thelimey

true words. what a situation: you have this thing earlier than your should have this thing but because you have this thing it gives you certain rights and protections so we can’t take this thing away and this is exactly why there are supposed to be so many checks and balances in place to make sure citizenship isn’t granted to someone who isn’t eligible. Be that by a few weeks due to clerical timing or ever due to a shady past. It’s why I trusted their response to my questions in person. Like there’s no way they could accidentally give me this right?

Yup. I’ve read that a few time as well as the underlying law it’s a summary of. Which is worded a little differently.

Of course I want it settled. It’s causing stress I don’t need. At this point I’ve spoken to 4 lawyers. Same takeaway from all: leave it alone until government brings it up. While I agree they won’t have to deal with repercussions of bad advice, it’s been interesting to hear them all reach the same conclusion. Trouble is what does “settled” even mean? Once the oath has been taken the USCIS has no direct power to change anything. Nada. They’d have to ask the DoJ to prosecute as denaturalization. And then have me take another oath. I can’t see them doing that per their own guidance on denaturalization. If you read all the small print of USCIS reopening naturalization cases that have been approved it has to be before the oath. After that. Too late. they can only administratively cancel certificate of naturalization if they were received without an application and oath (ie when their own employee was selling certificates in the 1990s for cash). After the oath a federal court needs to denatrualize before USCIS can cancel the certificate. So the question remains. What does settled mean? And what do I do?

Sorry, should have been clearer. When I wrote "never heard of this happening in 25+ years practicing immigration law", the this I was referring to is the oath occurring ahead of the 5 year date.

Thank you all for the great thoughts above. I spoke to a very experienced immigration attorney today. They noted: Never heard of this happening in 25+ years practicing immigration law They advised against reaching out to USCIS (as did other lawyers I spoke to last week). Kicking can of bees may upset them, put them on the defensive, try to blame me, reopen my entire immigration history. The advice was imagine you never got home and googled it. You asked an official about the 5 year rule, you were told it was part of the 90 day early rule. You took your oath. You went home an American. Many in my situation would have done that. My spouse is one of them. Would never have thought twice about going down a rabbit hole of legal websites. If USCIS or DOJ ever reaches out, then engage a lawyer to help remedy it, and facts will be on my side. No fraud, misleading, willful omission, etc on my part. In fact, I alerted them to the potential issue and was told it's not an issue Lawyer confirmed that, unless denaturalized, I am and remain a citizen of the United States An agency or department such as USCIS, SSA may notice a discrepancy and raise a flag to the DOJ, but only the DOJ and the federal judiciary has the power to revoke the citizenship - and the certificate of naturalization. SSA, for example, cannot say 'you're not a citizen'. Not their call to make. Denaturalization is rare, high burden of proof, and not used to correct mistakes historically. A prosecutor is not obligated to prosecute every potential denaturalization case that crosses their desk. In fact the DOJ guidelines say when determining whether to institute denaturalization proceedings, a prosecutor should consider whether proceedings would result in the “betterment of the citizenship of the country" and that proceedings should not be instituted merely to correct errors and irregularities in an individual’s naturalization, which would properly have been the subject of consideration at the naturalization hearing or of correction on appeal Now, all that said, as someone pointed out above, I am very tempted to get my A# file through FOIA. Perhaps they have my green card date earlier than it actually was in there, meaning from their POV the 5 years was met and no computerized checks would flag it. Why wouldn't the IO have noticed any such discrepancy when she took my physical green card and looked at it? Human error. A tired, stressed, rushed lady who more concerned about getting her schedule back on track than answering my questions. Everyone's got a boss. Bet she was stressed about being an hour behind and not meeting her quota for the day. Does anyone know if a FOIA request can open a can of worms? (See above about not reaching out to USCIS) i.e. whoever is compiling your FOIA request sees a date issue and raises a flag. Or is it just electronic files which someone essentially copies from an internal computer folder and puts in an online portal where you can download them? I will try and dial into the Jim Hacking show tomorrow too... would love to get his take on it. Called his office, offered to pay for some of his time to discuss it directly (I prefer the anonymity of forums to being on a YouTube show), but they don't give legal advice (except on the YouTube show) and only take on cases where there is work to be done.

Trouble is. Every lawyer I spoke to independently said 1. Never heard of this happening 2. Leave it alone. You’re a citizen if you have the paperwork. Only engage a lawyer if it becomes a problem. I’m sure I’ll eventually find a lawyer who sees it as a payday and wants to get involved. But may be a case of a “solution looking for a problem”. There may be other people in my boat who’ve either never noticed and just assumed it was all kosher as part of the 90 days early. (I mean how many people who naturalize have read the actual text of the law versus summaries?). And/or noticed but are more laid back and never thought twice. My spouse is like that and doesn’t understand why I’m not just applying to my passport and moving on, leaving the past in the past.

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

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

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.

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.

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