Citizenship waiting time for a widower

[johntheman 0]

Hi All,

My wife passed away 8 months ago, two months after I got my permanent residency. How long should I have to wait before I am eligible to apply for citizenship? 3 years or 5 years? If I got married to another US citizen, would that affect the status of my application?

J

[lucyrich 20]

Sorry for your loss.

Assuming you meet the other requirements, you are eligible for citizenship after having been a permanent resident for five years. You may file the paperwork 90 days before you complete the five years of continuous residence, assuming you meet the other requirements at the time of filing.

Since you are not currently married to a US Citizen, you are not eligible for the three year shortcut based on your original marriage. The law is clear on this, and it doesn't matter that everything was good faith and the marriage ended tragically through no fault of your own. In order to be eligible for citizenship after three years of LPR status based on marriage to a US Citizen, the marriage must continue all the way until citizenship is granted.

Hypothetically, if a LPR married a US Citizen after getting LPR status, then he'd be eligible for citizenship after having been married to and living with the US Citizen spouse for three full years. There would be no ability to file 90 days before meeting the continuous residency requirement in this case, because you must have been married to and living with the US Citizen spouse for three full years before filing the paperwork.

But in most cases, our hypothetical LPR would reach the "five years less 90 days as an LPR" requirement before he'd reach the "three full years married to a US Citizen" requirement, so he'd probably ignore the marriage for citizenship purposes, and file based on five years as an LPR. The marriage would only offer a shortcut if the wedding was very soon after gaining LPR status.

Furthermore, if you file based on three years married to a US Citizen, you may have to present some evidence that the marriage is bona fide. But if you happen to be married to a US Citizen but don't use that marriage to gain any immigration benefit, and instead file based on five years as a LPR, then the bona fide nature of the marriage doesn't need to be documented for immigration purposes. So depending on your priorities and individual situation, if the shortcut due to the marriage is small, you might choose to ignore it and file based on five years as an LPR anyway.