Do i qualify for Citizenship?

[awilliams]

Hi there,

So my background is as follows -

My Grandad was a American Citizen, born and lived in West Chester Pennsylvania, he served time in the US Military and stayed in the UK for a while during the war, met my Grandmother who then married, my mother was born on an American airbase in London then moved over to the states when his time was up/served, she stayed there till she was 8 years old and moved back to England when my Grandmother divorced my Grandfather where he then stayed in Pennsylvania till his death a few years ago, obviously she lived her life, met my Dad etc etc, i was born in March 1986 (i am now 30).. Mother then divorced my father in 2002 or so (i was 15/16 at the time) and moved back to the United States to live in Iowa, i was very close in joining her and then rejected the notion because life, she still lives in the United States residing now in Florida and is a US Citizen, in 2013 i wanted to make the move but found out that i may not qualify because i'm over the age of 21 and so i had to go on the Green Card Visa list which i'm still on to this day (got a while to go) however looking at a few things i noticed i might still qualify through Grandad and potentially Mother still through the act of "derivation"

I am also been dating an American lady for a year now so doing the long distance is getting abit tough for us both and we want to make it easier by being in the same continent and hopefully i can try and make it across without having to marry her!

Now i get confused with some rules here but i recently come across this -

The physical presence requirement is often difficult for U.S. citizen parents to meet. The situation arises most often with an individual who was born in the U.S., but moved to a foreign country at a young age with their family. These parents form families of their own outside of the U.S., but wish for their children to be U.S. citizens.

Fortunately, the law allows these children to satisfy the five-year physical presence requirement through their grandparents. If the U.S. citizen parent has a citizen parent (grandparent of child seeking to become a citizen) who has spent at least five years physically present in the U.S. (2 of which occurred after they reached the age of 14) then the child can use the grandparent’s physical presence to derive citizenship.

If you wish for your child to become a U.S. citizen and you do not meet the physical presence requirement, contact an experienced immigration attorney to determine if your child is eligible.

is this true? is there any more help i can get on this?

 

[newacct]

If you didn't get citizenship at birth from your mom (because she didn't meet the physical presence requirements at the time you were born to pass it onto you), it's possible to get citizenship after birth through the INA 322 process where you can use your USC parent's physical presence up to the point you apply, or that parent's USC parent (i.e. your grandparent)'s physical presence. That's what that is talking about. This entire process must be completed before you turn 18, so that is not available to you now.

About whether you got US citizenship from your birth from your mom, assuming you were born in wedlock (your biological parents were married at the time you were born), the requirement that had to be met is (since you were born before November 1986) that your mother had to have been physically present, in the US, before you were born, for a cumulative total of 10 years, including 5 years after she turned 14. Time as a dependent of a military member stationed abroad counts. But from what you described, it seems she had only spent her years up to age 8 in the US, and did not have significant time in the US afterwards. If that's the case, then she definitely doesn't meet the 5 years after turning 14 condition.

(Ironically, if you were born out of wedlock, then you would almost certainly be a US citizen from birth, because the condition for a child born abroad out of wedlock to a US citizen mother is that she had to have spent one continuous year in the US some time before the child's birth.)