Applying for Certificate of Citizenship - evidence of physical presence of parent

S

scopemast299

New Member
Hello all,
I am looking to apply for my Certificate of Citizenship but I am running in to trouble getting proof of physical evidence of my father. Basically, I was born abroad and my father was a US citizen (born in the US and lived there his whole life pretty much).
I had to provide all this evidence when I got my US passport book about 7 years (roughly) ago (proof of physical residence etc). I did not make copies of the physical residence documents from my father, proving his residence in the USA before I was born (a bad move, I know).
Now I would like to apply for a Certificate of Citizenship as additional proof of my citizenship, however I no longer have the proof of physical residence I submitted when I got my US passport.
I have everything else but my father sadly passed away and I don't think I have anything really robust (maybe a transcript from him attending night schools but not sure that would do).
I note that in the PDF provided by USCIS on filling out the application, under "Proof of Required Residence or Physical Presence In the United States" it states that one can provide "Affidavits of third parties having knowledge of the residence and physical presence". I could probably get this from his sister, however I have read conflicting reports that affidavits are considered "secondary" evidence and therefore are not that strong.
I want to make sure I get the application right as you only get one shot at the N-600.
I may hire an immigration attorney (I was hoping to avoid this as I am already going to pay over a grand for the application fee).
Does anyone have any insight on what evidence of physical presence of my father will suffice?
 
newacct said:
Why do you need a Certificate of Citizenship when you already have a US passport?i
Click to expand...
Are you a derived citizen? Do you know what happens when a derived citizen loses the US Passport and that is the only proof of your US citizenship? I also am against filing a N-600, but it seems like you just flat out don't understand how hard it is for you to receive a US Passport if you don't have either the US Birth certificate, CRBA, or the N-550, N-560 or you wouldn't be asking these questions lol.
 
I am not a derived citizen, but I have some ideas for alternatives to getting a Certificate of Citizenship:
1. You can get both a US passport book and passport card the next time you get a passport, and store that passport card permanently in a safe place as backup proof of citizenship (even when expired), or
2. If you lose all proof of citizenship, you can request a file search instead of providing proof of citizenship when applying for a US passport, and they will find records of your past passport
 
I am that derived citizen. I have been for over 40 years. I also have two passports (book and card) and are making sure that I don't lose both at the same time. I lived almost my entire life as a US citizen to all organization, but if I run the SAVE verification system with the Department of Homeland Security, I still come up as a LPR (I hope this stupid system gets fixed during our generation) since I don't have a LPR.

However, I have a friend in the exact same situation (having only US Passport as a proof of citizenship and derived citizenship when the parents naturalized) and the Department of State just simply wasn't budging when it comes to wanting the entire evidences again. All of his expired passports and the recent ones were lost due to various reasons and it has been a nightmare for him to come up with the evidences.

Both of his parents passed and of course, for him to get not only the Certificates of Naturalization for his parents, but additionally, the original marriage certificate from the former country from 50+ YEARS AGO and the whole nine yarder was just hard for me to watch. His school records, and the IRS records are no longer easily accessible in the form of certified/original.

This event has changed my entire view on a subject regarding whether it would have been a good idea to have a N-560 or not.

Request a file search by the passport agency is NEVER guaranteed. It is a hit or miss. As a matter of a fact, my request for file search along with the friend that I mentioned above returned NOTHING. I mean, NOT A THING. Plus if you look at the actually form, unlike the DS-xx forms, it is very generic. It may have been misplaced due to our original passports being approved over 40 years ago. That is when our parents turned in their originals and my documents to obtain our passports when we were minors.

I was shocked at how unorganized the Department of State is. I thought there no one close to USCIS when it comes to being bad with keeping up with all the paper works. I was wrong and I must give that title to the Department of State.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

I think it does get risky here and there and since the USCIS no longer accepts the US Passports as a conclusive proof (It's still a prima facie to the USCIS), it may be a good idea for parents to consider getting the N-560 while the evidences are more available and trustworthy.

If I wanted to apply for the one-shot N-600, I would so fail because not only the evidences are no longer available, I wouldn't trust some of them even if it was up to me to examine it. (Handwritten custody decree from the family register overseas, etc)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top