Naturalization: Becoming a US citizen

To become a Citizen of the United States, The eligibility requirements are:

You must be a lawful permanent resident.

You must be 18 years or older

You must have continuous residence in the USA and be of good moral character

 

For my clients who got their green cards through marriage. The continuous residence period is only 3 years. And we can start the naturalization process even before that, three months earlier. So that it may be possible to be sworn in as a US citizen on the exact three year anniversary of the start of your permanent residence.

Other green card holders, those not married to US citizens must wait till they have accrued 5 full years of permanent residence.

The next eligibility requirement is that you confirm you have “Attachment” to the US Constitution

The Constitution is the document that sets up how U.S. Government and laws of the US work.

Attachment means you agree with the Constitution�s principles, and you will support and defend them.

Finally, you must demonstrate knowledge of English and US Civics.

If you are married to a US citizen, once you have reached 2 years and 9 months of permanent residency, or if not married to a US citizen, you have reached 5 years of permanent residency we submit the application for Naturalization to USCIS.

The application includes evidences of your eligibility.

And just like when we worked earlier to obtain your fiance or spouse visa and adjustment of status. I will provide you with a detailed and personalized list of the photos, documents and evidences needed for your shoebox.

You’ll not hear from USCIS for a while, but eventually they will schedule you for a formal Interview and tell you where and when to go.

You’ll want to bring to the interview, the appointment notice, your green card, your passports, and US id’s, as well as the evidence portion from the application we submitted, which will have all the supporting and evidence documents that might be needed.

At the start of the interview, the USCIS officer goes over your application in front of you, and asks questions about what you have submitted.

He’ll ask your name, address, where you come from, marital history, travel history, etc. He is just confirming that you know what’s been stated on the application and that and still stick with what you said. And during this Q + A your ability to speak English is measured.

When satisfied, he’ll ask for you to sign the application again.

Then on to the Civics and English reading and writing tests. You have already passed the English speaking portion.

You are shown three sentences, and asked to read one out loud.

Then you are shown three sentences and asked to write a copy of one.

The vocabulary words used are all very basic and available for study at the USCIS website or from your VisaCoach account page.

The civics test consists of 100 possible questions. The officer may ask up to 10 (chosen randomly) and to pass, you must get at least 6 right.

Study materials are also available at USCIS or your VisaCoach account page. The only marginally tricky issue, is that everytime there is an election, a half dozen of the answers change: for example who is the President,who is your local Senator, who is your state’s Governor, and so on.

At the end of the interview the officer lets you know you passed, and that the next step will be your swearing in ceremony.

Depending on where you live the oath taking ceremony will be scheduled after a few months. If you are married to a US citizen and applied right at the 2 year, 9 month mark, you will have to wait at least until your 3 year Green card anniversary has passed.

The Naturalization swearing-in ceremony is a big affair. Typically a few hundred immigrants will be sworn in at the same time, and various elected officials, judges, prominent individuals attend to give speechs and welcome the brand new US Citizens.

After your oath ceremony you are officially a US citizen and have all the rights and responsibilities that come with.

Previously, as a Lawful Permanent Resident you could apply to sponsor your spouse or child for immigration to the USA, but no one else.

Now as a US citizen, you can Also sponsor a fiance, your parents, and your siblings for immigration.

And of course, VisaCoach is available to help you make it happen

By Fred Wahl
the VisaCoach

US Citizenship Application Costs 

 The spouse of a US citizen may apply to become a US citizen after 3 years of permanent residency. A lawful permanent resident, not married to a US citizen may apply after 5 years of permanent residency.

The process to apply for US citizenship is called Naturalization. The fees needed to apply with form N-400, effective October 2, 2020 are as follows:

Continue reading “Naturalization Costs for US Citizenship”

Applying for US Citizenship

Generally, a person who aims to naturalize will have first to become a permanent resident.

Becommng a US citizen, you obtain numerous rights that in fact permament residents or others would not have, this includes the right to vote.

To qualify for naturalization, you need to first meet particular requirements.

What are Naturalization’s basic requirements?

Continue reading “How to Apply for US Citizenship”

When can the Foreign Spouse of a US Citizen apply for Naturalization and become a US Citizen?

You fell in love with someone who lives outside the country. Then, went through the slow and complicated process to help her or him immigrate to the USA on a fiancé or spouse visa.

Later there was the process to apply for your spouse’s lawful permanent residency and green card.

As a Lawful permanent resident your spouse can continue to live in the USA for as long as he or she wants.

And can live here without ever becoming a US citizen.

However your partner can consider becoming a US citizen. This has benefits such as spouse can get a US passport and travel wherever you can go with your US passport.  Your spouse can also vote.

If your spouse is interested in becoming a US citizen, and wants to become one just as soon as he or she is eligible to apply, this video is you.

How soon can your Foreign Spouse apply for US Citizenship?

You are a US citizen and your spouse is a lawful permanent resident.  As early as the day of his or her third anniversary of being granted lawful residency, your spouse is eligible to be sworn in for citizenship.

And in practice many immigrants view it as a matter of pride, to become a US citizen, just as soon as they can. USCIS respects and encourages this eagerness to become “one of us”. So they welcome your spouse to submit his or her application as early as 90 days before the third anniversary.

And in many cases if processing goes smoothly, your partner can get sworn
in as a US citizen as early as on or immediately after the anniversary.

When your partner was issued his or her first green card, if your marriage was less than two years old at that time, your spouse wasn’t given a regular green card, instead was given a temporary, or “conditional” green card.

This green card was only good for two years. Basically US immigration waits to find out how it goes with your marriage.

Just before the conditional green card expires, you and your spouse applied once again to USCIS. This time the application was called “removal of conditions on residency”

When USCIS works quickly and smoothly, the permanent, “unconditional” green card, would be issued within a year of applying, and your spouse would have her or his new green card approved and in-hand well before the time he or she would be eligible to apply for US citizenship.

But currently due to Covid and other factors, USCIS is taking quite a long time to issue the unconditional green card. Now it’s often taking as long as two years.

Does your spouse need to wait for the upgraded green card to be issued
before applying for citizenship?

Does your spouse need to wait potentially much longer than three years?

The good news is “No”, your spouse does not have to wait.

As long as the application to remove conditions was submitted on time,
with the proper evidence, then regardless of whether the case has been approved or still in process, your spouse can apply once the 2 year 9 month
benchmark has been reached.

And because USCIS processing is so slow, and their backlogs are so full, it appears that they are really happy that your partner does not wait for the removal application review to be over, instead they welcome to process citizenship, cause if they approve citizenship, the removal case becomes irrelevant and they can close two cases from their backlog with one stroke at one time

Most of my VisaCoach clients do exactly this. We apply for removal on time,
as that is a fixed requirement in order to extend permission to remain in the USA as a lawful resident, then about 9 months later we apply for US citizenship. My client is usually sworn in close to the three year residency mark, and skipped getting a second green card.

This was Fred Wahl, The VisaCoach,  here to personally guide you on this journey.