Filing Package with copy of passport

[kitkat1 5]

Ok, fair enough, however there's no reason to be a complete jerk! I was just commenting on what the representative told me. Anyway, thanks for your feedback.

cruizin, you can also take this opportunity to learn that the USCIS information line routinely provides incorrect information. That's one of the reasons a resource like Visa Journey exists in the first place - to get clear, accurate information from people who have already been through the visa process and you can tell you about their experience and the truth.

[craze4travel 0]

Yes, I see your point!

[Minya's wife 24]

The reason I was asking is because my passport expires next year, so I wanted to make sure that it would be sufficient to send in as a required document.

Think about the evidence your're providing, in the context of what you are trying to prove or achieve. If, for example, you are proving your US citizenship (as is the case w/ you) the fact that you've had the passport a significant amount of time, only goes to strengthen that and you are assured that USCIS will be able to verify your citizenship based on the passport you've provided. (If it was a newly issued passport, perhaps USCIS would maybe request further proof and issue an RFE for your to provide your certificate of naturalization, or birth certificate if you're a USC)

But...if you were the beneficiary, for another example, and going for a visa to be stamped in your passport, then it would be logical to want to make sure that the passport has a good amount of validity left on it, so that it doesn't expire in the middle of the process.

Makes sense?

-P

[payxibka 10,045]

Think about the evidence your're providing, in the context of what you are trying to prove or achieve. If, for example, you are proving your US citizenship (as is the case w/ you) the fact that you've had the passport a significant amount of time, only goes to strengthen that and you are assured that USCIS will be able to verify your citizenship based on the passport you've provided. (If it was a newly issued passport, perhaps USCIS would maybe request further proof and issue an RFE for your to provide your certificate of naturalization, or birth certificate if you're a USC)

But...if you were the beneficiary, for another example, and going for a visa to be stamped in your passport, then it would be logical to want to make sure that the passport has a good amount of validity left on it, so that it doesn't expire in the middle of the process.

Makes sense?

-P

What you describe is two completly different scenarios.

By default, in order for a person to get a US passport you had to previously provide a copy of your birth certificate or certificate of naturalization. No length of time will strengthen your US Citizenship... You either are or you are not. To infer that just because you have held a passport less than five years makes you somehow less a citizen is totally ilogical and in no way will the USCIS issue an RFE because the passport is brand new. I didn't get my first passport until 3 years ago.... but I have been a USC for 47, why am I held to a different standard? In fact I was not. My passport as my evidence of citizenship was sufficient......

On the beneficiary side there are already a different set of requirements for the amount of time required before passport expiry in order to get the visa....

[TimsDaisy 0]

How would the duration of having had a passport be stronger evidence of US citizenship? It is what it is. I don't recall there being qualifications added to the language in the I-129F instructions aside from the validity part. Which says, clearly, if confusing to those of us unused to dealing with government documents on a routine basis: "unexpired U.S. passport issued witha validity period of at least five years."

That doesn't mean it was issued 5 years ago. Nor does it mean there needs to be 5 years of validity left. It means when it was issued, it has to have been good for a period of 5 years.

As Paul&Minya point out, this is a totally different issue from the beneficiary's passport requirements.

But I don't think we've seen and RFE for proof of citizenship due to the issue date of a passport, and I doubt we would. (perhaps for missing pages of a copied passport, or for not meeting the 5 year validity period requirement, but that's all).

Also - academically speaking - think of the implications if people needed to have passports that were valid going *back* a period of years? We were supposed to have crystal balls to know we'd fall in love with non-citizens and need the passport to help us out? Hardly. An overwhelming majority of USCs don't have passports. If someone got one tomorrow, so long as it were valid for 5 years, he/she could use it as soon as it came in the mail for their I-129F package.