Citizenship, but I am kinda leaving soon

[JimmyHou 611]

The taxes in Germany are higher than in the US, so I wouldn't have to pay any to the IRS anyhow. Also, since my wife is American, we might come back after a couple of years, or just visit for longer. Thus it is more economic for me to have the passport.

You will have to keep coming back to the US at the very least once per year unless you apply for a travel document in advance.

Even if you do return to the US once a year, or as some people may tell you, once every 6 months, that is not sufficient to maintain your continuous residency unless you can demonstrate sufficient ties to the US (bills, mortgage, rental agreement, car insurance, etc).

Visiting once every few months, even if it is more often than every 6 months, is not necessarily sufficient to prove you have maintained continuous residence. Furthermore, if your absences are longer or if you cannot demonstrate sufficient ties to the US, your may be judged to have abandoned your green card.

If you continuous residency is broken, then you restart your clock once you permanently move back to the US, but if you had lived in the US for at least one year before you left, then you get credit for that one year. In other words, when you move back, you can apply 4 years plus 1 day after you return (or 2 years plus one day based on marriage). This is provided that your green card isn't judged to have been abandoned. Please note that it's not clear to me whether the 90 day early filing rule applies in this case, but I do not think it does. In other words, you would apply 2 years + 1 day after you return and not 2 years +1 day - 90 days after you return.

If your green card is judged to have been abandoned, you may be denied entry to the US or you may be allowed to enter only to have your green card withdrawn at a later date. In this case, you will have to have your wife sponsor you for a new green card and you will start the process over.

If you are moving away to live and work in Germany next month, then it is almost certain that you will break your continuous residency unless you are willing to spend a lot of time traveling back to the US. Your best bet would be to try to ensure that you don't abandon your green card (which will also require significant travel) so that you can come back one day and restart your your citizenship clock.

One way to avoid all this is to ensure that you maintain your ties to the US (keep something rented, etc.) and spend as much time as possible in the US until you get your citizenship about a year from now.

Finally, note that there is a requirement that you be resident in a single state for 90 days before you apply for naturalization. This means that you have to have a residence in the state in when you are applying by next February if you want to apply next May. You cannot naturalize from abroad unless you or your wife are sent overseas by the US government.

Please read the section on continuous residency and physical presence in the following document (chapters 3 and 4)

http://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartD.html

Edited August 10, 2014 by JimmyHou

[jkelly07 120]

you can not naturalize from abroad you file n-400 it takes between 4 and 6 months ,biometrics,interview, oath ceremony you have to do all that.

[Big Papa Zone 93]

OP - this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with your question/situation, but I'm just curious as to your other citizenship (as well as German, I mean). I'm going to hazard a guess at Turkish? Based on nothing more than knowing there's a huge Turkish population in Deutschland?