Webinar: "Citizenship & Naturalization: Eligibility, Red Flags and Interview Prep"

Transcript:

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today for another one of Berardi Immigration Law’s monthly webinars.
My name is Zach Ahlstrom. I’m a senior attorney here at Berardi Immigration Law. And today we’re going to chat about citizenship and naturalization. We’re going to dive into the eligibility requirements, some of the changes, some of the recent changes to the naturalization process, the requirements, and some new things that USCIS is doing to review these applications. We’re going to go over some red flags, the application process, and just some tips and tricks to help you guys prep for that final naturalization interview and the process in general.

All right, so first things first, let’s dive into the general eligibility requirements for naturalization. What has to be met? What has to be satisfied in order to apply for US citizenship? So, for starters, you have to be 18 years of age at the time of filing the application. You have to be a lawful permanent resident, and there’s a time commitment to that LPR status. So, generally speaking, you have to be a lawful permanent resident for at least 5 years before you become eligible for naturalization. There is an exception to that for individuals that gained their permanent residence through marriage to a US citizen. In those cases, you’re eligible to apply for citizenship after three years.
Uh, next, you have to maintain continuous residence in the United States. The government wants to see that you’re truly making the US your home. It’s your primary permanent residence. So you have to show continuous residence. You have to be physically present in the US for a specific amount of time. It’s similar to the continuous residence requirement. They’re sort of intertwined, but they are different. And we’ll go over that in more detail here in a little bit. You have to have lived in the USCIS district of residents for at least three months before you file the application. So essentially what that means is USCIS has field offices throughout the United States. Each office has their own jurisdiction and you have to live within that jurisdiction for at least three months before you file the case in order for USCIS to adjudicate it. There are some exceptions. U, we’ll look into that. But moving on, you have to demonstrate good moral character. That’s kind of what it sounds like. You you have to demonstrate good moral character. There has been some pretty significant changes to this recently. We’ll get into that a little more here in a little bit as well. You have to show attachment to the US Constitution. And be well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States. And then you have to be able to read and write and speak English, basic English. Uh, and you have to have knowledge and understanding of US history and government, also known as civics.

All right. So, let’s look at these requirements in a bit more detail, because, you know, they a lot of them are pretty self-explanatory, but there are some some pretty big nuances to a couple of these that are very important. Because if you don’t satisfy the requirements, naturalization isn’t free. It takes a while to do. It’s expensive. You want to make sure that you’re truly eligible when you file an application. So the first two, age requirement and maintaining LPR status for a certain amount of time, those are two of the most straightforward. You have to be 18 years old at the time of filing. And then you have to have been a lawful permanent resident or also known as a green card holder for the statutory period. And like I said, generally speaking, if you’re applying for naturalization and you didn’t obtain citizenship based or permanent residence based on marriage to a US citizen, the statutory period is 5 years. If you’re married to a US citizen, the statutory period is three years.

All right. Continuous residence. This is a very important assessment that we attorneys make when reviewing an individual’s eligibility for naturalization. So to simplify the requirement it essentially means that you have to be continuously residing in the US as an LPR immediately prior to the time of naturalization. And continuous residence means that you’re making the US your primary residence. You’re continually residing here and there aren’t any breaks in your continuous residence. And in terms of the breaks, there’s two that are important. So for starters, if you’re outside the United States continuously for 6 months, but less than a year, there’s a presumption that you have broken your continuous residence. It’s not necessarily an end-all be-all. It’s not necessarily something that will kill a naturalization application, but it’s not good and it is hard to overcome. This presumption can be overcome. You can rebut this presumption by showing evidence that you didn’t disrupt your continuous residence, but you better have a good reason. You know, the government takes these cases seriously. And if you don’t have a good reason or explanation as to why you spent more than six months outside the United States continuously, you’re going to have a difficult time with your application. If it was a life or death emergency, maybe you got sick or injured abroad and you were stuck in the hospital for 8 months before you could come back to the United States, yeah, you have a pretty good excuse. There’s there’s a good case that you might be able to overcome that presumption. But if you’re just vacationing and you lose track of time and you spend seven, even six and a half months outside the United States, uh, and you re-enter, you could be in a problematic situation and it might be very difficult to rebut that presumption.

Now, the other key, sort of date or amount of time that’s important is one year. If you spend a year outside the United States continuously, it’s an automatic break in your continuous residence, and there’s no way to rebut that and it’s difficult for permanent residents because a continuous stay of one year or more can also result in abandonment of your LPR status. You know, if you spend over a year outside the United States and try to reenter, there’s definitely a possibility that customs questions your stay and questions whether or not you abandon your permanent residence and you might have to explain what you were doing and why you didn’t abandon your permanent residence. And you better have proof that you’re maintaining pretty solid and pretty permanent ties to the United States. But from a naturalization standpoint, it it is sort of an end-all be-all because it’s going to reset that clock for you in terms of your eligibility. So, if you spend a year outside the United States and re-enter, you could have been physically present in the United States for four straight years before then. You take that trip, it’s a year more and you reenter, that 5-year clock resets. It’s a three-year clock if it’s based on marriage to US citizenship. But if it is just the basic general eligibility requirements for naturalization, you’re going to have to satisfy that continuous residence requirement for a new 5-year period.

All right, so that’s continuous residence. It’s also important to note too that, you know, if you’re taking very frequent and lengthy absences, even if it’s less than six months, uh, you’re still could find yourself in a in a problematic situation, not only at the border with US customs, but a USCIS officer could also question whether or not, you abandon your permanent residence and you’re truly maintaining your LPR status in the United States. So, you just have to be careful. You just have to be careful about your trips. Be conscious of the amount of time you’re spending abroad. Be conscious of how it’s going to appear and how it’s going to look to an immigration officer if they ever take a look at your trips and your travel history. And always be sure to maintain your permanent ties to the United States such as employment residence. So that it’s it’s easier to argue and demonstrate that the US is truly your permanent home.

All right. So, moving on into physical presence. Uh this is like I said earlier, it’s interrelated with continuous residence, but it’s not the same. So physical presence is a much more straightforward formula. It’s essentially you have to be physically present in the United States for at least half of the time that you’re required for the statutory period. So if the statutory period is 5 years, 60 months, you have to show that you were physically present for 30 of those months. If the statutory period is 3 years or 36 months, you have to show physical presence of 18 months in the United States. One caveat or sort of nuance to this is that both day entering and day departing the United States are counted as days physically present in the US for that calculation. This is something that I’ll mention towards the end of the webinar about potential pitfalls or complications with a naturalization application. Uh, but traveling frequently in a lot of trips in and out of the country can be hard to keep track of. And when you’re submitting a naturalization application and you have to show physical presence, a travel history and keeping track of those dates and being able to demonstrate and prove your physical presence in the United States is important. And if that’s going to require a lot of work or if trips aren’t available, it can become problematic pretty quickly. Uh, so it’s just something to be conscious of. If you’re an LPR and you’re hoping to apply for per res or citizenship and naturalization in the future, you know, make sure that you’re keeping track of your trips. keep track of, you know, when you exited, when you when you re-entered, how many days abroad you uh how many days you spent outside the United States, where you traveled to because this information is going to be needed when it comes time to apply for US citizenship.

Okay, so that’s physical presence. Uh moving on to residence in a USCIS district. Uh this is this is another one that’s pretty straightforward. You just have to be residing in the appropriate USCIS district for 3 months prior to submission of an application. So, if you’ve recently moved, uh, this is going to be applicable. You need to double check this. You need to make sure that if you change districts, you know, you’re going to have to wait three months to file a naturalization application. But if you moved and you stayed within the same district, it’s not going to affect or impact your eligibility to submit an application. There are some sort of caveats or exceptions to this. One in particular is for students. So say you’re an 18-year-old college student that lives in New York, but you’re going to school in Texas. Uh, the regulations give you some flexibility here. So, you can either apply where the school is located or in their in your home state if you’re financially dependent on your parents during the process. So, you have the flexibility as long as while you’re waiting, while you submit an application and up until the oath ceremony, you’re financially dependent on your parents. So there is a special rule for students uh but for everyone else you have to live in the USCIS district that has jurisdiction for at least three months.

All right. Now perhaps the biggest and most talked about requirement at least nowadays is good moral character. And there’s been some changes about how this requirement is assessed and analyzed by the government. uh but in general the to break it down in a in a very simple form is you have to show good moral character during the statutory period and up until the oath of allegiance meaning you have to show the government that you’re a good person uh you have good moral character you’re deserving of US citizenship and you have to show that for the entire relevant statutory period leading up to submission so three to five years depending on how you’re qualifying for naturalization and then also up until your oath of allegiance. So, if you submit an application and you do something that is potentially problematic from a good moral character standpoint before your citizenship is approved and you take the oath of allegiance, that could be a major issue for your application and could impact your eligibility and potentially result in a denial.

Now, when assessing good moral character, there are some permanent bars, there’s some conditional bars, and what’s new is there’s now positive factors that the government’s assessing. So, in the past, the assessment was pretty straightforward. You know, a USCS officer would pick up your application, they’d look at the forms, they’d check your, you know, history, and they would essentially just make sure there were no disqualifying factors. If there were no disqualifying factors, it was a pretty straightforward analysis. You know, you satisfied good moral character, and assuming all the other eligibility requirements are satisfied, you should be good to go. The new process takes into account not only conditional, permanent bars, disqualifying factors, but they’re looking at positive factors. So now it’s more of a totality of the circumstances evaluation and not just a checklist mentality approach to whether or not someone has a disqualifying factor.

But just to give you an example before I explain that a little further, when we’re talking about permanent bars, it’s it’s kind of what you would think of. It’s the really bad stuff. It’s murder. It’s aggravated felonies. It’s genocide, torture, just horrendous stuff that it’s obvious this person does not have good moral character and we can never trust this person. They’re never going to satisfy this requirement. On the other hand, there’s conditional bars. Still not good, but not murder or genocide. These are, you know, repeat offenders, controlled substance violations, multiple DUIs, false claims to US citizenship, stuff that doesn’t look good. But there is sort of a judgment call that can be made from a government officer’s perspective, and there’s an opportunity for rehabilitation.
uh there’s there’s still a chance that you can satisfy that good moral character requirement even if you have a history of DUIs, for example. Rehabilitation becomes very important in that regard. You know, if you have two or three DUI convictions under your belt, uh you want to truly demonstrate to the government that you’ve rehabilitated and you’re a changed person and that this is no longer a concern and the government shouldn’t worry about you becoming a repeat offender or doing this again. Uh, so time is a huge factor. You know, if your two DUIs were in the past two years or during the statutory period, you’re you’re in trouble. But if it was 10 years ago and you’ve rehabilitated, you’ve had no issues since then under the new approach, the new analysis to good moral character, if you can show that rehabilitation and you have other positive factors to demonstrate your good moral character, there’s there’s a chance that your application is still improved.

And with that said, the positive factors, uh, there there’s a non-exhaustive list. Uh, the government wants to see community involvement, charitable contributions, you know, they want to see that you’re donating your time, potentially your money. They want to see that you have family responsibilities, that you’re holding up your family responsibilities. So, if you, you know, need to pay child support, you’re not missing payments, you don’t have owed child support payments, you’re you’re up to date with that. They want to see tax compliance and financial responsibility. You don’t have massive debt. You don’t owe the government any taxes. Uh they want to see education and employment history. The higher the education level, the more positively it’s viewed. A bachelor’s degree from a US institution is is a is a positive factor that’s definitely taken into consideration for purposes of the citizenship naturalization assessment. U and then length of lawful residence in the United States is another positive factor. You know, if you’ve lived in the US as an LPR for 30 years and you’ve never been a problem, that’s definitely going to look positively when a when a USCS officer determines whether or not you have good moral character.

All right. So, like I said, this was one of the bigger changes that we’ve seen recently that went into effect in earlier this month. Uh the assessment before was it was like I said, it was a checklist. It was are there any disqualifying bars? Yes or no. The answer was no. good moral character was usually satisfied. Now it’s a much more holistic approach. Uh it’s a totality determination. They’re factoring in more than just the disqualifying factors of looking at positive attributes. Rehabilitation and reformation is much more important. So, it’s just a more discretionary analysis and it gives the government a lot more leeway to really test people and and uh make more in-depth assessments as to whether or not this requirement satisfied.

All right. So, moving on to another portion or another qualifying eligibility requirement for naturalization is English and civics. is another uh area that’s seen some changes recently. So in general it’s you have to be able to read, write and speak basic English and you have to have knowledge of US government and history. From a knowledge of US government history standpoint, there’s always been a civics test. There’s a 2008 version and then in 2020 they changed it to a newer version. And just recently they’ve changed it again to a 2025 version of the test. Uh, which to be completely honest is essentially just a reprint of the 2020 version of the test. Uh, it’s just a little different in how they assess whether or not someone’s passed the test. Uh, and and the biggest change is is the number of questions. The question pools larger and you have to answer more questions correctly. From the 2008 version of the test, you got 10 questions, you had to answer six correctly. The newest version of the test, you get 20 questions, you have to answer 12 correctly. And the biggest difference between the 2020 version and the 2025 version is that the 2020 version, officers had to ask all 20 questions. In the 2025 version, they just have to ask the appropriate amount of questions to determine whether or not someone passes or fails. So if someone if they ask 12 questions and they get 12 questions right, they don’t have to ask the remaining eight questions. If someone if they ask nine questions and all nine are wrong, they don’t have to ask the remaining questions. It’s a simple pass or fail analysis at that point. But the test itself uh from 2020 to 2025 really isn’t any different. It’s 128 questions. Uh and you have to get 12 right.

All right. So those are the requirements. Those are the eligibility requirements. Oh, one last thing. Kind of brushed over this, but you have to take an oath of allegiance, which is, this lends to the requirement of attachment to the US Constitution, and the good, order, and happiness of the United States. The oath of allegiance is printed on the form. It’s something that you’ll have to do uh, when you go to your oath ceremony at the end of the process. U,, but this is another eligibility requirement for naturalization.

All right, just so I don’t forget, one additional update. uh because there’s been a lot of changes to this recently. We talked about the change to the good moral character analysis. We talked about the change to the civics exam and how that exam is administered. Another big change is USCIS is now uh doing what’s called neighborhood investigations. And there’s there’s been a long-standing waiver on this, but that has been removed. And USCIS is now authorized to conduct what they call neighborhood checks to verify uh the character and community reputation of naturalization applicants. So applicants may be asked to provide contact information for individuals who can attest to their conduct. Uh but this is definitely new and definitely something that needs to be thought about and applicants need to be conscious of when they’re submitting a naturalization application. We don’t necessarily know how this is going to look, how prevalent this practice is going to be but USCS is authorized to do it and it’s very likely that they are going to utilize this tool in assessing naturalizations.

All right, so those are the changes, those are the requirements. Just a quick overview of the process before we jump into some potential red flags and common issues. The naturalization process at the end of the day is pretty straightforward. You submit a form. It’s called a form N400 application for naturalization. This can be filed online or it can be printed out in a physical copy can be mailed to US citizenship and immigration services. Uh but either way it’s a simple form that you have to fill out. You have to provide a copy of your green card. We’re now advising clients to submit, you know, proof of positive factors upfront because this is uh going to help USCIS in determining good moral character. In the past before these changes, it it an application could have been as simple as the form and a copy of your green card. But now we’re doing a little more work, a little more effort, and a little more documentation is required just to safeguard people from potential delays, potential issues with government processing. Just being more diligent about demonstrating your good moral character and your eligibility for naturalization.

Step two is what’s called a biometrics appointment. This is where you go to the field office with jurisdiction over your case. They take your photo, they take a fingerprint, confirm that you are who you say you are. It’s just basic biometrics. Often times this is waved especially for people that have received a green card or a new green card within recent years. Uh, but it is something that, you know, it it’s it’s step two of the process. It’s either going to be waved or you’re going to have to go for an appointment.

Next is the naturalization interview and the civics test. Uh, this you go back to the same field office, assuming you have it moved and transfer the case. And an officer is going to conduct an interview. It’s a one-on-one interview with a USCIS officer. They’re going to ask you, they’re going to go over your application. They’re going to double check and cross-check information on the forms within your application. And then they’re going to administer the civics test. You know, assuming you pass, uh, you move into step four, which is the O ceremony. And one note about the civics test, too, is, you know, even if you fail the civics test, generally speaking, USCIS does have discretion to give you another opportunity, another stab at the exam. Uh, you know, it’s going to likely require another separate appointment. But the first failure doesn’t necessarily mean that your application’s going to be denied and you have to reapply. Oftentimes there is another opportunity to pass that exam. And there’s also a ton of resources available online, and specifically on the USCIS website that can help you study for that test.
uh they actually list there’s actually a list of all 128 questions and all possible answers to the questions on the USCIS website. So obviously the best way to prepare for the exam is to go print those questions, study the questions and study the answers because then when you go to the test and you get your civics exam, you’re going to be familiar with any possible question that the USCS officers can ask you.

Okay. And then like I said, last last step of the process is the oath ceremony. This is generally an offsite at a third party location. Sometimes it’s at a courthouse or a designated facility where USCIS does these oath ceremonies. You take the oath of allegiance and sometimes there’s even uh an opportunity or people there assisting with passport applications. Uh it is the last step of the process. There’s also potential and some USCIS officers are authorized to do the O ceremony at the field office. So, this was pretty prevalent during COVID. It’s not that the practice is non-existent. It’s just not as common, but there are some instances where a USCIS officer is authorized and conducts the O ceremony immediately after your naturalization interview and passing the civics test. It streamlines everything, but you don’t get the the the allore and the the the nice oath ceremony that uh is that comes with the process. It’s usually a monumental moment in people’s lives. And these o ceremonies are a time for celebration. And it’s just not as big of a moment if you’re doing it at the field office versus, you know, at a third at a courthouse or a third party location. But it is it is a practice and it it does happen.

All right. Now, in terms of red flags and common issues, uh, you know, the biggest red flag is going to be good moral character. You know, if you have any prior criminal history or immigration issues, especially during the statutory period, this is going to require a very detailed assessment as to whether or not it’s worth submitting an application, whether or not you’re eligible for naturalization. Uh, it’s it’s a huge factor and it needs to be taken seriously.
breaks in continuous residence and frequent travel abroad can be problematic. Especially trips of six months or longer or even a year or longer. This can this can prevent you from submitting a naturalization application or it can result in denial if uh you took a trip of 6 months or longer and you’re not able to rebut that presumption and USCIS denies the case. Uh, additionally with regard to travel, another issue is even if you are satisfying the continuous residence requirement, the physical presence requirement, frequent travel can be can become problematic very quickly if you’re not keeping track of your trips. I’ve seen this many times where the client has a very international lifestyle. Yes, technically they do satisfy the continuous residence and physical presence requirement, but they have dozens if not hundreds of trips in and out of the United States over the statutory period. And documenting each and every one of these trips and getting a travel history together can be very it can become an issue quickly and it it does sometimes cause delays in drafting a case and and does sometimes prevent people from wanting to pursue or proceed further with an application. So it just reiterates the importance of keeping track of your trips and keeping a detailed travel log.

All right. So that’s naturalization. That’s the process. Those are the requirements. Those are some common issues, red flags. We talked about some of the major changes that happened recently. If you’re interested in learning more, we’re very active on social media. We have blogs on our website that goes into this in a lot more detail. We’re constantly posting about changes, updates, and you’re always welcome to reach out, connect with us directly if you want to talk about potentially applying or if you just have questions about any of this. Uh, but anyways, thank you for joining us today, and it was a pleasure chatting with everyone.