Deriving US citizenship through Father

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

Irfan,

I don't know about the old law, but under the current law, you would have two problems. The law requires that at the time the parent becomes a US citizen, the children should be:

1- US Permanent residents

2- Under 18

3- "...residing in the U.S. in the legal and physical custody of the U.S. citizen parent..." (see here:http://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-parents)

If the new law had applied at the time the parent became a US citizen, the children in this case probably didn't meet the third requirement and may not even have met the first requirement because they were out of the country for so long; they may have been deemed to have lost their residency.

One other thing... expiration of a greencard does not mean expiration of permanent resident status. If a permanent resident living in the US lets his/her greencard expire, then he/she is still a US citizen.<<<< Totally wrong they may still be a resident but they are never a citizen. Also this only applies to people with 10 year green card.

[JimmyHou 611]

Sorry typo... I wrote US citizen when I meant to write permanent resident. I meant to write:

"If a permanent resident living in the US lets his/her green card expire, then he/she is still a permanent resident"

I was pointing out that expiration of the green card does not imply expiration of permanent resident status.