Last week I wrote about the residence requirements for citizenship.  If you will recall, there is a required five year period of residence for most applicants for citizenship, but for people who are married to and living with a U.S. citizen spouse, they only need three years of residence.

I also wrote that if you leave the US for more than six months straight, you may have to restart the three or 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 three year or five-year count — regardless of whether or not you feel that you had continued to maintain your residence in the US.

Today I want to address that potential break if you are out of the US for more than six months but less than a year.   If you stay out for more than six months straight, the USCIS will presume that you broke your residence for Naturalization purposes.  This does not mean that you will lose your green card — it just means that you need to restart your three or five-year residence period.

However, as I stated above, you have the opportunity to convince the USCIS that your six-month to less than one year trip did not break your residence.   The main goal here is to demonstrate that it was your intent to maintain your residence here in the U.S.   Here are some types of evidence that you might use in this regard.   If you did not intend to stay out that long, proof of that would be helpful, including proof of why you unexpectedly needed to stay out that long.   Proof that you kept your job in the US while you were out.   Proof that you didn’t have someone living in your house while you were gone — to show that you had a home that you could have returned to at any time.   Proof that your immediate family members stayed home in your home in the U.S.   And, finally, proof that you did not accept foreign employment while you were abroad.   Some other items would be proof that you kept up with your mortgage payments and property taxes, and that you filed your US taxes as a resident.

You will be able to provide this proof at your citizenship interview.  However, I would suggest providing as much of this evidence as you can when you apply.

Remember also, that if you are filing under section 319b as the spouse of a U.S. citizen who is a full-time m-ssionary overseas, you do not need to establish any period of residence in the U.S., so this whole discussion does not apply to you.

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