister, attained PR status, re-took driving tests and got a new driver's license, all before the court date for being randomly selected at an airport checkpoint where they found he had an expired license.