If you are nervous about passing the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization exam, submit your application before October 1. If USCIS receives your application before that date, it is possible that you can take the current, less difficult English and Civic Knowledge tests.
Applicants who file for naturalization before October 1, who are interviewed before October 1, 2009, can choose to take the current test or the new one. Applicants who apply beginning October 1 must take the new test.
You qualify for naturalization if you have been a permanent resident for at least five years. You qualify in three years if you have been married to and living with the same U.S.-citizen spouse while a permanent resident for three years.
You can find information about the new naturalization exam at the USCIS Web site, www.uscis.gov.
Uncashed check
Q. My lawyer says he filed my mother’s permanent residence application six months ago, but the USCIS never cashed my check for filing fees. What do you suggest I do? We hired a lawyer to file a permanent residence application for my mother. He claims he filed the papers immediately, but we have yet to receive a filing receipt. The lawyer says he does not know why. My mother was suspicious and checked to see if any of the money orders for the applications have been cashed. As of this writing, they have not.
- Enes Memic, New York
A. Cancel the money order, get a new lawyer (or get help from a not-for-profit immigration law service provider) and refile for your mother. You can try calling the USCIS National Service Center at National Customer Service Center (NCSC) at 1-800-375-5283 (TTY 1-800-767-1833) to inquire, but my guess is that they’ll be unable to locate your mother’s file.
Typically, the USCIS sends a filing receipt two to three weeks after it receives a permanent residence application. It contains a receipt number that allows you to track the processing of the application. Without that receipt number, it will be difficult for the USCIS to provide you information, but it cannot hurt for you to call.
Unless the NCSC can locate the file, I wouldn’t waste any more time trying to find out what happened to the papers. File new ones.
Born in Hong Kong
Q. How can my wife prove that she is a U.S. citizen? My wife was born in Hong Kong on Sept. 17, 1956. She came to New York one month after her birth and has been living here since. Her father was a naturalized U.S. citizen at the time of her birth and she believes that she is a U.S. citizen. She wants to get a U.S. passport. Her father died 46 years ago, but she has his U.S. passport. The problem is that the U.S. passport office Web site says that she needs an affidavit from her father. Of course, that’s impossible.
- Hugh K. Yee, New York
A. If your wife is a U.S. citizen, she can get a U.S. passport without an affidavit from her father. Some of the information at the U.S. Department of State passport information site is just plain wrong.
The site says that your wife needs “an affidavit of your U.S. citizen parent showing all periods and places of residence or physical presence in the United States and abroad before your birth.” However, the law allows her to prove her father’s presence in the U.S. by other means.
When a U.S. citizen has a child born abroad, whether the child gets automatic U.S. citizenship depends on the law at the time of the child’s birth. A child born abroad in 1956 who was legitimate at birth is a U.S. citizen if both parents were U.S. citizens and one parent had resided at some time in the U.S. or, if only one parent was a U.S. citizen, that parent had been physically present in the U.S. for a total of 10 years, five of which were after age 14.
In 1956, a child born illegitimate acquired U.S. citizenship at birth from a U.S.-citizen father only if the father met the physical presence requirements and the child had been legitimated before he or she turned 21.
If your wife is a U.S. citizen under these rules, the only issue is proving her father’s residence or physical presence in the U.S. You can do that in many ways. Tax returns, school records and Social Security records are all possibilities.
Allan Wernick is a lawyer and chair of the City University of New York Citizenship and Immigration Project. He is the author of “U.S. Immigration and Citizenship - Your Complete Guide, Revised 4th Edition.” Send questions and comments to Allan Wernick, Daily News, 450 West 33rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10001. Professor Wernick’s web site is www.allanwernick.com.
Allan Wernick’s Immigration column is reprinted from the Thursday, September 11 editions of the New York Daily News.
