Did USCIS naturalize me too early?

[thelimey 5]

5 year green card anniversary is in late June 2024

 

Filed N400 in April per 90 day early filing.

 

Had N400 interview this week (late May 2024 - 8 weeks after applying, and technically the first day of my 60th month of permanent residence) and the IO sent me down the hallway for a same day oath ceremony.

 

I asked USCIS officer at ceremony check-in if it was ok to be getting naturalized a month ahead of the green card’s 5 year anniversary. He said “don’t worry about it, you’re good”

 

There was no cell service inside the Field Office so I wasn't googling anything in the hour I waited for the ceremony. I took them at their word that it was no problem and I assumed it was all part of the 90 day early eligibility deal and I was just lucky as things had moved very fast. 

 

Then I get home and hit Google and start reading about the 5 years being non negotiable as it's in the naturalization law wording. Hindsight being 20/20 I wish I'd asked them if I could come back in a month and take the oath, but I didn't. So, here I am naturalized, with a certificate saying I "complied in all respects with all of the applicable provisions of the naturalization laws of the United States". Though one can argue I didn't because 4 weeks short of 5 years is not meeting the 5 year provision. 

 

I'm assuming it's not as simple as calling them up and saying 'hey, how about you give me my green card back for a month and then we have a do over?" Giving back the certificate would be essentially denaturalizing (which would imply I'm a citizen in the first place in which case, just leave me be... we're talking 4 weeks and by the time the wheels of government moved I'd likely be eligible) which isn't quick or easy. Unless they could somehow claim it as meaningless and invalid... but an oath was involved. That's pretty binding under the law. 

 

Question is of course what to do?

 

I called 2 different lawyers. Both said if you’ve got your certificate you’re a citizen. Don’t worry about it unless if ever becomes a problem which is unlikely. On the other hand both said they’d never heard of this happening. Not like there’s precedent or they have experience in this situation. 

 

I understand that the only remedy would be denaturalization if a court deemed that it was illegally obtained by failing to meet an eligibility requirement. Then I’d be a LPR again and have to start citizenship all over again. Meanwhile if I’d had a US passport in the interim I’d be guilty of “claiming to be a us citizen”. 

 

This is so frustrating as I’ve been by the book my entire immigration journey and right at the end I’m concerned a clerical error by a tired overworked human has jeopardized things

 

The only thing that gives me confidence is that I asked a USCIS employee as noted above, my IO approved me, the file passed a “quality review”. That’s multiple human errors if that is the issue. Which is unlikely. 

 

But the uscis doesn’t make the law. They execute it. And the law is clear about 5 years. Unless they’re now counting 1 day into the 60th month as eligible. 

 

I wish I was blissfully ignorant of the small print and was just happy to have got my citizenship. But I can't unlearn what I've learned. 

 

I’d appreciate any advice, thoughts, similar anecdotes

[OldUser 6,624]

Yes you did naturalize early, unfortunately. It may never be a problem. But it may become whenever you try sponsoring somebody else, or many years later when renewing passport or trying to get social security benefits. We just don't know for sure. The lawyers who said it's not an issue, did they put this in writing or was it only verbal affirmation? 

Edited June 2 by OldUser

[OldUser 6,624]

Another thing, you can also come on free YouTube show for Hacking Immigration and see what the lawyer there thinks. It would be educational for everybody listening too.

 

Good luck!

[Ontarkie 14,218]

That is very weird. I'm really surprised they didn't catch it. Any chance you are also married to a USC? Then they could have used the 3 yr rule for this? 

[thelimey 5]

No. Not married to a USC. 

Multiple people at USCIS (two I handed my green card to and asked about being 4 weeks short) were aware it was an E26 category green card. 
 

Citizenship is supposed to be the end of immigration worries. Not the start of more. Of course I’m kicking myself now not just asking them to push it a month. But hindsight is 20/20. With no cell service in the office I was taking them at their word and just happy to it done. Who wouldn’t be!

 

USCIS can’t take back citizenship. They’d have to do that through a district court. A civil case for denaturalization is typically for more egregious issues such as the applicant withholding info. I.e they didn’t meet the 5 year threshold because they were out the country too many days but didn’t disclose this. Not because someone at USCIS was tired and miscounted a few weeks. From what I’ve read at least. Certainly couldn’t find any cases based on USCIS errors.  Especially arguably minor ones. Being a few weeks short. All cases I found were instances of the applicant being at fault. 
 

My understanding is that is because the DOJ guidance for when to bring denaturalization cases to prosecution sets high bars including would the proceedings be “in the betterment of the country?” 
hence they use such cases to remove criminals and gang members etc. not highly skilled workers who met all  requirements along the way and were 100% truthful on their application, and maybe got tripped at the finish line by an administrative error.  Instead they revoke citizenship from people who were truly never eligible in the first place. 
 

not sure though how the potential error in my case could get by multiple people at uscis all of whom had access to my file and my green card and all relevant dates. Does make me wonder if there’s some new guidance allowing them to do what they did. One lawyer I spoke to suggested there might be as they like to speed things up in election years. 
 

given they’re so back logged with cases they’re not going back and opening closed ones. There’s about 15,000 naturalizations a week I think I read. Needle in a haystack. And even if they found the needle the question is would they do anything about it? They’re not obligated to. 
 

the Trump administration had uscis audit n400s from the year running up to Obama’s election. I read the auditors found 5000 citizenship grants that were in fact ineligible (nearly all to do with the digitization of fingerprints in the intervening years and uncovering of previously undisclosed criminal records and deportations - not even the same ballpark as my situation). Anyhow, of those 5000 they only filed denaturalization against 300. Did the the other 4700 even know they’d been audited?
 

point is uscis may already know what they did in my case and have decided to leave it alone. 
 

as the lawyers I spoke to said (all verbally, nothing in writing) it’s probably no issue. You’re a citizen now go vote. But maybe I’ll speak to some more lawyers.  Thanks for that YouTube reco. 

[bakphx1 789]

The only time citizenship would be questioned would be a case of fraud, which this clearly isn’t.  I think they just want to clear out the cases and years from now, no one is going to care about a few weeks’ difference.  

[thelimey 5]

Quote

59 minutes ago, bakphx1 said:

The only time citizenship would be questioned would be a case of fraud, which this clearly isn’t.  I think they just want to clear out the cases and years from now, no one is going to care about a few weeks’ difference

 

Well I hope that’s the case. Because while the spirit of the law is certainly on my side, the letter of the law wouldn’t be. USCIS don’t have the power to ignore the law to expedite things. The whole branches of government concept that they test you on in the civics portion of the naturalization process  

 

the law says 5 years, not almost 5 years if you round it up. 
 

again, I thought this was the case but the uscis told me it was okay. 
 

end of the day they’re the ones that signed a certificate saying I met all the requirements to become a citizen. And no one lied to them at any point. They’re the ones that took an application with the “general provision” 5 year box ticked and churned out a naturalization certificate on the day 1798 of permanent residency (5 years is 1828 days). Surprised their computer systems would let them do that if it wasn’t allowed. Especially with more than one person involved along the way at USCIS. 
 

even if it never becomes an issue I just don’t like the fact that as a law abiding resident and now citizen I could have issues down the line through someone else’s error. 

[R&OC 371]

I would hire a lawyer and ask USCIS to reopen my file as well as setting up an info pass appointment.

[top_secret 2,414]

I'd at least file a FOIA request for your entire A-file and see what they are basing dates on.   Is it possible they are basing your resident since date on anything different than you are?  I previously saw someone else here comment that somehow their resident since date randomly changed without them understanding why.

Edited June 2 by top_secret

[OldUser 6,624]

2 hours ago, bakphx1 said:

The only time citizenship would be questioned would be a case of fraud, which this clearly isn’t.  I think they just want to clear out the cases and years from now, no one is going to care about a few weeks’ difference.  

I heard of cases other branches (DoS, SSA) are not happy and ask to reprove somebody's citizenship. In many cases people don't have certificate of naturalization and get stuck in limbo. This is a more interesting case. Hopefully OP's certificate satisfy any questions raised. But if DoS for example, insists OP is not a citizen, and USCIS says they are, it's an issue that's hard to resolve.

[nastra30 2,284]

Oh this is wild. The law is absolutely clear when it comes to residency requirements. Op, seem to be doing everything by the book and USCIS throws them a curve ball. It might never up as a problem but there have been people who have had their citizenship questioned later on in their life when they least expected.

Personally, this is first time I have seen this. Well burden of proof will be on USCIS, I think.

 

[thelimey 5]

7 hours ago, top_secret said:

I'd at least file a FOIA request for your entire A-file and see what they are basing dates on.   Is it possible they are basing your resident since date on anything different than you are?  I previously saw someone else here comment that somehow their resident since date randomly changed without them understanding why.

Re: resident since date. I doubt it. My green card interview day back in 2019 is the date they used on the green card as resident since.  
 

I received the AP/EAD card few months prior to that. Didn’t do anything with it. Lawyers handling my green card advised just continuing under the non immigrant work visa (TN1) I was on at that time and had been for the previous 7 years 

Edited June 2 by thelimey

[harry.st 62]

While not doubting it was not meant to be such... best humblebrag I have ever seen.

Edited June 2 by harry.st

[thelimey 5]

Honestly, if the USCIS called me tomorrow and said “we made a mistake, we need you to come back in 3 weeks and retake the oath, and meanwhile we’ll send you back your green card” I’d be fine with that. 
 

but they’re not going to do that are they. They closed my case and moved on. Needle in haystack. Plus do they want to admit errors?

 

Given the sanctity and seriousness of citizenship I’m a little shocked that it could potentially come down to one employee making a mistake. You’d hope they have checks and balances in place. What was “quality review” for?

 

I would also expect simpe If/then rules to be baked into their computer systems. If applicant requires X number of days between event A and event B then flag error if Y is less than X. If I can’t buy an iPhone charger online without filling in the checkout form fields correctly on Amazon then one shouldn’t be able to fill in citizenship granting forms incorrectly. Not rocket science. 
 

I’m intriguied by the “resident since” comment above. If that date was wrong in the system it could explain things but then again you’d think when they looked at my green card they’d have noticed the discrepancy. 
 

the IO was flustered. It was 7am. Her computer kept rebooting. She was more stressed than me. She made me fill in my spouses details as an amendment to the n400 and was chiding me for not doing it. I did point out that the n400 clearly says you can skip that if you’re not applying as the spouse of a US citizen. 
 

i did note that when I signed to validate the changes to the n400 on their ipad that she correctly had my spouses citizenship as Canadian so there’s no way they erroneously put me under the 3 year spouse rule. 
 

the other thing in the interview which seemed strange was she kept asking me about trips to a country I’ve never been to. I assumed this was part of their strategy to try and rattle you. She also asked me about my alias (using my middle name as first name). I’ve never done that ever. She insisted I sign that as part of the n400 updates she made. 
 

on both the alias and the trips to a country I’ve never visited she kept saying she had no idea why they were there and it’s all part of a background check done by others.

 

what a sh** show 

[From_CAN_2_US 1,106]

9 hours ago, OldUser said:

I heard of cases other branches (DoS, SSA) are not happy and ask to reprove somebody's citizenship. In many cases people don't have certificate of naturalization and get stuck in limbo. This is a more interesting case. Hopefully OP's certificate satisfy any questions raised. But if DoS for example, insists OP is not a citizen, and USCIS says they are, it's an issue that's hard to resolve.

There was a recent case in Canada where a person who was granted Canadian citizenship and given a Canadian citizenship certificate on the basis of their mother being a Canadian citizen when they were born. 32 years later, IRCC (USCIS’s counterpart in Canada) revoked their citizenship because they realised the mother had not taken her oath before this person was born.

 

Although unlikely, I am worried something similar could happen to OP in the future. The error in both cases is by the body determining citizenship. Yet despite issuing certificate, in that case in Canada, the same issuing body revoked the citizenship status.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7196530

Luckily in the Canadian’s case, all she had to do was reapply for citizenship and it was reinstated. Took a couple of months though.