Why apply N-600 for Minors?

R

RSK1

Registered Users (C)
Recently me and my wife got our citizenship approved and applied for passports for us and our 2 minor sons (16 & 13). Hopefully we will get them within few weeks. I know now I should apply for N-600 for them, OCI, update Social security etc. I was wondering why should apply N-600 for my sons and spend $460 each? I tried to find the answers but did not find anything important. One of the message says "The naturalization certificate never expires whereas the passport does." This is not enough reason. You can always renew your passport and passport card, even the expired one or lost one. Please provide your expert opinion which can compell me to file for their N-600. I think during the this whole non-immigrant visa to GC to Citizenship, we (all of us) have spent a lot time, energy and money? Why spend (or donate) another $920 (for 2) to USCIS?
 
RSK1 said:
One of the message says "The naturalization certificate never expires whereas the passport does." This is not enough reason. You can always renew your passport and passport card, even the expired one or lost one.
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The fact that the naturalization certificate does not expire can be an important advantage later on. Sometimes there are delays in renewing or replacing passports, like what happened about 3 years ago when the backlogs caused many people to wait for months. If somebody's passport has expired or is lost, and they need to do something that requires proof of citizenship like renew their driver's license or apply for a Federal job that requires citizenship, or vote (some states are starting to require proof of citizenship for voting), they could have big problems if there is a delay and they don't have another valid proof of citizenship such as the certificate.

Naturalized citizens have unexpiring proof of citizenship in the naturalization certificate. Born citizens have a birth certificate. But those who derived citizenship would not have such unexpiring proof if they don't get the certificate of citizenship.

For children, the certificate is not so important, as they won't be doing anything like driving or voting for several years. So if you don't feel it is worth it to file the N-600 for your children, don't bother with it, but you should at least inform them about it when they are older so they are aware of it in case they want to apply for it on their own as adults.
 
It is easier to be done now than later, when it might be difficult to locate all relevant documents, and USCIS might want to do more scrutiny of the application. There are rare instances in which government agencies or other offices might "mistakenly" insist on seeing a certificate, and not a passport. At that time it is your choice if you want to fight the bureaucracy or just show a certificate. There is no strong compelling case, just to have one extra document that might make their future life a bit easier. There is also the argument that it also creates a record and paper trail of citizenship within USCIS, so other agencies can have that strong endorsement that your children are citizens. Anyway, department of State also does its own due diligence when it issues passports, so one can argue both ways.
 
baikal3 said:
For the moment, the state of Texas does not accept a U.S. passport as a proof of U.S. citizenship, unless the passport shows the place of birth in the U.S., when issuing driver's licenses. They require a naturalization certificate or a certificate of citizenship or a consular report of birth abroad in such cases.

See the thread
http://forums.immigration.com/showthread.php?t=284525&highlight=Texas+DPS&page=2
for more info about it.
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Texas no longer requires a citizenship/naturalization certificate for non US born citizens; they will accept a US passport. Please refer to the website:
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/driver_licensing_control/LawfulStatusDLID.htm
 
This question can also be asked: if you lose your certificate of naturalization after you get your pasdsport, will you spend money to get replacement?
If yes, then you should apply N600 for your children.

Chidlren growing up here may not have that much sense about their identity.
It is better to educate them including letting thenm have a certificate of citizenship
 
WBH said:
Chidlren growing up here may not have that much sense about their identity.
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Or more accurately, their sense of what immigration/citizenship status means. From time to time we have people popping up on this forum in their 20s and 30s not knowing if they are citizens, thinking they are citizens when they are not, not having the documents to prove citizenship, not ever thinking about citizenship until some event that required them to produce of proof of citizenship, all because their parents didn't give them the documents and information they needed to know.

Having said that, actually obtaining the certificate for them is not necessary. But they should be educated about it, learning the differences between being a citizen and noncitizen (including the fact that they used to be noncitizens) and the importance of proving citizenship, so they are aware of those issues and will be able to make an informed decision about whether they want to apply for the certificate on their own when they grow up.
 
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Interesting.

I think your kids passport application will get rejected. You were not a US citizen when they were born abroad. You recently became a US citizen.
 
mspcitizen said:
I think your kids passport application will get rejected. You were not a US citizen when they were born abroad. You recently became a US citizen.
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You are quite wrong. The derivative citizenship for children of naturalizaed U.S. citizens is governed by the Child Citizenship Act,
see
http://www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/ChildCitizenshipAct_120100.pdf

Under the CDA, the child automatically becomes a U.S. citizen the moment all of the following conditions are satisfied:

1)The child has at least one United States citizen parent (by birth or naturalization);
2) The child is under 18 years of age;
3) The child is currently residing permanently in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the United States citizen parent;
4) The child is a lawful permanent resident.


In this situation filing N-600 is optional and it is possible to apply directly for a U.S. passport for the chilkd. There have been many posts in this forum about this.
 
But to apply for a passport:

Check out the requirements of secondary evidence of US citizenship while applying for a Passport (sorry I can't link its URL since I have not yet made 15 posts).

Read this phrase on the webpage:
If you claim citizenship through birth abroad to U.S. citizen parent(s),

As you can see, they expect the foreign born child to have US citizen parents.
 
RSK1 said:
Recently me and my wife got our citizenship approved and applied for passports for us and our 2 minor sons (16 & 13). Hopefully we will get them within few weeks. I know now I should apply for N-600 for them, OCI, update Social security etc. I was wondering why should apply N-600 for my sons and spend $460 each? I tried to find the answers but did not find anything important. One of the message says "The naturalization certificate never expires whereas the passport does." This is not enough reason. You can always renew your passport and passport card, even the expired one or lost one. Please provide your expert opinion which can compell me to file for their N-600. I think during the this whole non-immigrant visa to GC to Citizenship, we (all of us) have spent a lot time, energy and money? Why spend (or donate) another $920 (for 2) to USCIS?
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One recent case that happened at our workplace was that we hired someone and our company tried to process his Secret Clearance..he naturalized through his parents but his parents never got his certificate of citizenship.

The first step in the process was to go through the e-verify system but since the copy of the passport at the SSA had expired so the e-verify system came back as "cant verify citizenship status."

it took the HR about 2 weeks to figure out why his clearance was stuck and he couldn't start work. He had to go to SSA to update that and now he is looking at how to get the certificate. Had his parents updated the SSA with his certificate, maybe he didn't have to go through this issue.

The Moral of the story is..right now you don't need your child's citizenship certificates but in the near future, you may need one..you never know!! So get it! Its the last amount of money to be donated to the USCIS!!
 
And fees only go up... If you don't pay now, in few years it will be $1000+.
 
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mspcitizen said:
Read this phrase on the webpage:
If you claim citizenship through birth abroad to U.S. citizen parent(s),

As you can see, they expect the foreign born child to have US citizen parents.
Click to expand...
That is only if they are claiming citizenship "through birth abroad to U.S. citizen parent(s)". Claiming post-birth citizenship via the Child Citizenship Act is a different matter, and most parents naturalizing since that Act generally have no problem obtaining a US passport for their under-18 children who live in the US with them.
 
Thanks every one for your suggestions. I think I sould apply for their N-600, we do not know what's there in future. Later it may me mandatory to have Certification of Citizenship. Personally I do not want my sons to go through the pain we had in last 13 yrs, keeping ourselves in status. Couple fo things for clarifications -
1. Minors, who are permanent resident can file for passport if their parents are naturalized citizens. Passports can be applied along with naturalized parents.
2. Social security records can be updated using passport (for everify purpose)

I agree that my sons will never understand the process we have gone through & they always think US has been always their home country.

Thanks again all your input, especially bailak3,Jaicolantern,wbh, nkm-oct23,Huracan, wantmygcnow etc,
 
mspcitizen said:
Check out the requirements of secondary evidence of US citizenship while applying for a Passport (sorry I can't link its URL since I have not yet made 15 posts).

Read this phrase on the webpage:
If you claim citizenship through birth abroad to U.S. citizen parent(s),

As you can see, they expect the foreign born child to have US citizen parents.
Click to expand...

You are talking about a separate provision of the nationality law, about children who are born abroad to U.S. parents. Such children are indeed (in most cases) U.S. citizens at birth.

The Child Citizenship Act is a separate law about children who are not U.S. citizens at birth but who derive U.S. citizenship through parents before turning 18 years old (i.e. for a child whose parents became U.S. citizens after the child's birth or if a foreign-born child is adopted by a U.S. citizen) The State Department also has an FAQ webpage dealing specifically with the Child Citizenship Act:
http://www.adoption.state.gov/pdf/FAQs_Child Citizenship Act of 2000.pdf

Children who derive U.S. citizenship through the Child Citizenship Act are not considered to be natural-born citizens (e.g. they cannot be elected President), unlike children born abroad to U.S. citizen parents.
 
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