How Early To Send the N-400

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trisme11

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How Early To Send the N-400? HELP PLEASE!

Hi,:confused:
How early if at all did you send in your N-400 form. My mom has been rushing me to send it in but I have at least 8 months before I reach my 5yr mark. Thanks
I know about the 90 day rule but has anyone sent theirs in earlier?
 
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You can send your application in up to 90 days before you have 5 years of continuous residence as a LPR.
 
trisme11 said:
Hi,:confused:
How early if at all did you send in your N-400 form. My mom has been rushing me to send it in but I have at least 8 months before I reach my 5yr mark. Thanks
I know about the 90 day rule but has anyone sent theirs in earlier?
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The 90 day rule is strictly enforced. The USCIS does not allow even one day earlier.
If anyone applied 91 days before 5 years and suceeded, USCIS must have overlooked it
and you can NOT count on that. The reason for USCIS to be strict is obvious.
If they allow one day difference, then 90 day rule will de factoly become 91 day rule.
Then what about another one day difference? to again change 91 day rule to 92 day rule?
Eventually it would come down to no rule at all and anyone would apply rigth after getting the
GC.

So obey this 90 day rule and in fact use 87 day rule in order to avoid
miscalculation.
 
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Jackolantern said:
Nothing to do with mistakes; the point is that if USCIS deliberately allowed applying 1 day early because "it's only 1 day", that would effectively make it a 91 day rule.
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In my books, not following the process would be considered a mistake/oversight, not a deliberate attempt to somehow circumvent the rule of law.
WBH's point was that "If they allow one day difference, then 90 day rule will de factoly become 91 day rule."
My argument to that is that two wrongs don't make a right; a misinterpretation of the law (whether by mistake or by deliberate action) could never be the basis for precedent and change of the law.
 
Nobody is talking about changing the law; if they are granting citizenship to most or all people who applied 1 day early, they would have de facto created a 91 day rule whether the law says so or not. Just like they de facto temporarily expanded the H1B quota some years ago by more than 20,000, by grossly miscounting the visas. No precedent or law change involved; it just worked that way.

Note that the law actually says 3 months, not 90 days, so even if they approve somebody who applied at 91 or 92 days in most cases it would be allowed by the law even if it broke their own 90-day regulation.
 
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Jackolantern said:
Note that the law actually says 3 months, not 90 days, so even if they approve somebody who applied at 91 or 92 days in most cases it would be allowed by the law even if it broke their own 90-day regulation.
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The BIA has interpreted in the past that 1 month is 30 days, and that 1 year is 365 days.
In fact, a 1997 field INS memo reminded all field personnel to make sure to reject any application filed earlier than 90 days.

http://www.immigrationlinks.com/news/news035.htm


If an IO decides to go against a published USCIS directive from upper management and adjudicates an application more than 90 days early it would be considered a breach in policy, not as an eventual acceptable practice.
 
WBH said:
So obey this 90 day rule and in fact use 87 day rule in order to avoid
miscalculation.
Click to expand...

According to an immigration lawyer there are few cases that the N-400 final interview (possible oath) takes 2 months or less than 3 months, then to be in the safe side its better to apply just 1 month earlier (instead of 3).
 
Sephiroth said:
According to an immigration lawyer there are few cases that the N-400 final interview (possible oath) takes 2 months or less than 3 months, then to be in the safe side its better to apply just 1 month earlier (instead of 3).
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In that case, USCIS can reschedule yoru interview to be after teh 5 th anniversary of your GC, so there is nothing unsafe here. of course, rescheduling can cause irregular timeline but that is a different issue
 
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