How to prove 30 months continuous residence?

speedy1027

Registered Users (C)
Hello All,

I still have some time to apply for my NATZ.

However, couple of questions for all gurus out there...

1) How to prove 30 months continuous stay in the US?

2) Pretty soon me and my wife planning to travel to India. Do we need to get any receipt/document/stamp when leaving at the airport which will help in documenting our trips outside?

Any helpful advice is appreciated

Thanks,
Speedy1027
 
1) How to prove 30 months continuous stay in the US?

You amy have mixed up two requirements:
- 30 months Physical Presence in the United States and
- Continuous Residence of 5 years as a Permanent Resident without leaving the United States for trips of 6 months or longer

(both requirements quoted from the M-476 A Guide to Naturalization)

These requirements do not mean that you must have been physically present in the United States for 30 months in a row without ever leaving the United States.

The 30 months can be established as follows:

On the N-400 Form
The whole point of Part 7 on the N-400 form is that you (applicant) indicate the trips outside the United States during the past 5 years. If Part 7 sows that you have been staying for example 200 days outside the United States in the last 5 years, you then have been spending 5 years minus 200 days in the United States in the past 5 years, which is greater than 30 months.

During the Interview
A goal of the interview for the IO is to validate (and update if you have taken trips outside the United States since filing) the information you provided. The IO may want to review with you the stamps on your passport to substantiate your claim of residence duration exceeding 30 months.

Just before the Oath
On the back of the Oath letter you will indicate if you have been staying outside the United States since the interview. Your declaration will help the USCIS validate one last time that you meet the residence requirement.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Right. You can make your case for your trips with passport stamps, airline boarding passes (for example for trips to Canada or other places where they might not have stamped your passport) or anything else.

If you are far from the edges of the continuous residence and physical presence rules (as we were) they may not look at anything (for both my wife and I, the IO simply thumbed through our passports without looking at anything carefully).
 
You amy have mixed up two requirements:
- 30 months Physical Presence in the United States and
- Continuous Residence of 5 years as a Permanent Resident without leaving the United States for trips of 6 months or longer

Sorry, I used incorrect terminology. I meant to say 30 months physical presence in the US.


If you are far from the edges of the continuous residence and physical presence rules (as we were) they may not look at anything (for both my wife and I, the IO simply thumbed through our passports without looking at anything carefully).
Yeah, we are too far away from the edges of the continous residence and physical presence rules so far.

Right. You can make your case for your trips with passport stamps, airline boarding passes (for example for trips to Canada or other places where they might not have stamped your passport) or anything else

I haven't travelled outside the US in the past 30 months since I became a LPR (on Dec20, 2004). However, the entry stamp in my passport which they put on Jan17, 2005 is smudgy at best. I don't think anyone can make head or tail of it. Do they have that date in their records to validate, or do they go by that smudgy stamp in my passport?
Hopefully, if I remember correctly, I should be having boarding passes for that trip.

Cheers,
speedy1027
 
Illegible/No re-entry stamp in the passport

When I come back from Canada after a daytrip the Border Patrol does not bother stamping my passport either - it is a little the same case as the smudged stamp in your passport.

I am not too worried about this for the interview for the following reasons:
- The USCIS should have access to the BCIS (Border Control) database, so they should be able to verify that you re-entered on the date you mention
- I can provide if needed some secondary evidence such as toll road/bridge receipts dated of the day I re-entered. Airline tickets/boarding passes should work as well.
 
They won't ask you to prove the 30 months residency if your trips outside the US were short. The best way to maintain residency is to take short trips each yr, keep travel records if you want to be careful.
For instance we were out for about 60 days in 5 yrs, so the IO never even looked at the passports. Frequent travellers have been asked for their passport and photocopies were made during the interview and the assumption was that the IO probably went through the stamps to verify travel date.
 
Trips to Canada

When I come back from Canada after a daytrip the Border Patrol does not bother stamping my passport either - it is a little the same case as the smudged stamp in your passport.

I am not too worried about this for the interview for the following reasons:
- The USCIS should have access to the BCIS (Border Control) database, so they should be able to verify that you re-entered on the date you mention
- I can provide if needed some secondary evidence such as toll road/bridge receipts dated of the day I re-entered. Airline tickets/boarding passes should work as well.

I agreed about that US border can know what date u came in but do u think can they know what day u lift? and if so, u can leave US taking yr car and come back to US with a friend (his car) then u can stay for while and go back to Canada with another friend and take yr car back? is that correct? I think it is very tought to know how long u been to canada, do u agree with me?
Regards,
Sky123
 
Right, but, you are under oath to tell the truth. Just write down the correct information. Unless you are on the boundaries of the "Continuous Residence" and "Physical Presence" rules, no one is going to give you a lot of grief over this - as long as you are as truthful as you can be.

My descriptions of my trips to Canada were sometimes vague and imprecise, but they were, to the best of my knowledge truthful (I'm from Canada, and we lived about a 5 hour drive from our home town when we first got our GCs).

The IO spent about 30 seconds looking at my picture and thumbing through my passport (which was less than two years old - he never looked at my previous passport) during my interview.

Tell all your friends who get a GC that they should start a "travel diary" the day they get the card.
 
I understand that during the Interview will be under the oath but for whom do not kow the dates of travel to canada what they can do, can they estimate the time so can be more or less than the actual dates?
 
During our first few years of having a GC, we went back to Canada for several impromptu trips. We never kept track.

After we'd been GC for 5 years, I downloaded an N-400 and realized that I had to report every trip. I decided that was impossible, so I wrote down every trip for the past year or two, and then waited another 3 or 4 years so that I had more than 5 years of clean travel records.

Our application had details for every trip during the previous 5 years, and then it had a statement like "Between XXX and YYY we took no more than AA trips back to Canada each year. Most were 4 to 10 days long. The longest was 16 days."

We are both citizens now.
 
trips please help

hi, all
In past 2 years, I am in and out to Canada many times, but I don't remember what exactly day I am in and out, and since there are no stamp on passport. I am in Canada for 3 months now, I am about to come back and file my application. I am filing 90 days before I got my GC.
1) Do you think if I don't write down some of the trips, is it going to be a problem?
2) Reside in district last 3 months rule - am I still be able to file? Do I still have to wait 3 months

Thanks
 
Top