Does spouse prospects for N-400 diminish?

[swind]

My spouse and I got our green cards in Sep 2004 and can only apply for Naturalization in Jun 2009. My wife is going to school in US and would be in school until next year. I intend to stay in US longer term but given my job situation, I might have to relocate to India to work for an Indian employer.
- If I relocate (lets say on a reentry permit) and my wife continues to stay in US and applies for Naturalization in June 2009, would her chances of getting approved diminish
- If I relocate with the reentry permit, does my green card clock gets reset and I can apply only after another 4 years?
- With the new Lockbox, are the processing times expected to increase/decrease when I apply (I believe current timeframe is approx 6 months in San Francisco office, where I would be applying)?

Thanks for all the help

 

[Bobsmyth]

My spouse and I got our green cards in Sep 2004 and can only apply for Naturalization in Jun 2009. My wife is going to school in US and would be in school until next year. I intend to stay in US longer term but given my job situation, I might have to relocate to India to work for an Indian employer.
- If I relocate (lets say on a reentry permit) and my wife continues to stay in US and applies for Naturalization in June 2009, would her chances of getting approved diminish

No, since she is applying independently from you based on 5 years of continuous residency.

- If I relocate with the reentry permit, does my green card clock gets reset and I can apply only after another 4 years?

The reentry permit is to preserve your GC status only. Moving to and working in India will cause break in your continuous residency for naturalization purposes. You'll have to re-establish continuous residence requirement before being able to apply. However, you can be credited up to 1 year of your time outside US towards continuous residency thereby reducing it to 4 years + 1 day.You'd be better off applying 3 year rule once you return for good from India since your wife will most likely be a US citizen by then.

- With the new Lockbox, are the processing times expected to increase/decrease when I apply (I believe current timeframe is approx 6 months in San Francisco office, where I would be applying)?

The lockbox process is still to young to determine is it is slower/faster for processing. However, the goal of the lockbox process is to streamline the process and increase efficiency, thereby reducing processing times so processing times should become more uniform between DOs.