Childs US Passport : A query

A

at123

Registered Users (C)
Today I applied for my Child's US passport at Post Office. The person at the PO asked for the following along with the application:

1. Child's Green card
2. Original Naturalization Certificate for both Parents
3. Original Birth Certificate of Child

If the above right :

1. When I do apply for Child N 600, would the INS ask for her Green Card at that time?.

Request feedback.

Thxs

AT123
 
The child is already a US citizen by law, there is no need to file N-600 and waste your money. A US passport is the best proof of US citizenship.
 
First of all, set the controls in your time machine for some date before March 1, 2003, because that is when INS ceased to exist.

Nowadays, you file an N-600 with USCIS, the form is at www.uscis.gov Upon approval, the recipient (your child) will usually be invited to a Ceremony to get a Certificate of Citizenship at which time the greencard will be taken away by USCIS. Aside from copies of newly received natz certificates of the parents, the rest of the evidence is probably already in the child's A-file and need not be resubmitted (closely read the form instructions). The N-600 need never be filed but it is a good idea to get it done and to do it quickly. An N-600 may not be filed from outside the United States unless the "child" has reached 18 and is in the U.S. Military stationed abroad.

The passport agency will return all original documents.

Processing time varies by office and this information is posted on the agency's website.

Good Luck,
 
at123 said:
Today I applied for my Child's US passport at Post Office. The person at the PO asked for the following along with the application:

1. Child's Green card
2. Original Naturalization Certificate for both Parents
3. Original Birth Certificate of Child

If the above right :

1. When I do apply for Child N 600, would the INS ask for her Green Card at that time?.

Request feedback.

Thxs

AT123
Click to expand...

The State Department will return all the original documents that you submitted with the passport application for your kid (that includes the kid's green card). When you submit an N-600 application, USCIS only asks for copies of various documents (but not the originals) to be submitted with the application; so you'll need to submit copies of the naturalization certificate(s), the kids green card, etc. Unlike the State Department, USCIS does not have a procedure in place for returning originals of any documents submitted with various applications. Therefore (with a few rare exceptions), the instructions for various USCIS forms specifically tell the applicants NOT to submit the originals.

Contrary to what the ill-considered and arrogantly expressed post of nkm-oct23 above says, there are lots of good reasons to file N-600 and get a certificate of citizenship even after you get you kid a U.S. passport. So you'd be well advised to file N-600 after the passport application is completed and you get all the original documents back (the State Department usually mails them back in a separate letter from the passport). You should also keep in mind that for N-600 it is much easier to obtain the various supporting documents, needed for N-600 to be approved, while your kid is still a minor living with you rather than when the kid is an adult. So if you are going to file N-600, do it now and don't postpone it until years later, when it will be much harder to get all the necessary documents together.
 
nkm-oct23 said:
The child is already a US citizen by law, there is no need to file N-600 and waste your money. A US passport is the best proof of US citizenship.
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I agree with Big and Baikal, but also with NKM ... but with a twist.

The US passport is a good proof of citizenship ... today. What will happen tomorrow ... you do not know. It is better to get done with if the expense is not an issue. Even if it is an issue, the certificate has a value.
 
Thanks all for response.

on N600, request if you could additional details on advantages of applying for one.

regards at123
 
I just started another thread entitled "Updating Georgia DDS". See my post there for details, but regarding N600, my experience suggests that an LPR teen driver might have trouble getting their citizenship status updated in the Georgia drivers database if they don't have a citizenship certificate.
 
at123 said:
on N600, request if you could additional details on advantages of applying for one.
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Here is one: a state run by tea partiers may decide that the US passport is not a good enough proof of US citizenship and may request a document issued by the USCIS. Weird? Yes, but it has happened in Texas, and one gentleman found himself in a sticky situation because he had used his passport for several decades to prove his citizenship and could not file N-600 due to lack of available documents (his parents were long dead). His lawsuit against the Texas DPS eventually forced the agency to start accepting the US passport as a proof of citizenship.

Another reason to get a Certificate of Citizenship is that it never expires, so in conjunction with a photo id (even from a foreign country), it can be used to obtain other documents such as passport, SS card, etc.
 
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We SERIOUSLY need to harmonise documentation requirements and acceptance in this country. It's baffling. Now the passport card is another one of those documents in limbo.
 
cafeconleche said:
We SERIOUSLY need to harmonise documentation requirements and acceptance in this country. It's baffling. Now the passport card is another one of those documents in limbo.
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The problem is that in this country, it is a cultural norm to be suspicious of the federal government and to resist any of its attempts at standardisation. Combine it with conservatives' natural dislike of immigrants and you get a set of rules discriminating against non-native born US citizens because as we all know, naturalised US citizens are more likely to use a passport book/card to request any state benefits. I get so many raised brows when I use my passport card as an ID, and so many times it has been mistaken for a foreign ID - it is just ridiculous. Some clerks even had hard time understanding what surname meant :D It's English, damn it!
 
König said:
The problem is that in this country, it is a cultural norm to be suspicious of the federal government and to resist any of its attempts at standardisation. Combine it with conservatives' natural dislike of immigrants and you get a set of rules discriminating against non-native born US citizens because as we all know, naturalised US citizens are more likely to use a passport book/card to request any state benefits. I get so many raised brows when I use my passport card as an ID, and so many times it has been mistaken for a foreign ID - it is just ridiculous. Some clerks even had hard time understanding what surname meant :D It's English, damn it!
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So true. And so weird, to a person who grew up in a British Commonwealth country, where government is generally regarded as a useful cooperative enterprise of all the people, not as some sort of evil alien plot to do us all harm.
 
Yes, most people are morons (in every country), and unfortunately, they get hired to do jobs at places like the DMV, so we're stuck with them and the "conservative" (read: deluded) lawmakers that know how to appeal to these people and get elected.
 
Congress has included in various laws that they are sharply opposed to any National ID Card. The INA includes a prohibition against issuing a National ID card. The Social Security Card is prohibited from being used as a National ID Card. The Passport Card is also NOT a National ID Card (the vast majority of Americans never get a passport in their entire life).
 
Please read "Matter of Villanueva, 19 I&N Dec. 10 1 (BIA 1984)" Board of Immigration Appeals decision which clearly concludes that:
Unless void on its face, a valid United States passport issued to an individual as a citizen of the United States is not subject to collateral attack in administrative immigration proceedings but constitutes conclusive proof of such person's United States citizenship.

Prior to enactment of 22 U.S.C. 2705, a United States passport was regarded as prima facie evidence of United States citizenship. Now, under USC 2705 United States passports are given the same weight for proof of United States citizenship as certificates of naturalization or citizenship.
 
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nkm-oct23 said:
Prior to enactment of 22 U.S.C. 2705, a United States passport was regarded as prima facie evidence of United States citizenship. Now, under USC 2705 United States passports are given the same weight for proof of United States citizenship as certificates of naturalization or citizenship.
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Nobody is arguing with you about this. What I said was that in some instances USCIS ruled that the Department of State had issued passports by mistake. Logically, the USCIS review has more weight because N-600 is a very detailed form whereas passport application (DS-11) is not.
 
BigJoe5 said:
The INA includes a prohibition against issuing a National ID card.
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Can you provide a link?

The Social Security Card is prohibited from being used as a National ID Card.
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De-facto it is being used as a national ID card, and not just by government - by various private enterprises. The ultimate evil is EXPERIAN that collects all personal data about every person. Guess what they use for their database indexing? SSN.

The Passport Card is also NOT a National ID Card.
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Call it whatever you want. It is a federally-issued card that proves one's citizenship and identity. It seems that you assume all national ID cards can only be mandatory, but it's not the case. They don't even have to be called National ID cards - if you remove from the passport card annotation "valid only for land and sea travel ..." and include a holder's signature, there will be no difference between, say, German personalausweis and the US passport card (except for being optional). If some people think that national ID card can be more convenient than state-issued ID/DL card, why not let them have it? It's not like you are forcing it on the rest of population.
 
Have you guys tried talking to his NCO? I know an NCO can "influence" one of his men to do the right thing.
 
König said:
Nobody is arguing with you about this. What I said was that in some instances USCIS ruled that the Department of State had issued passports by mistake. Logically, the USCIS review has more weight because N-600 is a very detailed form whereas passport application (DS-11) is not.
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Not only that, but having a certificate of citizenship is a useful back-up document if a passport needs to be replaced or renewed.
Already under the current State Department rules, if somebody's passport is lost or stolen in the U.S., that person needs to submit DS-11 with evidence of U.S. citizenship - either some original document constituting primary evidence of U.S. citizenship (such as a certificate of citizenship) or secondary evidence, http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/secondary_evidence/secondary_evidence_4315.html
which for the cases of derived citizenship would mean again submitting evidence of satisfying the requirements of the Child Citizenship Act (which gets harder to do once the applicant is no longer a minor).

In cases of passports lost/stolen while abroad, a U.S. consulate may accept a photocopy of a previously issued U.S. passport as evidence of U.S. citizenship, but for applications within the U.S. they appear to want original documents proving U.S. citizenship, rather than just copies. Even for applications abroad, the practices between different U.S. consulates appear to be non-uniform and they may change in the future to something more restrictive than what they are now.

Also, the State Department has been tightening the rules and internal procedures for issuing passports in the U.S. as well.
The procedures for issuing first-time passports based on the claim to citizenship through the Child Citizenship Act were fairly lax in the past but have been recently tightened.
Applicants whose previous passport was issued before they turned 16 are required to submit DS-11 when renewing a passport, and it is possible that in such cases the State Department already does or will do in the future an extra check to see on what basis the previous passport was issued and perhaps do a re-verification of U.S. citizenship in some cases.

Having a certificate of citizenship is a useful non-expiring back-up document proving U.S. citizenship which could help avoid having to reprove from scratch to the State Department that the applicant has indeed derived citizenship through parents.
 
König said:
Nobody is arguing with you about this. What I said was that in some instances USCIS ruled that the Department of State had issued passports by mistake. Logically, the USCIS review has more weight because N-600 is a very detailed form whereas passport application (DS-11) is not.
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The BIA decision clearly states that USCIS cannot overrule DOS if the passport was issued correctly. Length of application form has nothing to do with the document for citizenship. US law under 22 USC 2705 clearly provides equal weightage for either document.
 
nkm-oct23 said:
The BIA decision clearly states that USCIS cannot overrule DOS if the passport was issued correctly. Length of application form has nothing to do with the document for citizenship. US law under 22 USC 2705 clearly provides equal weightage for either document.
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However, USCIS does not accept a valid U.S. passport as proof of U.S. citizenship for someone who is applying for a certificate of citizenship, and I don't think that is about to change.
 
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