Citizenship when living abroad

N

nirtan2007

New Member
Folks,

I would be obliged if I received some badly needed info. Here is my situation

My wife and I are on a temporary assignment outside the US and we both are GC holders and our 5 year GC period is coming up in March 2009. Technically I will be eligible to apply for a citizenship as we statisfy the 30 months rule of US stay.

My questions are

1. Should we stay for 90 days in the US prior to applying for Citizenship
2. if so, should the stay be for all the 90 days, or are we allowed to apply for the citizenship and then go back to our posting outside the US
3. Our assignment ends in Dec 2009, the option of waiting it out till Dec 2009 is a little risky as I will not be able to satisfy the 30 month rule

How should we go about doing this? We have filed our taxes for all the years , have 2 kids both born in the US and have property in the US that will show our intention of moving back. We have also applied for a Re-entry permit, but have never used it as we have never been away for more than 6 months outside the US...Pl help

thanks
 
If you are still working on that overseas assignment during the naturalization process, it is very unlikely you will be approved, unless your work is for a US corporation or the US government.

Note that some apparent "US corporations" are really foreign.
 
Jacvkolantern,

Please help to clear our situation as well. I am going to file N470 form

we are going to move out of US due to a oversea employment assign by our company.

Could we file 470 for keep the eligibility of applying for citizenship.

After we get GC for 1.5 year, I travel 3 short trip for 2-3 week period outside of USA. does that disqualify my eligibilty for 470?

What should I do?

thanks
gama2003
 
If you qualify for N-470, it allows you to preserve the continuous residency requirement for naturalization during your assignment overseas.
You can apply up to 90 days before your GC 5th year anniversary. That would make you eligible to apply in December 2008 (provided you have met all other requirements).
 
filing N-400 after 2 months abroad

Hello Jacvkolantern,
from what I read on the forum, I see both discouraging and encouraging news. Here's our situation:

I'm a US citizen working for a US corporation. I started an assignment in the UK 2 months ago, and both my wife and son came with me. We did not sell our house, nor rent it, and we still pay utilities and taxes. My wife has had a greencard for 8 yrs now, never left the US for more than a couple of weeks of vacation a year, and applied for a reentry permit before leaving.

After these 2 months in the UK, my wife is about to go back to the US to file her n-400, but she's concerned that she won't meet the requirements for residing in our state during the 3 months preceeding the filing of the application. She's considering filing the application early in December, return to the UK mid Decemeber, and come back to the US in January and stay as long as it takes to complete the naturalization.

Are her chances ok or should she be concerned about her chances even with her trip back to the US?

thanks for your help, Patan
 
If one has already met the 3 month residence requirement, then travels abroad and returns to live in the same state, the 3 month requirement is still met. Short trips abroad do not violate it.

...and come back to the US in January and stay as long as it takes to complete the naturalization.
Click to expand...
Good. Significant travel abroad during the naturalization process can be problematic, so staying in the US for most of the process is a very good idea. With that plan she should have no problem.
 
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FYI, I got my citizenship a week ago. I applied from abroad with an approved N-470. My interview and oath were on the same day at the San Francisco USCIS office. Mine was an administrative oath in front of a USCIS official in his office.

Bottom line:

1. If you have an approved N-470, and have accumulated the required physical residence, you CAN apply from abroad.
2. When applying, you can submit fingerprints on the FBI FD-258 cards and save a trip to the US for biometrics. I did not do this myself as I was not aware this was possible.
3. The 90-day residence requirement is NOT for the 90 days immediately preceding the filing of the N-400. Basically, you should have resided in that district for that period at SOME time in the past.
4. USCIS takes the view that an approved N-470 preserved BOTH continuous residence in general AND residence in the last district you lived in before leaving the US.
 
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