Question about applying for US Citizenship for my wife.

[N400Applier]

My Wife got her Green Card (Permanent Residency) throught her employer in February 2002. She became eligible to apply for her US Citizemship in February 2007. The problem is that she was laid off by her employer in August 2002. They did not give her a letter to that effect. They just said that her contract was over and that there was no need to come in any more. After that she was not employed for over 2 years. Finally she changed her field in November 2004 and now works in a different field.

On the N-400 form she has to state her employment during the past 5 years. So my questions are:

1. Should she even apply for her US Citizenship now (Match, 2007)? She will have to mention her previous employment. And that was very short after her Green Card (6 Months and no termination letter)?

2. Should she wait until September 1, 2007 and then apply. So on her N-400 her previous 5 year employment will be from Septermber 2002 to Septermber 2007 and she does not even have to mention her sponsoring employer because she only worked for them until August 2002.

3. Should she wait until January 1, 2008 and then apply?

The main problems are:

1. It was an employment based Green Card.
2. She was laid off within 6 months of getting her Green Card.
3. She was given no documentation (letter etc.) about her layoff. So during her Citizenship Interview if the Officer asks for docuementation there is no way of proving this.

Please advise.

 

[koolvik7]

Its your choice....

I believe your wife is in a very comfortable zone and will have no problem at all in getting the N-400 application approval at all. This particular issue was discussed recently in two threads that I am referencing below for your convenience:

http://boards.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=243433
http://boards.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=244671

Since I am on the same kind of boat, I have noticed that USCIS is more flexible in approving N-400 applications for Employment Based GCs. Call it the affect of AC21, I have tracked several distinct cases where the applicant had either not worked for the Employer on the GC petition (and also not fulfilling AC21) or had left less within a month and so after the GC approval... N-400 was approved for all such cases.

To top it all, since your wife's Green Card process is totally separate from yours (that's what I assumed from this and previous posts of yours), in the worst case scenario, she can even use your (soon to be arriving) Citizenship to get hers. Of course that would mean that her N-400 application will be delayed by another 3 years... but its a fall back plan... not everyone has that.

Considering everything above, I personally feel that your wife can file her N-400 application even now, but you can wait another 6 months if 3 years (after your N-400 approval) is really a long time.

 

[boatbod]

I agree she shouldn't have any problems with the employment portion of the N-400. Being laid off after 6 months is not so uncommon, and typically doesn't cause any issues with natz. No docs are necessary as employment is a relatively small part of the N-400 process.