US Citizenship query

[flygirl]

I am not sure if this is the right place to post this, but i'd like to know if it is possible to find out if my deceased father was a US citizen before he died 20 yrs ago. We only recently found out that he was a green card holder and know that we as siblings born after he had the green card are not eligible to make any applications as dependants of a green card holder. So basically we want to know if we can find out if he ever naturalized. Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jackolantern]

He would have had to naturalize before you turned 18, and met the other conditions (you living in his custody as a permanent resident) in order for you to obtain derived citizenship. But I don't know if that rule applied over 20 years ago.

So you first need to find out whether the law at the time would give you derived citizenship if he naturalized before you were 18 (consult an immigration lawyer and explain the details of your situation ... when did he die, when were you born, did you live with him and for how long, how long did he live in the US, what was the citizenship of your mother and was she married to him, etc.). Then if the answer is yes that derived citizenship is available to you under the applicable rules, spend the extra time finding out if and when he naturalized.

 

[Huracan]

20 years ago I think both parents had to be citizens for the children to derive citizenship. There are some webpages around that explain what law applied depending on which year you were born.

I don't know how one would go about finding if that person naturalized. Perhaps it would be good to schedule an Infopass at the www.uscis.gov website and go with as much information and documents. The key here could be the A number. If you have the A number that would greatly simplify things. Otherwise they might query based on name and birth date or other biographic infoamration. I would guess you would have to go with birth certificates and proof of your family relationship for them to give you information about your father.

However, it is my understanding that deceased people cannot apply for anything, so you either derived a benefit at the time by operation of law, or it would be too late now to derive anything even if he was a citizen at the time of death.

This is not legal advice, just my opinion.

My 2 cents.

 

[Jackolantern]

However, it is my understanding that deceased people cannot apply for anything, so you either derived a benefit at the time by operation of law, or it would be too late now to derive anything even if he was a citizen at the time of death.

Derived US citizenship is not applied for, it is just proven (although affirming and documenting the proof may involve an application process like N600).

Finding out if and when he naturalized, and proving it, could be a very time consuming and expensive process. So before going that route, I suggested first finding out in a more general way if such derived citizenship is available under the laws at the time if it is assumed that he naturalized before the poster turned 18.

 

[flygirl]

Thanks guys! I appreciate the info.

Regarding derived citizenship through Naturalization, i found this website which i think is pretty useful.

Also, regarding checking for information on Naturalized persons, this website is also pretty useful.

I wonder why i never did all this before...guess i needed a push in the right direction. Thanks again Jackolantern and Huracan!!

 

[Huracan]

Another link:

http://www.jag.navy.mil/documents/Immigration.html#Citizen

I am not sure if you can file the FOIPA request if you are not the person on the records you are looking for. I mean you can ask for your own immigration record, but it is not that simple to look into someone else's record. I wouldn't like people easily having access to my immigration record This comment is about the link you provided about checking for information on naturalized persons. I had thought about FOIPA or FOIA but didn't write about it earlier because I thought it might not work in this case. Anyway, this is a good avenue to pursue, although it might not work at the end.

The first link you provide has some good information about several of the cases. However, you mention that your father died 20 years ago, so I don't think the current child citizenship act of 2000 (it started being applied on Feb of 2001) would apply to your case, so it would be back to both your parents had to naturalize, or you would have to apply some of the other cases. Anyway, I wish you good luck and after reading all these documents I hope you can get a good solution to your case.