Sunniebgi

HI ..

In speaking with an american friend who is married to a Bajan who recieved his citizenship by decent, she has advised me that they have been married in the US for 9 years.. moved to Barbados about 2 years ago.. applied this January for Citizenship by marriage and that a new law was passed at the end of the year that it now will take her 5 years to get her citizenship.. She has never heard of a reside and work.. she doesn't plan on working here (has other sources of income in the US)

just wanted to put that out there for anyone who may have heard of this new ruling or has any further information. 5 years.. wow...

satellite_ian

It was almost 5 years to the day after I applied for citizenship by marriage that it was granted.

The R&W came along about 6 months after the application went in. Seems that is granted automatically while your application is being processed. Even if you don't plan to work here it is useful if you want to come and go without having to keep going to immigration for visa extensions.

Sunniebgi

ah ok.. re the R&W. so she has just applied in January.. so likely not till July or so should she expect that.. she did say that she had to do the immigration thing before but now actually now doesn't have to, after doing the application.

I'll ask her to follow up with me when the R&W comes through

Serendipidy

It doesn't surprise me Sunnie as they tend to follow the immigration processes of countries like the UK and currently the UK is 5 years before citizenship - it used to be 2.5 yrs

Sunniebgi

mine was right away for Barbados.. took about 2 months (remember that was 24 1/2 years ago) .. for the US, back then, you could apply for a green card if you had been married less than 2 years, but you had to go through the process again at the 2 year wedding anniversary.. or.. we had to be married for 2 years and then you could apply, and get the green card for 10 years.