Adnams

Hi,
After much, much procrastination the OH and I have finally decided to apply for naturalization. We have been green card holders for almost 9 years and have not had any periods out of the country of 6 months or more. Although the OH does travel a huge amount his trips are usually just a couple of weeks in duration, once or twice hes been out of the country for two months in the last five years.
The process kind of scares me as we had such an awful time when adjusting status from H1B / H4's to GC.
I have a couple of questions please bear with me:-
Do we apply separately / independently from each other or are our applications tied as we were originally on H1b / H4? Can we courier the docs etc in one packet or should they be separate?
Once we have submitted our N400 applications are we not allowed to leave the country for travel? My fear here is elderly parents who might suddenly need help and the OH's job requierments for international travel.
Our GC's are due to expire in December 2018, if our application for naturalization hasn't been completed 6 months prior to our Green cards expiring do we apply for GC renewal or not? Would we be out of status if we didn't apply for renewal and hadn't got citizenship yet? From the USCIS website I would think that we don't need to renew GC's but I wasn't 100% on that.
And finally, and I know this gets a lot of discussion but, can we keep our UK citizenship and how exactly do we go about doing that? Do we have to reapply for British passports for ourselves?

Many thanks all, I appreciate all your input

Rete

You apply separately as individuals. Your eligibility to naturalize after being an LPR for 5 years has no bearing/relationship to any person other than yourself.

Personally, I would not 'courier' the packages but send by either regular mail, return receipt requested, or via priority post or even express mail or fedex. Any service that you can track. It is not required that a courier by given the packages to be delivered. Please note that having worked for over 30 years in the legal field, courier means calling an agency who sends a person to the office, gets handed a package, they jump in their car or bike and go to the designated location and hands over the package.

Also, yes, make them separate packages. You do not want anything to be tossed as a duplicate when a joint package is received. Mistakes do happen.

Unless the travel would take you over the time allowed out of the country in the given period, you are free to continue to travel and live your life.

The physical card is only PROOF of your status, it is not your status per se. You will remain a LPR even if the green card expires. It just cannot be used to return to the US if you travel during its expiration.

You have 16 months before the physical card expires and for the naturalization to be adjudicated. It is currently running 6 to 9 months.



What do you mean how do you go about retaining your UK Citizenship? You just do. The US nor the UK will make you renounce your citizenship in the UK if you become a US Citizen.

Why do you need to reapply for a British passport? Are the ones you have expired?

ian-mstm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adnams

... can we keep our UK citizenship...

Yes, of course!

Quote:

...and how exactly do we go about doing that?

You don't have to do anything at all. The UK - not the US - determines who is or isn't a UK citizen. You don't lose UK citizenship by becoming US citizens. One has nothing to do with the other. The US has no authority or ability whatsoever to influence your status as UK citizens.

Quote:

Do we have to reapply for British passports for ourselves?

No, unless your UK passports are expired.

Ian

Adnams

[QUOTE=ian-mstm;12313913]
Yes, of course!



You don't have to do anything at all. The UK - not the US - determines who is or isn't a UK citizen. You don't lose UK citizenship by becoming US citizens. One has nothing to do with the other. The US has no authority or ability whatsoever to influence your status as UK citizens.



No, unless your UK passports are expired.

Thanks for your help.
I was under the impression that we had to renounce our Uk citizenship and handover our UK passports at the "ceremony"? Is that not the case then? And if we refuse to handover passports or renounce our UK citizenship can the officer refuse our application?

Adnams

One more additional question. The N400 form asks for our USCIS online account number. I have absolutely no idea and no recollection whether we were ever issued with one of these. Would it detrimentally affect our application and possibly result in a refusal of citizenship if I left this area blank?

MidAtlantic

No, you do nothing in connection with your UK citizenship and you do not hand over your UK passports.

ian-mstm

When you take the US Oath of Allegiance you do not renounce citizenship of another country... but, even if you did, it would have no force of law behind it because, as mentioned, the US has no authority to deny you UK citizenship. The UK, and no one else, determines who is or isn't a UK citizen. Nothing whatsoever to do with the US.


Nonsense! Scaremongering stories, but nothing more. You will be required to relinquish your green cards, but nothing more than that.


Enter "unknown" - which, at least, is the truth. It'll make no difference whatsoever.

Ian

Adnams

Thanks all, I love how helpful you all are.

rpjs

Some countries consider taking the US citizenship oath as constituting renunciation of their citizenship; the UK does not.

You can travel outside the country between filing and the interview (and between the interview and the oath ceremony) and you'll simply be asked at the interview and before the ceremony if you've travelled abroad since. I just had my interview and the letter said to bring my current passport and any previous I have that I entered the US on. The officer briefly glanced at the ID page of my current passport and didn't even look at the others.

If you're applying now, you should be done well before your current GCs expire at the end of next year. My application is being handled through the NYC field office which has one of the longer processing times, and I expect to have my oath ceremony scheduled for sometime in September, which would make the whole timeline slightly under nine months from filing to oath. You can find the current processing times by field office here and which is your field office here.

Adnams

Ok so my confusion grows. On one of the N400 guides I downloaded today from USCIS it said I had to send my app to a service center - Arizona - but elsewhere on USCIS's website it said that they should be sent to the Chicago Field Center. We reside in Indiana. Id hate to send them to the wrong place. Omg.
From your link above it gives both Chicago and and Indianapolis address.
Because we've had such an awful time with USCIS in the past I guess I'm a little paranoid about things not going smoothly.

rpjs

This page tells you where to file (click on the "where to file" section). It would seem Indiana files to the Chicago lockbox.

Rete

Someone has given you very incorrect information or your have assumed things that are not true.

The only thing you hand over at the oath ceremony is your green card.

Adnams

Nice one thank you, that clarifies it as Chicago. 9 to 10 month wait time though. Whats NY's?

rpjs

NYC was showing as processing priority dates of Sept 10th 2016 as of the end of June, but I received my interview letter early in July and my priority date was Dec 27th 2016 so I wouldn't necessarily take what USCIS publishes as gospel. Are you sure your field office (where you'll have the interview) is Chicago? The page for Indiana shows only four counties (I'm guessing those closest) as being handled by Chicago with the rest of the state being handled by Indianapolis.

Bear in mind that irrespective of which office will handle your case, you send your N-400 to Chicago - and to the lockbox address given on the USCIS N-400 page, not the field office address.

Noorah101

You have to send it to the office governing where you live, though... so it doesn't matter what the NY time frame is.

Rene