As most of you know, there are residence requirements that you have to satisfy before you can apply for citizenship in the U.S.   For most people, this is five years.   That means that you need to be a resident of the U.S. for the five years immediately preceding the date that you apply for U.S. citizenship.  The USCIS will actually allow you to file your citizenship application 90 days before you complete the five years

This five year period needs to be after you have received your green card.  This is residence, not physical presence.   You only need to be actually in the United States for one-half of the five years, but you need to live here the entire time.   In other words, you could take frequent visits outside the US, but as  long as you maintain your residence in the U.S. for the five straight years immediately preceding the date that you apply for citizenship, you have met this requirement.

Please note that this is “residence”.  In other words, if you get your green card and then go and live outside the US and return to the US frequently enough to obtain the required 2½ years of physical presence, that will not work.  If they conclude that you were actually living outside the US and only visiting here, that will not count as five years of residence.  In addition, they could take your green card — stating that you weren’t a resident here — and green cards are only for residents.

If you leave the US for more than six months straight, you may have to restart the five year count.   Whether or not you have to restart the count will depend on if you can convince the USCIS that it was still a temporary trip and that you had continued to maintain your residence in the U.S.  If you leave the US for a year or more straight, they will make you restart your five-year count — regardless of whether or not you feel that you had continued to maintain your residence in the US.

If, for the past three years, you have been married to and living with a US. Citizen while having Green Card, you can file at the three-year mark rather than at the five year mark.  You can file 90 days early, and all the other discussion about maintaining residence during the five year residence period applies to the three year residence period as well

For both the three-year and five-year residence periods, you also need to reside in the state where you file.   You need to start your residence in that state three months before you file for citizenship.

For certain m-ssionaries, if you are a m-ssionary for a U.S. based m-ssions organization or ch-rch, you may be able to satisfy the three or five year residence period even though you are living outside of the US the entire time.    If you are a permanent resident whose U.S. citizen spouse is a full-time m-ssionary for a U.S. based m-ssions organization or ch-rch and who is serving outside the U.S., you may be able to file for U.S. citizenship without any period of residence in the U.S. There are special rules for these situations — more complicated than I can address in this article.

I hope this is interesting and helpful. Remember that this is not legal advice. It is just a summary of certain aspects of immigration law which may or may not apply to your situation. I encourage you to consult an attorney if you think any of this may apply to your situation.

Gunnar Armstrong