People always ask me, “Can I lose my green card if my citizenship case gets denied after
the interview? Hello, everybody. My name is Jacob Sapochnick and I'm an immigration attorney
based in San Diego, California. In this video, we'll talk about what happens if your citizenship
case gets denied or whether there's a risk for your green card can your green card also
be denied as well? Well, typically, by way of introduction, when somebody gets a green
card, when somebody becomes a permanent residence, they either get it through employment, so
whether they had an H1B visa, then the employer-sponsored them for the green card, they got a green
card, or they get it from a family petition. Either they marry a US citizen, or a parent
petitioned for them or brother or sister. So, these are the two main ways people get
it. Other ways are through investment or asylum. And so, typically, when you go through the
legal process, there is a background check. When they check, they want to make sure that
you meet the requirements, whether it's a criminal background, or make sure that the
benefit that you received the green card… if it's through marriage, if it was a bona
fide marriage. If it's through work, did you meet the requirements of education and qualifications,
all these things are usually being reviewed and checked during the green card process.
Otherwise, you wouldn't get a green card, if they determined that these things were
a fraud. But when you go through the citizenship process, they also will go through certain
things. They’ll ask you questions, if you ever lied to the US government, if you have
committed fraud or all these things. It's kind of like the final check. And they will
do background checks, and they'll do all kinds of checks and if they do find that something
was inaccurate during the process of getting a green card, there may or may not be a risk
for your green card as well. And let me give you the most common examples where we had
a situation where somebody failed the green card interview. And then, as a result, there
was an investigation opened for the green card. And then, as a result, they lost their
green card as well. And this case involved a person that was married to a US citizen,
they got their green card based on marriage, and then that person never had an interview
during his Removal of Conditions application. So typically, if you have a green card for
two years, you have to file another application to remove the conditions. In this person's
case, he never had an interview, it was just because at that time, they didn't have any
interviews, or maybe they forgot about him, or whatever the reason is, he got his green
card without a second interview and everything was good. And when he went for his citizenship,
he was no longer married to that woman. And they asked him some more questions about how
he got his green card and there were some inconsistencies, as far as some addresses,
as far as some dates and names, because remember, they have your file, they have the file of
your green card at the time of your citizenship. So, when the officer looked at the application,
there were a lot of inconsistencies with his green card information that they provided.
And the officer decided to investigate further. So, he told that the applicant, “Listen,
I can’t approve your citizenship right now. I have to check a few more things.” And
they went further and they compared some of his answers. They pulled the file, and they
really had a doubt about his relationship. And so what they did is not only they denied
his N-400, but they also issued a notice to rescind his green card. Because of the fact
that they found that there was a fraud in the way he received his green card. And that
person, we had to go and fight his green card rescission and we have to provide some evidence.
And after that, almost two years, we were able to save his green card, and he didn't
want to apply for citizenship at that point. But the bottom line is that, to answer the
question, yes, there is a way, there are some risks that if your citizenship is… your
citizenship application gets denied, they may reinvestigate your green card depending
on how you received your green card depending on what happened in the N-400 interview. And
really, whether there's a reason for them to have a doubt that you receive your green
card by way of fraud or you’re not eligible for that green card in the first place. So
again, normally, there shouldn't be a connection between a denied citizenship and your green
card because citizenship can be denied for reasons like a bad moral character at the
time, you failed your test, you have absences from the US more than you should, things like
that that normally shouldn't have any direct impact on your green card. But there are situations
where, like in this example I just described, where when they find out at the time of the
N-400 interview that your green card was also obtained incorrectly, they may go back and
try to rescind your green card after denying your citizenship. Hopefully, that information
was helpful and gave you a little bit of an insight as to when that can happen. If you
have any questions, feel free to email me at jacob@h1b.biz. Post your comments below
with any other questions and make sure you share that video with a friend or anybody
that would need that, and don't forget to subscribe to our channel. Let us know of any
other videos you'd like us to make. I'll be happy to see you in our next video.