Need help with Citizenship through One US Parent with physical presence

[dontymonis 0]

Hello VJ'ers

I'm looking for some advice/instruction on the best course of action for a situation about derived US Citizenship.

I am a US citizen who moved to Canada with my mom when I was 8. I moved back to the US for short periods of time after age 14 for school and work and for visits with family in the US. After graduating college in Canada, I got married to a Canadian and lived and worked there for a number of years. We had two children during this time. In late 2014, I was out of work and while visiting family in the US, I received an offer from a company in TX. I accepted and our visit to VA turned into a trip to TX where we have been until now. During this time, my wife gave birth to our 3rd child in TX.

With the great help of the VJ community and forums we went through the I-130 and I-485 process successfully with my wife - who now has her permanent residence status. My youngest child, obviously is a US citizen.

The issue I am in desperate need of some guidance on is how to navigate getting the US citizenship of my other two children recognized. From my reading, I know that they are essentially already US citizens, but it seems there is a documentation hurdle that needs to be overcome.

Obviously, like everyone, we would like to do this in the most efficient way possible.

My thought is that I can go ahead and apply for passports for my two Canadian born children, and supply the affidavit of physical presence. The one requirement that is close is the number of years physically in the US after age 14 (and before the birth of my children). I tallied it up and it is over the requirement of 2, but only by about a year. Also, because alot of the time was Holiday and Summer visits where I travelled across the border in my car, there isn't much documentation I can produce to support alot of that time.

Can I bolster my own affidavit of physical presence with one from my Dad as well (who has lived in the US his entire life?).

is there another more efficient path to getting their citizenship recognized than the one I am pursuing here? Applying for a passport certainly seemed like the most economical way and I had hoped the least bureaucratic.

Any help, advice or comments are very welcome. Thank you for reading.

-Donty

[newacct 688]

The physical presence requirement for the children acquiring citizenship at birth is physical presence from you only, and only from before their birth. If you can get sufficient evidence of that, that would be preferable.

If you can't get enough of proof of your children's US citizenship from birth, there are two ways to get them US citizenship after birth:

• File I-130 and I-485 to do Adjustment of Status for them just like for your wife. When it's approved, they will become US permanent residents, and then immediately become US citizens under INA 320.
• File N-600K for the INA 322 naturalization process. For this, you need 5 years of physical presence (including 2 years after turning 14) from either you (but you can count years after the child's birth) or from your USC parent (the child's grandparent). I think this was what you were thinking about when you mentioned your dad. For this, the child must be admitted to the US temporarily as a nonimmigrant and be in legal status, and take the oath (which may be waived for very young children), and only then become a US citizen. I am not sure what the status of your children are, so this may or may not be possible. Also, this process is primarily for children who are residing outside the US, not for children residing in the US (who can go through the normal immigration route).

I am not sure whether if you tried to go either of these routes, they would be able to approve it if there was a question about whether your children are already USCs, so I still think you should try to get the passport or Certificate of Citizenship first, and only if that's denied go for the citizenship after birth routes.