This is Immigration Attorney Parviz Malakouti, and in this video, I want to talk about a misconception that I see all the time in
naturalization applications when people are asking me in consults about this. And that basically has to do with the amount of time that you have
to spend in the United States in the three or five years preceding the filing of a naturalization application.
Most people understand the
requirement of what's called "physical presence"
which is that you have to be in the United States on a
aay-to-day basis more time in the preceding five years (or three years if you're married to a U.S.. Citizen) than not.
So that means basically if you add up all the days in the previous five or three years to your naturalization
application, you have to have been in the United States at least ONE day more than you are outside of the United States.
Okay, that is
"physical presence." The thing that people don't understand is that there's ANOTHER requirement
related to naturalization that has to do with the period of time that you stay in the United States and that is called the "continuous
residence" test. Continuous residence.
Continuous residence is basically showing that during the entire period of time, qualifying period of time, before your naturalization
application (again five years or three years if you're married to a U.S. citizen)
during all that period, you
maintained residence in the United States. Okay, so a couple a couple things: if
you
left the United States during that period of time for more than six months but less than a year,
then you are PRESUMED to have
Abandoned residence the United States. PRESUMED. That's a rebuttable presumption.
That means basically that you... the burden is on you to prove that you did not abandon your
your residence in the United States. So again, that's from over six months to up to a year. Okay?
Now, how do you do that? The way you do it is...and I'm basically pulling up the USCIS policy manual right here...
these are three ways that you can show that you did not abandon
Your residence the United States if you're outside the US for more than six months, but under a year.
Number one: "the applicant did not terminate his or her employment in the United States or obtain employment while abroad."
Number two: "the applicant's immediate family remained in the United States." Number three: "the applicant retained full access to his or her
United States abode." Okay.
These are three pieces of evidence that can help you prove that if you're outside the United States for let's say...seven months...
during the previous five or three year period before your application that you did not have been in your residence.
It doesn't have to just be one of these three.
There's other pieces of evidence that you can use to prove that as well. For example , two weeks ago I represented
an individual in a naturalization application that left the United States for over six months and
during that application, excuse me, during the interview process,
the adjudicating officer was starting to probe that period of time and
basically asked the applicant questions about what he did to
maintain ties the United States and I had to chime in and I kind of went back and forth in a friendly respectful way
with the officer basically showing that a)
the applicant maintained his abode, he maintained his residence in the United States during that entire period of time and b)
that the applicant had filed income taxes during that period of time.
Those were two big factors that ended up working on our favor and in the end, the applicant ended up getting approved for naturalization.
Okay, so that is continuous
residence. Okay, that's different than the physical presence test.
Now what if you have been outside of the United States for a year or more? Okay.
Well an absence from the United States of a year or more does break the continuous residence
requirement for the purposes of naturalization. If hat's the case, you want to look into what's called the four...
"four year and one day"..."four year and one day rule." have a video on that.
I'm going to link to that right now in the card above, okay.
So basically the bottom line is: I'll finish with this. If
you have had or if you have an absence coming up that's unavoidable
okay... for over six months and you're a green card holder. First of all, think about contacting a lawyer to get advice.
Second of all, if you want to maintain your continuous residence, okay,
so that you can apply for naturalization sooner rather than later, start thinking about
measures that you can take to prepare for that. Maintain your abode.
Maintain your employment if possible. Pay income taxes. Continue to show your
links to the United States during that period of time that you're abroad from six months to a year, okay?
That's it. If have any
questions or comments, leave them in the comments section. If I get enough interest in a question,
maybe I'll do a video on that. If you like this video, hit the like button and subscribe.
That's it. Take care!