3 Common Mistakes Made While Applying for Citizenship
When crafting your application for United States citizenship, it’s best to get it right the first time.
You’ll want to avoid these three common mistakes while applying for citizenship to ensure you can be on the path to your own American Dream right away.
What Are Some Common Mistakes When Applying For United States Citizenship?
1. Apply At The Right Time
If you have not had your green card long enough and apply for citizenship too early, this common mistake may doom your application. You need to have had a green card for five years before using it, or three if you’re the spouse of a US citizen.
Applying at the right time also requires you to time your travel appropriately. At the time of application, you’ll have to have resided 30 of the past 60 months, or 2.5 years of the past five years, in the US or spent 18 of the last 36 months — 1.5 years of past three years — living in the US if you are married to a US citizen.
In addition, you should not have taken any trips out of the US lasting over six months, and you need to have lived in the same state for at least three months before applying.
If you fail to meet any of these requirements, your application will be denied regardless of any other factors.
2. Include All Relevant Documents
If you forget to include forms, such as your proof of green card, or your documents are not translated to English, you may be denied citizenship. You’ll also need good documentation of your financial records, annual tax returns, and recurring payments such as tax and child support payments to be up to date.
3. Not Hiring A Lawyer
The N-400 application is 18 pages long and filled with legal jargon that can be challenging for someone whose native language isn’t English and has no legal background to navigate. In addition, some boxes apply to some green card holders but not others. Your best chance at ensuring you filled out the application correctly and got approved on your first chance is to hire an experienced immigration attorney.
Fay, Grafton, & Nunez offer $200-flat fee immigration consultations to help you jump-start your application process and help put you on the right track to becoming a citizen.
