2 year requirement for a dual citizen living outside the US

fresiaestrella

New Member
Hi
My case is a little peculiar, so I haven’t been able to locate a similar one on your list. Hopefully someone can tell me about their experience regarding this issue…
I was born and raised in Chile, but I have Chilean and French citizenships. In 2000 I won a Fulbright fellowship to go do my PhD in the US (the Fulbright paid a minor part of the cost for only 2 years, but they sponsored my visa throughout). By the time, I had just met who is now my husband, who is an American citizen and he went back to the US with me when I started by graduate program. I therefore entered the US on a J1 in September 2001. I finished my PhD September 2006, went back to Chile. After a year of going back and forth from US to Chile and vice versa (my husband had a researcher position in the US and he couldn’t find anything suitable in Chile), we both found jobs in France. So we have been living in France since the end of 2007. Now we have both been offered faculty positions in the US, and we would like to go back. We also have a 4-year old daughter who was born here in France (but can have American citizenship through his father). We have been married for almost 10 years now, always keeping an eye in faculty positions in Chile. Unfortunately, since we are a couple and we both are researchers, the few opportunities that have passed by have been for only one of us, which would involve the other person leaving a stable job (which in science may be deadly since a decreased productivity will be very damaging for future job search). So I am wondering what is the best strategy for us to ask for my residency in the US (knowing I have a job offer there):
1) Is it possible for me to argue that I am a French citizen living here for the last 6 years, and that I have therefore satisfied my 2-year residency requirement in France?
2) If not, would the time that I spent in Chile while doing my PhD (and therefore while holding a J1 visa) count towards the 2-year requirement?
3) If indeed I need to go back to Chile, is there a waiver I can apply to? How would I go about this (in particular, we are trying to avoid spending a lot of time separated, so I still need to go to the US while applying for the waiver).
4) Knowing that the total cumulative time I have spent in Chile is about 6 months during my PhD and 11 months afterwards, is there any chance that if I go to the US embassy in France and apply to the residency using the regular procedure all of this will be ignored, or is this a really bad idea?
Any inputs in these issues will be highly appreciated. Thanks!
 
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