A park speeding ticket while your green card is pending.
An approved EB-1, a pending I-485, a permanent resident counting down to naturalization: most people who call me from this page have a notice for sixty-one in a forty-five. The immigration lawyers I work with want one of two outcomes for it, and so do I: a dismissal, or a resolution that leaves nothing but a payment under $500 and no conviction.
Call or text me. Clients get my cell number from day one, and I answer. Got a violation notice? Here's what happens next.
Read it in your language. Talk it through in your language.
Every page of this National Parks chapter is written in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French, German and Italian. The consultation is a video call with attorney Aaron Herzberg, carried in your language by live translation software, at no additional charge.
Three forms, one line, and the speed.
Form I-485 asks at Part 9, Item 22, whether you have ever been "arrested, cited, charged" or placed in a diversion program, and its instructions require certified court records for any charge. Form N-400 asks the same at Part 9, Item 15.b, and asks every time. A ranger's violation notice is a citation.
Documentation is excused for a traffic incident that "did not involve an actual physical arrest if the penalty was only a fine of less than $500," unless the incident "resulted in criminal charges or involved alcohol, drugs, or injury." What decides which side of the line it lands on is the disposition.
Below about twenty-five over, a dismissal or a small fine is a realistic ask. Above it the conversation is harder, and at thirty over nothing guarantees the fine stays under $500. The miles over set the difficulty; they do not change the goal.
Where the ticket surfaces, in order.
Form editions 01/20/25; a 09/18/26 edition of the I-485 applies to filings postmarked on or after September 18, 2026.
The petition asks nothing. The application asks everything.
An EB-1, EB-2 or EB-3 petition is about the job; the current I-140 has no criminal-history question. The I-485 asks five questions in a row that a park notice can touch, and a "Yes" to any eligibility question is a listed reason a case goes to a field office for an interview. The traffic exception in the instructions is the narrow door a speeding ticket can fit through, and whether it fits depends on how the case ends, not on how it began.
The interview, and travel
The officer works from the file, and the file should contain the disposition, not a pending case. For a speeding ticket the interview is mostly a records question: what were you cited for, how did it end, and where is the certified record. An applicant who leaves the country while the I-485 is pending abandons it unless they hold advance parole and are inspected and paroled back in at a port of entry, carrying the court record with them.
- 01Form I-140 (edition 06/07/24): no question about arrests or citations; USCIS may still run an FBI check
- 02Form I-485, Part 9, Items 22 to 26: cited or charged, committed, convicted, punished, controlled substance; certified records required, with the traffic exception in the instructions
- 03The adjustment interview: the officer works from the file and wants the disposition
- 04Advance parole and re-entry, or the DS-260 at a consulate: inspection and the two questions
- 05Form N-400, Part 9, Items 15.b and 16: cited or charged, probation completed, good moral character for the statutory period
| Park charge | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Speeding (36 CFR § 4.21(c)) | Disclose; end it well | Not a ground; the forms ask about being cited; a dismissal or a payment under $500 with no conviction keeps it inside the traffic exception; thirty over is a mandatory appearance |
| Unsafe or careless operation (§ 4.22) | Disclose; end it well | Not a ground; a flat $250 on the schedule; often written alongside a high speed, so read the notice for a second regulation |
| Driving under the influence | Disclose; character | Not a crime involving moral turpitude by itself; named on the N-400; no documentation exception; two convictions presume a lack of character |
| Refusing the breath test | Disclose | A second federal misdemeanor and a one-year ban on driving on federal land |
| Open container | Disclose if cited | Rarely a ground; alcohol-related, so no documentation exception on its face |
| Marijuana or any controlled substance (§ 2.35(b)) | Most serious | Inadmissibility with no small-amount exception; deportability with the thirty-gram exception; a good-moral-character bar; asked by name on every form |
| Thermal areas, wildlife, off-trail | Disclose; watch probation | Rarely a ground; often end in probation with a park ban, which the forms ask about and which delays approval |
Weights are my reading of the statute and the forms as applied to petty offenses under the Park Service regulations. Every case turns on its facts and its immigration category.
Speeding is not a ground. Marijuana is.
The grounds, the fine-or-forfeiture wrinkle, paying, DUI, the consulate, the two lawyers
Speeding is not a ground
Speeding is not a crime involving moral turpitude and it is not a controlled-substance offense, so a park speeding ticket is not, by itself, a ground of inadmissibility for an adjustment applicant or a ground of deportability for a permanent resident. What it is, is a citation the forms ask about for years, and, if it ends the wrong way, a record an officer has to read and interpret; a paid notice in this district is a forfeiture the court does not report to your state, but it is still a citation, and it is still yours to explain. Naturalization adds good moral character for the five years before filing, three for the spouse of a citizen, and through the oath (INA § 316(a), § 319(a)); a single speeding fine is not the kind of act that regulation is written around, but the officer weighs the whole record, and a clean disposition reads better than a messy one.
Marijuana is
The park charge that does the damage is marijuana. A person is inadmissible if convicted of a violation of any law or regulation "relating to a controlled substance," or if they admit one (INA § 212(a)(2)(A)(i)(II)), and an adjustment applicant must be admissible; the petty-offense exception applies to crimes involving moral turpitude, not drug offenses, and the discretionary waiver in INA § 212(h) is limited to a single offense of simple possession of thirty grams or less and, for an employment-based immigrant, generally requires that the offense happened more than fifteen years ago or that a citizen or resident spouse, parent or child would suffer extreme hardship. A permanent resident is deportable for a controlled-substance conviction except a single offense involving thirty grams or less for personal use (INA § 237(a)(2)(B)(i)), and the moment that resident flies abroad, a separate provision treats a lawful permanent resident who "has committed an offense identified in section 1182(a)(2)" as an applicant for admission on return (INA § 101(a)(13)(C)(v)), where there is no exception. The park marijuana regulation (36 CFR § 2.35(b)) is a controlled-substance law, and a paid $400 marijuana notice is the worst available outcome, because it closes the case with a controlled-substance regulation on the record before anyone has asked for the dismissal or the amended charge that leaves nothing of the kind; the federal court's rule says a paid forfeiture is not an admission, but the immigration definition is applied by someone else. At the interview, an officer who gives you the text of a law, explains its elements in ordinary language, and takes your sworn answer can establish a controlled-substance ground with no conviction anywhere. The marijuana page covers the regulation and the collateral schedule.
The fine-or-forfeiture wrinkle, and the arithmetic
One wrinkle: the instructions speak of a "fine," and the federal court's 2026 rule says a paid collateral forfeiture "is not a fine." Whether a forfeiture, or a negotiated payment under $500 with no conviction, fits the exception is for your immigration counsel to confirm; what I control is the ending, and I will get you the written disposition to hand them. The District of Wyoming prices park speeding at ten dollars for every mile over the limit plus a thirty-dollar fee, and makes thirty or more over a mandatory appearance before the magistrate judge, who sets the fine under the $5,000 ceiling that applies to every Park Service regulation (36 CFR § 4.21(c)).
Paying, in more detail
A Box B notice can be paid from anywhere, and for a driver with an ordinary license and nothing a federal record would complicate, paying is usually fine. You are not that driver. Paying is a forfeiture of collateral the court accepts in place of your appearance (L.Cr.R. 58.2(c)): under the federal court's 2026 rule it is not an admission, not an adjudication of guilt, and not a fine, and the Bureau's national warning about admitting an offense does not describe this court. It is also the one step that closes the case before anyone has asked the prosecutor for a dismissal. The alternative is to treat the notice as what it is, a pending federal petty-offense case, and to work it to a dismissal or to a payment under $500 with no conviction. The speeding page covers the regulation, the arithmetic, and what a paid notice does and does not do.
The charges that carry weight
A simple DUI, standing alone, is not a crime involving moral turpitude and is not a controlled-substance offense; where it lives is good moral character, and the Attorney General held in 2019 that two or more DUI convictions in the relevant period establish a rebuttable presumption that character is lacking. One park DUI is disclosed, documented and usually survivable; a second is a different file. The park DUI page covers the charge and the refusal ban.
The consulate
A speeding notice involves no arrest, so it does not trigger the prudential visa revocation that a park DUI arrest can for an applicant still travelling on an H-1B or L-1 (9 FAM 403.11-5(B)), but immigration counsel should still clear any trip while the case is open. A beneficiary processing abroad answers the DS-260's arrest-or-conviction question at the consulate, where a yes invites a request for documents.
Two lawyers
I handle the citation and the disposition entered on the federal docket; your immigration lawyer handles the petition, the application and the answers on the forms; neither of us should act without the other. Do not pay the notice until both have read it. Do not answer a form until the criminal case has a disposition or, if an interview date will not wait, until both agree on how the pending charge is described; an applicant on probation cannot be approved for naturalization until the term ends. When the case closes, get the certified disposition from the clerk of the federal court and the notice with its probable-cause statement from the Central Violations Bureau, and keep both; the N-400 will ask about the same afternoon the I-485 did, and the answers must match.
For a marijuana or DUI notice the outcome I aim for is a disposition that is not a controlled-substance conviction and not an admission of one, and, for every other charge, the shortest true sentence the form allows. Whether that is reachable depends on the speed, the facts and the prosecutor; it is out of reach once the notice is paid. The page for visa holders covers F-1, H-1B, L-1 and ESTA travellers and the immigration definition of a conviction; the records page covers background checks, Global Entry and clearances.
Asked by petitioners, applicants and permanent residents.
My I-140 is approved and my I-485 is pending. Do I have to report a Yellowstone speeding ticket?
I already paid the speeding ticket online. What now?
I was going more than twenty-five over. Does that change things?
I have a green card. Can a park speeding ticket get me deported?
My N-400 interview is next month and the park case is still open. What do I say?
Which document do I need to keep, and where do I get it?
Does a DUI in Grand Teton end my green card or my naturalization?
I paid the $400 marijuana notice before I read any of this. What now?
Find your citation.
Every page below is written for one kind of notice. Start with the one that matches yours.
Start with a confidential conversation with Aaron Herzberg.
National-park matters begin with a thirty-minute call, and almost everything after that can be handled from wherever you are. Book it through the chat button in the corner of this page, or send the note here and my office will call you, usually the same business day. Have your violation notice in hand so we can read the box together, and call or text any time. Video consultations are available in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French, German and Italian, with live translation software, on request.
40 E Simpson Ave, Jackson, WY 83001 · by appointment · video consultations for out-of-state clients · info@puzzlegroup.com