As of December 12, 2022, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has updated its policy manual to provide twenty four month automatic extensions to Green Card expirations to Lawful Permanent Residents (“LPRs”) applying for naturalization when they properly file an N-400, Application for Naturalization. The automatic extension applies to those LPRs filing N-400s on or after the 12th of December 2022.
Read moreUS Naturalizations Rose to Record Numbers in the Last Fiscal Year
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) reported in its Fiscal Year 2022 (“FY 2022”) Progress Report that over one million immigrant adults were naturalized as US citizens in FY 2022. The Service “completed 1,122,300 naturalization cases and naturalized 1,023,200 new U.S. citizens” marking the highest number of naturalized citizens in “almost 15 years” and the “third- highest annual tally recorded in U.S. history.”
Read moreThe Washington Post: "US immigration agency to transfer citizenship paperwork from busy offices, hoping to reduce wait times."
Earlier this year in February, eighty-six members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) that demanded accountability for the agency’s increasingly lengthy processing delays. Now, USCIS is looking to transfer cases out of overburdened offices to even out processing times across the country. The strategy, however, will only apply to applications for permanent residency (green cards) and applications for naturalization (citizenship).
Read moreThink Immigration: “But the Royal Baby Actually is a U.S. Citizen…”
Last week, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced the birth of their first child. Given that Prince Harry is, of course, a (rather famous) British citizen, and Meghan is a US citizen waiting for her British citizenship to be approved, immigration attorney John Manley examines the very important question of what citizenship the child has. While Manley notes that in general the “automatic acquisition of US citizenship at birth by a foreign-born child is actually pretty complicated,” thankfully for Harry and Meghan’s royal baby the question of his citizenship is simpler…
Read moreGivin’ it Up: Loss of United States Citizenship
As an immigration lawyer, I am very fortunate to work every day with people from all over the world and from vastly different backgrounds. I do this while representing people in removal proceedings, in deferred action applications, and all manner of work visa petitions. For a clear majority of these people, there is one ultimate goal: US citizenship. For many, acquiring US citizenship is a lifelong and closely-held ambition, emotionally bound up with the process of leaving their home country and establishing a life here in the US. For others, it is a matter of convenience—allowing them the freedom to remain outside the US for extended periods of time without worrying about being found to abandon their permanent resident (Green Card) status, or to petition for family members from abroad to immigrate to the United States.
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