And I already noted in a previous response (reposted below) that the referenced missing pages may not be the N400 form itself, that the missing pages might have been from supporting documents submitted with the form by your father.
Maybe, possible? So I arrived in the United States on an IR-4 visa in 1987 with American citizens parents through adoption. Adoption was finalized a year later. My father applied for the n400 for naturalization which maybe he didn't need to do? The N600 everyone keeps talking about is proof of citizenship, it does not grant citizenship, it is only to get the certificate to show you have citizenship. Any way I was advised to apply for a passport and that may shed some light on what is going on. I'll update when I know more
It was necessary to apply for naturalization for you. You did not automatically get citizenship. During that period of time, the only way an adopted child could automatically get citizenship was if both parents naturalized after the child was adopted and immigrated. Your parents were both already citizens when you were adopted. So they had to apply for a grant of citizenship for you. I am not sure what the exact form involved was; it might have been N-400. But if whatever process was not approved, for whatever reason, you did not get citizenship. It's different from the situation of someone who automatically got citizenship and is just applying for a certificate.
That's what we trying to figure out. The entire n400 is on the FOIA CD. If the claim was that pages where missing , then obviously that's not true. I'm going apply for a passport and see what happens
This is what I got from a Google search entering the search terms : both parents US citizens adopted a child on an IR-4 visa to America in 1988. Here are the results: In 1988, if a child was adopted by U.S. citizen parents on an IR-4 visa, they would have automatically become a U.S. citizen upon the finalization of the adoption in the U.S. as long as the adoption occurred before the child's 18th birthday. The IR-4 visa indicates that the adoption was not finalized in the child's country of origin, but rather would be finalized in the United States. Is this right? I don't know I've gotten so many conflicting answers
Have you looked at the DS11 form to see what evidence they require to issue a passport ? Screenshot below of requirements for adopted children: note the birth year note though, which is what seems to exclude you from the automatic citizenship part. I suspect your Google search for 1988 assumed the adoptee was still an infant at that age.
The CCA conditions of INA320 only came into effect on Feb 27 2001. These things are not retroactive. Google AI does a terrible job of assimilating facts when laws change.
Sure, but just think how much easier your life would be now (and would have been) if they had got that certificate for you, or applied for a passport so that you could have proof of citizenship.
Absolutely right. I'm going to apply for a passport next
Ok, but that comes back to the title of your thread - how you prove citizenship.
This is again relating to people who automatically acquired US citizenship under the CCA, not people who needed to apply for citizenship as minors, like you. You can only file N-600 if you are already a US citizen.
Absolutely no one here has done this. We all understand what it is. Almost everyone, and possibly indeed everyone, here has personally filed N400, N600 (on behalf of a minor child), or both.
From the USCIS website: Visa Classification IR-4 or I-4
That’s current law, not what seems to have been in place when you were adopted. CCA under INA320 started applying from 2001. As already noted before.
It's going to take a while. I also did multiple FOIAs. One to USCIS and one to the state department that are in the works now. The thing that frustrates me about this situation is this: how are people in this field that is super important in other people's lives and a lot of them don't even know what they are enforcing. I literally had to do my own research and it's a good thing I found this forum and people were willing to help and you guys seem to know more about these laws and forms than the people getting paid to do the job. This has been ongoing for me since 2002. Why didn't someone at the agencies involved catch this and flag it or send someone something like hey we might have an issue here
Yet you’re not listening to us…
Why didn’t somebody catch and flag… what exactly? When they do that, they send an RFE. I’m leaning towards your father got sent an RFE that he didn’t respond to, and that’s why the case was never processed to completion. These are the options (taking into account that you seem unsure as to what application was actually sent):
