N600-K

[tabletalk 1]

Hello everyone,

the VJ forums have been helpful in finding clarity around the correct path to citizenship for our son so I thought I would share what I found.

We are in a situation where my wife was born outside of the United States and acquired her citizenship at birth through Consular Birth Abroad as her mother met the requirements to pass along her citizenship.

Our son, born in 2005, did not qualify for a Report of Consular Birth Abroad due to the fact that his mother had not met the requirements of time spent living in the USA over the age of 14.

This led us to researching and finding the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 specifically section 322. There is a provision in this act allowing you to acquire citizenship through the child's grandparents providing the following:

This form is an application for U.S. citizenship (acquisition) and issuance of a Certificate of Citizenship under section 322 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for a child who regularly resides outside of the United States.

and

Have a U.S. citizen parent who has been physically present in the United States for a period or periods totalling at least 5 years, at least 2 of which were after 14 years of age. If your U.S. citizen parent does not meet this requirement, your U.S. citizen parent’s own U.S. citizen parent (grandparent) has to have been physically present in the United States for a period or periods totaling at least 5 years, at least 2 of which were after 14 years of age

As we live and regularly reside in Canada and our child's grandmother met the requirements we found this was the best path to citizenship for our child. The process was expensive ($600 USD) + eventual cost of travel to the USA for interview.

We gathered the required documentation needed to file our paperwork, documents proving the child's grandmothers USC status i.e. Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, High School Graduation Documents, Copies of Year Book pages, signed affidavits corroborating USC Grandmother's time in the USA.

We filled out the documentation in January of this year and took it along with copies of all of our paperwork to the local FedEx office. We had had a USD Money order/Bank Draft created earlier at our bank to send along with the paperwork. It is key that your bank draws its funds from a USA institution when processed by USCIS or it can not be completed. Our bank, CIBC does use a USA bank for processing USD money orders.

We paid for next day delivery of our documents and they arrived and were signed for at the Phoenix, AZ office the very next afternoon. We heard back with confirmation that the documents had been received in the middle of February and that they had been passed along to our selected interview office in Seattle.

Early in April we received an email from the USCIS office in Yakima, WA that they had taken over our case and would like to set up a time for our son to come in and interview. We responded with a date that worked and prepared our trip and documents.

If you will be flying to the USA for your interview it is important that you bring a copy of your completed I-94. As we were driving into the USA we were electronically processed using NEXUS and didn't need to have a copy of the I-94.

Arriving at USA customs the day prior to the interview the officer asked where we were headed and the purpose of our trip, I told him that we were on our way to Yakima, WA and that our purpose was for an interview to have our son's N600K application finalized. He said "I don't know what that is but sounds good" and we were sent on our way.

The next day we arrived at the interview at our scheduled time, the interviewer focussed almost solely on our son asking him questions about the details of his application (he is 10) and who the people were listed on the documents i.e. Grandmother, Grandfather. This process took less than half an hour. We were asked to come back in an hour to complete the process as the person responsible for certificate completion was on lunch.

We arrived back at the office in the allowed time and were walked through the rest of the process. Due to our son's age he didn't have to take an oath however, my USC wife had to sign stating that she understood the oath.

At that point we were given the completed certificate and drove back to Canada.

[BigDaddy28 228]

that is awesome information. Thank you for sharing your experience and congratulations.

[lilsweetie 32]

Thank you for sharing!

Could you please post your timeline as that would be really helpful too.

Application date

Notice date

Interview In Line Date

Interview Date / Oath

What part of Canada are you in? I am originally from BC and the Seattle office is our field office. Currently waiting for my son's N600 (applied Jan this year). Seems like our dates are pretty close together. I wonder why you had to go to Yakima instead of Seattle... is that closer to you guys? I hope we don't have to go to Yakima too

Thanks!!!

Edited April 25, 2016 by lilsweetie

[tabletalk 1]

Thank you for sharing!

Could you please post your timeline as that would be really helpful too.

Application date

Notice date

Interview In Line Date

Interview Date / Oath

What part of Canada are you in? I am originally from BC and the Seattle office is our field office. Currently waiting for my son's N600 (applied Jan this year). Seems like our dates are pretty close together. I wonder why you had to go to Yakima instead of Seattle... is that closer to you guys? I hope we don't have to go to Yakima too

Thanks!!!

You're welcome,

We are in Vancouver BC, Canada. In talking with the USCIS officer it sounds like all interviews of this type are now handled by the Yakima office. She said the Seattle office was overwhelmed and needed to shift some of the workload. It definitely was not closer....at all.

Will update the timeline soon.

[lilsweetie 32]

Awesome, I am from Vancouver, BC too.

We got an "in line for oath" notice yesterday but it didn't say if it would be scheduled at Yakima or Seattle.

Do you have a contact # or email for the Yakima office that you could share with me - I am trying to contact someone about our case because it seems strange that my son isonly 9 and he is "in line for oath ceremony". It was my understanding that kids under 14 do not have to do the oath. (I don't want to do Infopass since it's a long drive to Seattle just for an infopass where they may not even give any info).

Thanks!