Rajiv, I am originally from Ohio but write from Brazil, a country where I lived from 2004 to 2015. I married a Brazilian in 2008 and in 2015 we moved to the US. In early 2018, my wife applied for US citizenship on the basis of completing three years of permanent residency. She had her interview in April 2019 and was told she had passed the English and civics portions but that, due to our frequent trips abroad in 2015 over a span of five months, they would have to study our travels and that this would delay her case by "a few weeks". These "few weeks" passed the USCIS's own 3 month resolution rule and ultimately turned into 16 months, a period that saw my wife contact the USCIS call center as frequently as allowed.
In October of 2019, we embarked on an around the world trip, which took us to five countries until Covid forced us to stop when were in São Paulo. We had always planned on returning to the US in March so my wife would not pass more than 6 consecutive months outside the US. Unfortunately, she became so terrified of the risks of flying and my membership in a high risk category (I am 61), that was just bunkered down in our Airbnb apartment in São Paulo until she was summoned to an interview at the USCIS in the US this week. She traveled to the US alone for her interview, extremely nervous about doing so.
The agent who interviewed her this time was sympathetic to her case but now has to see next week with their USCIS office attorney if there would be a precedent for waiving the 6 month rule due to the Coronavirus. Otherwise we will be asked to prove continuous residence in the US, something I doubt we can do as all our possessions are in a self-storage unit in the US but we did not continue to rent an apartment there. Since October, we have not really resided anywhere in a traditional sense. Assuming the worst, is this a matter we could appeal to a judge? She never would have been in the situation if her case file took so long to be studied and the coronavirus had not affected us all.
