Taking Oath before 3 (5) full years of being a permanent resident?

[Unknown111]

Waiting 1 day is a small price to pay for the extra security. No need to worry about court interpretations, leap years, whether to include the end date or not.

Anything could happen with the immigration service. My son, then 14, was approved of green card before I was even I was the main applicant. After his approval, I was interviewed and got GC four months later. I asked the IO at the interview if he can take my son's GC back and have him approved together with me. IO told me there was nothing they can do.

Then I was worried if my son would have trouble getting his citizenship, then again, he breezed through the whole process and was granted USC 6 months ago while I am still waiting.

 

[Jackolantern]

In fact, in the history of the USCIS there is not one single case of denaturalization of a citizen based on your circumstance.
Enjoy your oath tomorrow.

While it is probably true, I wonder how you can know that without having researched every single denaturalization case.

However, assuming it is true, we should not be complacent about it. They have attempted mass denaturalizations in the 1990s, targeting numerous cases with minor details such as living in the district for less than 90 days (in addition to targeting many with major reasons like criminal convictions).

They stopped because the courts said they couldn't administratively denaturalize people, and the government wasn't willing to spend the money to denaturalize thousands of people through the courts. It wasn't illegal to denaturalize them en masse, it was just too expensive.

But there are some raving anti-immigrant politicians out there, some of whom have done things like attempted to pass bills or Constitutional amendments that would deny citizenship to children born in the US if their parents aren't US citizens. If that type of politician becomes president 20 or 40 years from now, they might very well decide that it is worth it to spend a few billion dollars to put thousands of people through the courts to revoke their citizenship, for reasons just as minor as those targeted a decade ago.

 

[Bobsmyth]

We're talking about denaturalization based on later finding out that eligibility was missed by 1 day. If this type of denaturalization ever came up in the past, do you not think it would be a highly publicized legal precedent?

The attempted mass denaturalizations back in late 1990's (Gorbach VS Reno) were overuled by the the courts. If anything, that case has made denaturalization a more difficult process to undertake.

Btw, if this so called extremist president were to be elected in 20 or 40 years from now, such a law would still have to be passed by congress..the president doesn't decide on how much money gets spent..congress does. But why stop there with your alarmist argument..what if congress votes to force all new citizens to combat or face denaturalization? What then?
Come on, try to be realistic in your argument at least.

 

[Jackolantern]

We're talking about denaturalization based on later finding out that eligibility was missed by 1 day. If this type of denaturalization ever came up in the past, do you not think it would be a highly publicized legal precedent?

There almost certainly aren't any cases with the same EXACT scenario of one day difference ... but there may be one with one month, or some other niggling detail.

The attempted mass denaturalizations back in late 1990's (Gorbach VS Reno) were overuled by the the courts. If anything, that case has made denaturalization a more difficult process to undertake.

They weren't overruled entirely. The ruling said that if they're going to denaturalize, they can still do that but they have to do it through the courts.

Btw, if this so called extremist president were to be elected in 20 or 40 years from now, such a law would still have to be passed by congress..the president doesn't decide on how much money gets spent..congress does.

They don't need a new law to denaturalize people who were ineligible to naturalize. They just need the money. A determined president can find ways to get that money if the denaturalization effort is touted under the banner of "national security" or whatever else is a powerful catch-phrase at the time. Bush has found ways to get lots of money for wireless wiretapping and his other shady agendas.

But why stop there with your alarmist argument..what if congress votes to force all new citizens to combat or face denaturalization? What then?

The scenario of mass denaturalization is not some extreme imaginary fiction, it was ACTUALLY attempted in the not-too-distant past. And extremist leaders aren't science fiction either, they already exist in several countries today, even in democracies.

 

[Bobsmyth]

The discussion here was related to the OPs case of possibly missing the eligibility by 1 day (depending on if you count the extra day in the leap year or not). The possibility of the government later undertaking denaturalization proceedings for such a case seems so remote it can only be labeled as far fetched. Sure, anything can happen, but why worry about the possibility of something so remote? I suppose any future US administration can focus their immigration agenda to denaturalize citizens for all kinds of things, but until that happens I won't loose any sleep over it.

 

[Jackolantern]

The discussion here was related to the OPs case of possibly missing the eligibility by 1 day (depending on if you count the extra day in the leap year or not). The possibility of the government later undertaking denaturalization proceedings for such a case seems so remote it can only be labeled as far fetched.

Doesn't seem far fetched to me, because they tried it before for similar minor issues. Court costs and effort are the only obstacles blocking a retry of it; the law itself is not a barrier to denaturalizing people who were naturalized in error.

Sure, anything can happen, but why worry about the possibility of something so remote? I suppose any future US administration can focus their immigration agenda to denaturalize citizens for all kinds of things, but until that happens I won't loose any sleep over it.

It is not worth losing sleep over it at this time. But it is worth waiting the 1 day (or 1 week or month if that was the next oath available date) in order to prevent being one of those who would have to lose sleep over it if the government ever decides to go on a similar rampage again.

 

[Bobsmyth]

Doesn't seem far fetched to me, because they tried it before for similar minor issues. Court costs and effort are the only obstacles blocking a retry of it; the law itself is not a barrier to denaturalizing people who were naturalized in error.

It is not worth losing sleep over it at this time. But it is worth waiting the 1 day (or 1 week or month if that was the next oath available date) in order to prevent being one of those who would have to lose sleep over it if the government ever decides to go on a similar rampage again.

With that kind of reasoning, all those who choose not to disclose minor traffic citations on their application should be worried as well.

 

[Jackolantern]

With that kind of reasoning, all those who choose not to disclose minor traffic citations on their application should be worried as well.

Yes they should, if the government ever goes on another de-natz rampage and puts the money behind it. But they are more likely to be undetected in such a sweep, because finding out who did that would require the tedious task of searching numerous external databases for purged traffic records, as compared to a simple query on their own internal database to find out who naturalized in less than 3 years without being in the military.

 

[Bobsmyth]

Yes they should, if the government ever goes on another de-natz rampage and puts the money behind it. But they are more likely to be undetected in such a sweep, because finding out who did that would require the tedious task of searching numerous external databases for purged traffic records, as compared to a simple query on their own internal database to find out who naturalized in less than 3 years without being in the military.

Well if any future administration decides to put money into denaturalization, why would they stop there and not spend the money to search all kinds of things from your past, including minor citations? The possible scenarios are endless.

 

[Jackolantern]

Well if any future administration decides to put money into denaturalization, why would they stop there and not spend the money to search all kinds of things from your past, including minor citations? The possible scenarios are endless.

They're not going to dedicate 50% of the Federal budget to denaturalize every possible person alive. They'll have X dollars and do what they can within those constraints. They'll probably choose some combination of easy cases, to ramp up the numbers of cases they can win, along with a smaller number of difficult but high profile cases against serious criminals. Those who naturalized before 3 years (or 5 years, if applicable) would be among the easiest cases to locate, even if they're not the easiest to win.

We just have to agree to disagree. If you want to encourage people to naturalize before they're legally supposed to, just because USCIS probably won't notice the mistake, go ahead and do that but I'm not joining you.

 

[Bobsmyth]

We just have to agree to disagree. If you want to encourage people to naturalize before they're legally supposed to, just because USCIS probably won't notice the mistake, go ahead and do that but I'm not joining you.

I'm not encouraging anyone to naturalize if they know they're not eligible. The OPs case was the root of the original discussion as it involved a possible 1 day discrepancy in eligibility depending on if you count the leap year or not. My point is that you have to put things into perspective and be realistic ..comparing the OPs (grey area) case with what happened in Gorbach vs Reno and what any future administration might due is putting unnecessary fear into the discussion. Again, we're talking about a possible 1 day eligible discrepancy, not a 30 day obvious one, or a failure to disclose a past arrest.