When are we eligible?

D

davefromoz

Registered Users (C)
Hello,

Well it's been a long time since I posted here but everyone was so helpful with our DV questions I thought I'd post a new question, about citizenship!

So my wife and I are wondering when we will be eligible to apply for US Citizenship. Here is our story:

In March 2009 we spent two weeks in Hawaii where we activated our DV Permanent Residency. We returned to Australia and received our Green Cards in the mail (US mail forwarding service) a few weeks later.

We stayed in Australia and saved money for our permanent move until January 2010 when we returned to the USA where we have resided since.

We would like to know if we will be eligible to apply for US Citizenship in March 2014 which will be 5 years after we originally activated our Permanent Residency. Or will we need to wait until January 2015 when we "technically" permanently moved to the USA.

We've always thought we would need to wait until 2015 but recently found out that we can physically be out of the USA for up to a year without affecting our wait time for eligibility.

Thank you for any assistance!

David.
 
Thanks for your fast reply Ahmed!

Do you think USCIS would see that because we did not have a "physical" address in the USA for that first period of March 2009 to January 2010 (only a mailing address) as being as problem?

Thanks again,

David.
 
If you stay outside the US for over 6 months, you are presumed to have broken continuous residence* and you must wait 4 years and 1 day after returning to the US (provided that you also have 5 years as a green card holder by that time). So that would mean you can apply in March 2014.


*if the trip is between 6 months and a year, you can present evidence of ties to the US to overcome the presumption, but you presumably didn't establish any meaningful ties back in 2009.
 
Thanks Jackolatern!

So you're saying that the fact we were outside of the USA for 10 months in 2009/2010 doesn't affect our wait time for eligibility?

Thanks,

David.
 
That trip back to Australia slightly affected your eligibility. If you didn't take any long trips, you would have been able to use the 90-day early filing period and apply as early as December 2013. Normally you are allowed to apply for citizenship up to 90 days before completing 5 years, during which they can be processing your case, although you cannot be approved until completion of the full 5 years.

But you're not allowed to combine the 90-day headstart with the 4 years and 1 day and use that to apply when it's 3 years and 9 months after the long trip, so you don't get to apply in 2013.
 
davefromoz said:
We've always thought we would need to wait until 2015 but recently found out that we can physically be out of the USA for up to a year without affecting our wait time for eligibility.
Click to expand...

You seem to be confused about the difference between the physical presence requirement and the continuous residency requirement. These are two separate and distinct requirements for naturalization and you must satisfy them both in order to apply for naturalization. It is possible that a particular moment you satisfy one of these requirements but not the other (e.g., with a 10 month absence, at a given moment in time you might satisfy the physical presence requirement but not the continuous residency requirement); if that happens, you must wait until both requirements are satisfied before filing N-400.
You should really do your own homework and read the USCIS official "Guide to Naturalization", where these things are explained:
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/us...nnel=598da2f39b1ab210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD

Regarding using the 4 year plus one day rule: you have to be really careful here, given your circumstances.
There is a question of whether you actually can use this rule since it can be argued that you did not actually establish continuous residency in the U.S. in March 2009, and so you did not "resume" continuous residency in January 2010. So I would suggest that you consult an immigration lawyer before filing N-400 in March 2014.

If it turns out that you can't use the 4 years plus one day rule, you'll have to wait 5 years minus 90 days from the date of coming to the U.S. in January 2010 before submitting N-400.
 
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