Citizenship eligibility frequent travel

jongcc

New Member
Hello,

I have my green card through visa lottery, last 4 years I have been spending between 6-8 months in the U.S. every year. So far I am counting I have 25 months of physical presence accumulated in the U.S.

There is exactly one year left till my 5th year anniversary as a green card holder. Will I be eligible to apply for citizenship at that time? If so,what is the likelihood of being approved?
 
It depends on other factors besides having 6-8 months physical presence in a year.

Did you have one long absence or short trips. Did you keep your adobe in the US. No trips over 6 months..etc....So you need to review all these kind of questions.

You need to have 2.5 years in the US over 5 years so half the time. I have seen some cases, no a lot, where the applicant was close to the 900 days outside US and they were approved but you really need to have good reason for it.

I myself had over 700 days with 30 trips but all of my trips were short. Longest was 80 days and IO didn't even ask me anything.
 
Please give us a more detailed explanation of your travel history. Why do you travel, how often, and where do you work, here, or abroad? Do you have family here?
 
Guys, thanks for quick responses. More details about me:

- I am visa lottery winner, so all my family, except me and my girlfriend, live outside the U.S.
- I had rather shorter trips ranging from 3 weeks to 4 months , so not a single trip was ever longer than 6 months
- The reason for the trips were personal, visiting my family, travelling to different countries for vacation
- As far as the employment is concerned, I was always unemployed during those trips, but had several employments in the U.S. in the past 3 years.
- Sometimes I didn't have my "abode" in the U.S. because I didn't feel like paying a rent when I was gone for more than a month.
- I always kept U.S. mailing address though, whether that was friends address or my USPS PO Box address
- I have had a valid US drivers license the whole time
- For the most part I have also had a car waiting for me in the U.S. when I come back with valid insurance
- My bank account is in the U.S. and hold substantial amount of money in savings account

What do you guys think? I have calculated the total amount of time outside the U.S. by the 5th anniversary and it is going to be around 850 days in total.
 
Sounds fine generally. It's a little complicated, but any reasonable IO should be able to see that yo just don't have the standard lifestyle consisting of constant work and very little vacation time. Yous savings should help make things more straightforward.
 
Top