Changes In The Continuous Residency Requirement For U.S. Naturalization

 

 

Published on March 15, 2018

Orlando immigration attorney Nayef Mubarak talks about recent changes in the continuous residency requirement for obtaining US citizenship. Call us today at (407) 502-3000.

 

US Naturalization: Changes in the continuous residency requirement

Hi everyone, Nayef Mubarak from Mubarak law. As promised we are going to do our best to give you all tips as often as possible regarding the changes in immigration law or personal injury. Today's topic is regarding immigration and the naturalization requirements. Last week we mentioned there was change recently for naturalization, specifically the continuous residency requirement. So if you reviewed the requirements for naturalization you'll see something that says “physical presence” and “continuous residency”. So what's the difference? Physical presence simply means counting the number of days you've spent in the United States physically. You want to count every single day you've been in the U.S. and you want that total to be half the amount of the required period. So if you're applying based on 5-year green-card then you must have two and a half years physically present in the United States. The other term is continuous residency. This is probably the one that tricks most people as what does it mean to be continuously residing in the United States. Continuous residency simply means that if you've traveled for more than six months outside the United States you've broken what's called your continuous residency in the US. They can look at several factors such as the purpose of your trips abroad, how long, the frequency, where you work, wand hat assets you have here, but there is a presumption that you've broken your continuous residency if you've left the US for more than six months. Now in order to get this continuous residency re-established you must remain in the US and not have any trips longer than six months, for four years and one day. Again if you had a trip eight months then you must be here for four years and one day. Now I just said something that's incorrect. USCIS has changed their policy as of two weeks ago issuing a memo that says you must be here for four years and six months before applying for naturalization after a trip that has broken your continuous residency. So to be clear, if you had any trip that's longer than six months there's a presumption that you broke in your residency and it must take you four years at six months to reestablish that. There are some exceptions. Like if you were outside of the country and unable to return because of severe medical conditions. For example of the corona virus and on your pushing outside and you are unable to travel home this may be an exception to argue that you did not break your continuous residency, that this was outside of your control. So I hope you found this video helpful and informative. And if you have questions regarding naturalization please contact us. In the last three years there's been more than 800 changes under the immigration law. So please give us a call and let us know if you have any questions. We do have more informative videos that are coming to you and that are longer than these snippets. So please just let us know and we are happy to help.