N400 and marriage question

D

dougalted

Registered Users (C)
Hello all,
I have been a permanent resident in USA for last 4 and a half year. Soon I will be eligible to apply for citizenship. I am not sure if getting married before or after the N400 application matters for naturalization process. My would be spouse is here on a F1 VISA for last few years. Can somebody help me with this dilemma, i.e. is it better to get married now and apply for N400 or get married while N400 is being processed or wait all way until N400 is completed? What are possible issues, if any, on these cases?
Thanks in advance.

DougalTed
 
Assuming that after marriage you intend to adjust your spouse's status to a permanent resident, marrying before or after the citizenship does not make much of a difference. When you adjust status for your spouse you will file an i-130 petition to establish your relationship and an i-485(along with a bunch of supporting forms) to adjust your spouse's status. Only difference between a LPR's spouse and CZ's spouse here is that in the former case you will file an i-130 first, wait for it to be approved, for a visa number to be available and then to apply for the 485, all of which could take some time. In the latter case, you "simul-file" the 130 and 485 as there is not concept of waiting for a visa number for the spouse of a citizen.
But regardless of this difference, if you filed for a 130 when you an LPR and then you become a citizen, you can "upgrade" your spouse's application by writing to USCIS with your proof of citizenship and then immediately file 485 for adjustment of status.
So as you see, there is really no difference.
Short summary of this longwinded explanation is .. "let your heart guide your marriage decision" :D
 
dougalted said:
Hello all,
. My would be spouse is here on a F1 VISA for last few years. Can somebody help me with this dilemma, i.e. is it better to get married now and apply for N400 or get married while N400 is being processed or wait all way until N400 is completed? What are possible issues, if any, on these cases?
DougalTed
Click to expand...

It depends on your nationality if you are not from China, India, Mexico, Philippnes then it might be advantageous to get married an apply now.
It also depends on where you are filing your citizenship to know your processing times for you to obtain citizenship. IF the citizenship takes
long then the first option (applying now) is good.

If you are from any of the above countries, it is usuallly better to get a citizenship and then apply.

In either case, she should be able to maintain here F1 status otherwise there may be issues(but I heard and read that spouses of US Citizens will be "pardoned" for out of Status issues)

There are many factors, so if you have this info it will useful for discussion purposes.
 
Hi krakow007 and delmarca,
Thanks a lot for your kind replies. To elaborate the situation,
-- I would like to adjust her status as soon as I get my citizenship.
-- She will continue to stay on F1 until I-130 & I-485 is filed.
-- I am from India and my DO will be San Antonio, TX. delmarca, could you please explain why you said "If you are from any of the above countries, it is usuallly better to get a citizenship and then apply"

One last question, applying for N400 and while the application is pending if I get married will that confuse anything?

Thanks a lot for your help.

DougalTed
 
dougalted said:
Hi krakow007 and delmarca,
delmarca, could you please explain why you said "If you are from any of the above countries, it is usuallly better to get a citizenship and then apply"
Click to expand...

If you are from India, then there is a long wait for spouse of the permanent resident, who is from India to do a adjustment, since visa numbers are not usually avaialble.

dougalted said:
One last question, applying for N400 and while the application is pending if I get married will that confuse anything?
DougalTed
Click to expand...

I have read that you can upgrade your I-130 soon after you become an citizen( since spouses of citizen do not have to wait.) Do not think it should not cause any confusion (but with INS you never know.)

So my advice would be wait for citizenship (San Antonio, I read again, is supposedly very fast) and file for your spouse.

[BTW, I am exactly in the same situation as you and I am waiting to file for my spouse]
 
Hmm.. interesting. I'm a spouse on the other end of the spectrum .. i.e waiting for my status to be adjusted. Filed 130 and waiting for spouse's oath so I can continue my AoS :) .
Anyways in your specific case, it would really not make too much of a difference any which way marry before or after. 130's can be upgraded painlessly as delmarca suggests.
So you can -
1.) Marry now, file spouse's 130, finish your n400 and "upgrade" her 130 along with filing of 485 and other ancillary forms
2.) Marry after applying for your n400, but before oath in which case you will have to let USCIS know that your marital status has changed, since they explicitly ask for that in your form. Then depending on your officer and other circumstances, they may want to scrutinize your app further. But then they may also not care, dont know
3.) Marry after your oath, in which case you can file everything together (130, 485 and all other forms)
As you can see options 1 and 3 are the safest of the lot.
HTH.
 
Hi krakow007 and delmarca,
Thanks so much, this clarified a lot. Option 3 seems safest but there is always that unknown what if N400 takes a long time. If I use option 1 (i.e. get married before N400) but not apply for I-130 and wait for that until my citizenship is completed will that be any better? Or am I just being paranoid?
Good luck to both of you on getting citizenship done and AOS processed.

Regards,

DougalTed
 
Dougalted, what you suggest is functionally the same as option 3, so it really does not matter. As far as n400 is concerned you may not have to worry since San Antonio has generally been one of the faster cities in terms of processing time, if other forum members' experiences are to be believed. So between options 1 or 3 in the ones I suggested, you could pretty much pick any of those. But in general both options are safe and about equally fast and you should probably use personal preferences to decide which one to take. Remember that marriage is a serious long term commitment and immigration is comparatively a small hurdle to cross :)
All the best for your (and your would be spouse's) future.
 
krakow007 said:
Dougalted, what you suggest is functionally the same as option 3, so it really does not matter. As far as n400 is concerned you may not have to worry since San Antonio has generally been one of the faster cities in terms of processing time, if other forum members' experiences are to be believed. So between options 1 or 3 in the ones I suggested, you could pretty much pick any of those. But in general both options are safe and about equally fast and you should probably use personal preferences to decide which one to take. Remember that marriage is a serious long term commitment and immigration is comparatively a small hurdle to cross :)
All the best for your (and your would be spouse's) future.
Click to expand...

marry after citizenship bec san antonio is fast 3-6 months to get interview. You save some money by not filing for some forms and paying fees if you are GC holder and also avoid potential delays that may happen when you want to upgrade it to become application of married spouse of US citizen.
 
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enjoylife, Thanks for the help. I agree, marriage after citizenship seems the best option. We have waited for a number of years anyway, few more months won't make a big difference.

DougalTed
 
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