Naturalization while studying abroad

S

sreenivasars

New Member
Hi, My daughter is a LPR since January 2008. She lived in US continuously until June 2012 and then went to India to attend Medical college for two years. She just got the eligibility to file for Citizenship under the 5 year(90 days early application) basis. She will have only 5 weeks of time in between the semesters if she needs to visit US. She also got a re-entry permit for two years to be on the safe side. When she completes this two years of study in India, she will then move to Antigua for two more years of Medical School. Since it will take another four years for her to come back to USA completely, is there a way for her to start the naturalization immediately while she is studying abroad? Can she file it now and attend the finger prints, interview/oath during her semester break in January? is there any expedite process to complete the interview/oath quickly?

Thanks
Sreeni
 
If she can make 3 trips to USA she can file N-400 . File in November she can have FP in Dec/Jan. Interview likely in Mar-April. She can travel for couple of days. If you are lucky enough to stay in a district where is same day oath , she can avoid third trip.

There is no way to expedite the process. But she can request postponement of FP/Interview/OC .
 
However, it must be said that though CIS does not consider studying abroad for a long period of time to be too bad (for permanent residency purposes), there is a big possibility the application will be denied because your daughter is currently spending much of her time outside. If you're ok with that and don't mind the possibility of losing the filing fee and cost of flights, then go for it (I would do this if I were her, just because of the chance it might work).

Alternately, she can get 2 re-entry permits (if she is lucky, she will get them) and travel to the US every 6 months anyway, so as to prove ties to the US, and apply after 4 years + 1 day from the end of her last trip abroad. This means she's have to wait a LONG time from now to apply, hence if you can afford the first option and apply now in spite of the chance of being denied, do it.
 
She can apply now and see what happens, but spending so much time abroad during the process raises the risk of denial.

The fingerprinting appointment will be about 3-5 weeks after she submits the application. She can send in the application when she's still abroad (don't use mail, use a private courier like Fedex/DHL/UPS), timing the application so she'll be in the US for fingerprinting. Then she'll need to travel back to the US for the interview and again for the oath (unless she gets same-day oath, which is unlikely because her extensive travel will likely create the need for supervisor review).

If you are a US citizen or permanent resident living in the US and are providing financial support for her, she should bring evidence of those facts to the interview.
 
Jackolantern said:
She can apply now and see what happens, but spending so much time abroad during the process raises the risk of denial.

The fingerprinting appointment will be about 3-5 weeks after she submits the application. She can send in the application when she's still abroad (don't use mail, use a private courier like Fedex/DHL/UPS), timing the application so she'll be in the US for fingerprinting. Then she'll need to travel back to the US for the interview and again for the oath (unless she gets same-day oath, which is unlikely because her extensive travel will likely create the need for supervisor review).

If you are a US citizen or permanent resident living in the US and are providing financial support for her, she should bring evidence of those facts to the interview.
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Thank you all for the suggestions. I just need to clarify one thing. If she decides to wait until she is done with her foreign study, is it required for her to visit US every 6 months? or less than one is enough? She already lived in US continuously and physically for 4.5 years. Is is it okay if she just visits every year to maintain the continuous residency requirement?

Thanks
 
If your daughter does not apply now, she may have to wait for 6- 7 years to apply. 4 years she will be away. On her return she will not have physical presence of 30 months in the last 5 years. She has to wait.

Better is to try straight away.
 
You also need to consider her Indian legal status to re-enter and continue studying in India once she becomes a US citizen. Assuming she is currently an Indian citizen, she loses that citizenship the moment she naturalizes as an American. She will need to get a US passport, go through the process of "renouncing" her Indian citizenship and then would need to apply for either a student visa or something like OCI (which is better, IMHO) to go back and continue in India. She cannot get either student visa or OCI without proof of her renunciation of Indian citizenship and the proof would be the surrender certificate issued by the Indian consulate here. You should factor the time that it would take to get all this done into your calculations.
 
sreenivasars said:
Thank you all for the suggestions. I just need to clarify one thing. If she decides to wait until she is done with her foreign study, is it required for her to visit US every 6 months? or less than one is enough? She already lived in US continuously and physically for 4.5 years. Is is it okay if she just visits every year to maintain the continuous residency requirement?
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No, absolutely not. It is not possible to maintain continuous residency by simply visiting the U.S. for a few days once every 6 months (or once every 4 months or once every 3 months or anything like that). It is also absolutely irrelevant that she has resided continuously in the U.S. for 4.5 years up to now. If she moves abroad for 4 years to pursue medical studies for 4 years and simply comes back to the U.S. every few months for a short time, that would almost certainly reset her continuous residency clock to zero. Then, after completing that 4 year course of study abroad and coming back to the U.S. for good, she would have to wait, at an absolute minimum, another 4 years and 1 day before being able to file N-400.

Her best chance, as noted above, would be to apply now, immediately, and then pray very very hard that she will get lucky and get a lenient IO who will not view her initial travel abroad to start medical studies there as a disruption of continuous residency. That might work out now, but it will certainly not work after 4 years of study abroad.
 
Hi all,
I am in the same boat, except that I started doing a PhD in Canada, and lived in Boston. I left in August 3, and applied for citizenship today. My 5 years are going to complete on mid February.

Can anyone tell me what do I need to do NOW in order to make sure that my application gets accepted ? Shall I skip the Spring semester and go back to the U.S starting in January ?

If I move to Detroit so I can drive to Toronto, stay there for 3 days a week for classes. Would that work ? Would it cause my file to be sent to a different center?

I don't think I want to screw up my citizenship application. If there is a risk, I would just postpone things for one semester.

Any advise would greatly help .... thanks
 
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