Citizenship for child born in Canada to US Citizen mother in 1962?

[carmel34 3,639]

It is surprising to me that "additional evidence" is needed in this case.  I was born in Canada in 1957 to a US citizen mother and Canadian citizen father, there was no CRBA or anything filed, and I grew up in Canada thinking that I was only a Canadian citizen.  I even went to the US for college in 1978 with an F-1 student visa and returned to Canada after graduation in 1982 to begin my career.  In 1990, when I was accepted to a PhD program in the US, I again applied for an F-1 visa and was denied because the consulate replied, "you are a US citizen by birth."  So I sent them my mother's birth certificate, marriage certificate, and certificate of Canadian naturalization (showing that the became a Canadian citizen after I was born).  Those three documents, with my own birth certificate, was all I needed to get a US passport and a certificate of US citizenship in 1990.  Did you submit the mother's US birth certificate and marriage certificate with the N-600?  What specific additional evidence did they ask for when it was denied?  Did you apply for a US passport?  Your father could do a sworn affidavit, testifying to the facts and dates if there are no school or other records as proof that your mother lived in the US for the required number of years before you were born.  Good luck!

Edited January 20, 2022 by carmel34

[Mike E 11,740]

2 hours ago, carmel34 said:

I was born in Canada in 1957 to a US citizen mother and Canadian citizen father, there was no CRBA or anything filed, and I grew up in Canada thinking that I was only a Canadian citizen.  I even went to the US for college in 1978 with an F-1 student visa

Canadians don’t need an F-1 visa. So if a consulate incompetently issued you a visa for one reason it doesn’t surprise me it incompetently issued you a visa for a second reason.   
 

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and returned to Canada after graduation in 1982 to begin my career.  In 1990, when I was accepted to a PhD program in the US, I again applied for an F-1 visa and was denied because the consulate replied, "you are a US citizen by birth."

My experience in the consulate in Calgary in 1980: “get out of here; you don’t need an F-1 because you are a Canadian.”

 

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So I sent them my mother's birth certificate, marriage certificate, and certificate of Canadian naturalization (showing that the became a Canadian citizen after I was born).  Those three documents, with my own birth certificate, was all I needed to get a US passport and a certificate of US citizenship in 1990.

11 years before 9/11

 

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  Did you submit the mother's US birth certificate and marriage certificate with the N-600?  What specific additional evidence did they ask for when it was denied?  Did you apply for a US passport?  Your father could do a sworn affidavit, testifying to the facts and dates if there are no school or other records as proof that your mother lived in the US for the required number of years before you were born.  Good luck!

They need evidence of physical presence of the  USA citizen parent which OP doesn’t have.  And  these days the federal government is loth to provocatively dig it up.  CBP is an exception but even then at a preclearance station they are known to send away citizens born outside the USA who don’t a passports, CRBA, naturalization certificate, or certificate of citizenship.  
 

The physical presence requirement varies depending on when your parent was born in the USA, the gender of the parent, whether your parents were married, and whether one or both were USA citizens prior to your birth.  
 

You are fortunate you waited until only 1990.  Today I expect with so little evidence you would be denied. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Mike E

[African Zealot 1,455]

If your friend is serious, he would be the one asking questions here himself. I find it totally incredulous that someone (his mother) lived in the USA for years and there’s no record.

 

Its not like we’re talking 500 years ago.

[millefleur 5,047]

20 hours ago, n604 said:

I looked it up, all he needs to prove is that the US Citizen mother lived in the US continuously for at least one full year before her child's birth, and then he gets the US Citizenship immediately. But the problem is, there is no evidence. Even thought the mother lived in the US all her life from 1928 to 1961, there is no way to prove this. She passed away in 2010. No records, no documentation can be found. No school records, work records, tax records, medical records, etc... nothing

People hire private detectives for this sort of thing. If he really has nothing and didn't find it on his own, maybe it's worth considering.

[mushroomspore 3,044]

1 hour ago, millefleur said:

People hire private detectives for this sort of thing. If he really has nothing and didn't find it on his own, maybe it's worth considering.

I was thinking the private investigator route as well.

[discoverusa 277]

I wonder if requesting documents FOIA from when his father was sponsored would provide some useful documents. 

[Coco8 1,042]

11 minutes ago, discoverusa said:

I wonder if requesting documents FOIA from when his father was sponsored would provide some useful documents. 

I don't think so. Green card through marriage has different requirements than citizenship for a child. Anyone can receive GC through marriage regardless of whether the US partner ever lives in the US. But for a child through US parent, the US parents needs to have lived in the US before the child was born. I think that USCIS is asking for is proof that the mother lived in the US before he was born (and meets the requirements which I'm not going to explain here). 

 

I think the US has to change legislation on how children of US citizens receive citizenship. There are many cases similar to OP out there. And even more cases of people adopted by US citizens that never got their paperwork sorter and got deported at +50 years old.

 

Things worked very differently 60, 50, 40, even 30, years ago, and now many people are in limbo because of it. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Coco8

[jan22 3,056]

One of the large hurdles here is how it could be proven, after so many years, that the mother had the requisite physical presence.  That's because, for a child born out of wedlock to a US citizen mother in a 1962, the physical presence requirement was 1 continuous year, i.e., 365 days in a row without stepping foot outside the US for even a minute.  The year could be at any point in the mother's life, so it is frequently documented when the mother was a baby or young child -- but that would be hard to prove now. 

 

Where was she born and lived in the US? 

 

How did the child enter the US in 1964 with his parents?

 

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by jan22

[Mike E 11,740]

20 minutes ago, jan22 said:

One of the large hurdles here is how it could be proven, after so many years, that the mother had the requisite physical presence.  That's because, for a child born out of wedlock to a US citizen mother in a 1962, the physical presence requirement was 1 continuous year, i.e., 365 days in a row without stepping foot outside the US for even a minute.  The year could be at any point in the mother's life, so it is frequently documented when the mother was a baby or young child -- but that would be hard to prove now. 

Debatable. Born in 1928, and thus lived through WW2. Easy to imagine most Americans didn't not cross either land border during the war and few would have risked traveling by boat to another country. And commercial aviation wasn't a thing. In particular Canada was at war 1939-1941 while the USA wasn't. I doubt most Americans would risk a child's life from a Nazi attack.

 

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How did the child enter the US in 1964 with his parents?

In 1964, the INS officer at the port of entry would have accepted the child as a US citizen.  That how things were on US / Canada border in those days and into the late 1970s at least. Pretty slack. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Mike E

[jan22 3,056]

47 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Debatable. Born in 1928, and thus lived through WW2. Easy to imagine most Americans didn't not cross either land border during the war and few would have risked traveling by boat to another country. And commercial aviation wasn't a thing. In particular Canada was at war 1939-1941 while the USA wasn't. I doubt most Americans would risk a child's life from a Nazi attack.

 

In 1964, the INS officer at the port of entry would have accepted the child as a US citizen.  That how things were on US / Canada border in those days and into the late 1970s at least. Pretty slack. 

Agree it's "easy to imagine"...but that's not the evaluation standard.  I was trying to point out that a continuous 365 days is a harder standard to document than the "5 years, 2 after the age of 14" standard.  The further from the land border the mother lived, the easier to show how unlikely it was for her to have left the US, which is why I asked where she was born and grew up.  Other factors could also lead to the likelihood of her meeting the requirement -- such as whether or not her parents had close family members living outside the US that they may have visited, etc.  

 

That's why I asked how the child entered the US...if there is any record of that entry, whether with the family or from the official record (while unlikely), it would also help resolve the issue.

[n604 1]

Thanks a lot for all the replies and tips.
So, I'm not saying there is no trace, I'm just saying I don't know where to start looking.

The parents divorced in 1978.  Since then the father is in his 4th marriage.  This is why he has no documents, etc.  He has not heard from the mother since the divorce.  I've known the father for 26 years.

After the mother died, they threw out all her stuff from the house, including paperwork and stuff.
The son visited to the school they told him that his mother went to, but in the school they said she never was a student there.  Also the mother didn't really have a job, as she was living with the parents until her 30s...  she also didn't own any property.  Maybe had a few part time jobs here and there, but how would I track that?

I have the mother's US birth certificate from 1928.  I have the sons Canadian birth certificate from 1962.  I have the fathers certificate of naturalization from 1968.  Maybe I can start a green card application for the son after his father's US citizenship?

I also have the late mother's wallet with all her ID carts, etc.  social security, insurance, medicare, etc..  but everything in it is more recent, since like the 80s.  not before 1962.  
Is it possible to acquire a copy of her social security credits for each year she worked?  maybe there are a few years before 1962 when she was working?
I have the mother's parent's address where they lived before 1962, but that's no proof she actually lived there.

[MarJhi 963]

3 hours ago, n604 said:

I have the mother's US birth certificate from 1928

Uh.... I am pretty sure that is proof enough, unless the birth certificate states she was an American born foreign citizen.

Edited January 21, 2022 by MarJhi

[Mike E 11,740]

6 hours ago, n604 said:

The son visited to the school they told him that his mother went to, but in the school they said she never was a student there.

Start with the school district though it would not surprise me if school district boundaries changed after 1940.  So then go to the state department of education. 
 

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I have the mother's US birth certificate from 1928.  I have the sons Canadian birth certificate from 1962.  I have the fathers certificate of naturalization from 1968.  Maybe I can start a green card application for the son after his father's US citizenship?

The son is well  over age 21 so it will take decades to get a green card.  The father and/or son are more likely to pass away before a green card is issued. 
 

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I also have the late mother's wallet with all her ID carts, etc.  social security, insurance, medicare, etc..  but everything in it is more recent, since like the 80s.  not before 1962.  
Is it possible to acquire a copy of her social security credits for each year she worked?

https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-711.pdf

 

https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-7050.pdf

 

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maybe there are a few years before 1962 when she was working?
I have the mother's parent's address where they lived before 1962, but that's no proof she actually lived there.

hire a private investigator 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Mike E

[jane.doe 14]

On 1/20/2022 at 12:27 AM, Mike E said:

Decades of wait since the friend is over age 21

Got it. I may be misinformed, but the people I've heard of who sponsored their children/parents haven't had to wait long time. In fact, the USCIS claims that visas are available for immediate relatives. 

[Mike E 11,740]

3 hours ago, jane.doe said:

Got it. I may be misinformed, but the people I've heard of who sponsored their children/parents haven't had to wait long time. In fact, the USCIS claims that visas are available for immediate relatives. 

USCIS claims nothing of the sort for a son in his 60s
 

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2022/visa-bulletin-for-february-2022.html

 

Assuming the son is not married, cases  from 2014 are being considered.   If the son is married then cases from 2008 are being considered. I don’t know if begging married and later widowed / divorced counts as married.  
 

And regardless the man is a USA citizen and so I-130 would be denied unless USCIS can satisfy itself the man isn’t.  Proving a negative for a mother who was resident  the USA for the 30 years of her life is hard. Statistically let’s say 90 percent of Americans traveled outside the USA at least once a year. The probability she she traveled every year for 30 years is 0.9^30 or 4.3 percent. Thus we can be 95 percent certain she had enough physical presence. And I really doubt 90 percent of Americans crossed the border each year then or now.  I’d say closer to 10 percent. 1 - 0.1^30 rounds up to 100 percent.