Question on Part 7 (N400)

[HighMaintenance 1]

My boyfriend has made the first major step and filled out the N400. He is Mexican and he has taken numerous trips to his homecountry by car over the last 5 years. Sine your passport does not get stamped on these borders, compared to when you fly, he has no recollection of exact dates that he left and returned.

He is pretty nervous about this and asked a lawyer for advice. She recommended to do the best we can and if the vacation was over major holidays, then we should just indicate that.

Is this a deal-breaker if he does not annotate the correct date?

Other than that, the application seems not that complicated to complete and I would hate to spend all that money using a lawyer if its just for that.

Any help would be appreciated.

HM

[KyngSilva 0]

The lawyer is correct. Do the best you can to remember the dates, it's not a deal breaker, but they want to know how many times and the amount days you have been gone. Good luck!

[antda 13]

Hi HighMaintenance,

Likewise, I have a similar problem too. However, my trips have been back to Canada by car instead, and have frequent since I'm so close to the border (about 1-2 hrs away) and Canada is where I'm originally from. During those many trips over many years, my Canadian passport wasn't stamped when I crossed the border either.

In my situation (when I apply for citizenship in August 2009), I plan to write a list of these trips, from the best of my memory. For those dates that I don't exactly remember when the trips were, I would say something general like, "for x amount of days in April 2009", or something something like that. I will also explain as to why I did not get stamps for all of these trips, and hope they will understand there. If they don't believe you, let them verify these exact dates with their own records, as I'm sure travel identifcation was scanned during those trips and they have some sort of "internal record" of such trips and can check accordingly.

As long as your trips were "less than 6 months" then you should be fine there to meet the "continous residency requirement" for US citizenship.

No need to spend additional for a lawyer, as it of no help for this matter. Besides, it's bad enough having to spend $670 for citizenship, so why bother wasting more money?

Hope this helps. Good luck with the rest of your immigration journey too.

Ant (Still waiting for I-751, Still waiting for Baby...)

My boyfriend has made the first major step and filled out the N400. He is Mexican and he has taken numerous trips to his homecountry by car over the last 5 years. Sine your passport does not get stamped on these borders, compared to when you fly, he has no recollection of exact dates that he left and returned.

He is pretty nervous about this and asked a lawyer for advice. She recommended to do the best we can and if the vacation was over major holidays, then we should just indicate that.

Is this a deal-breaker if he does not annotate the correct date?

Other than that, the application seems not that complicated to complete and I would hate to spend all that money using a lawyer if its just for that.

Any help would be appreciated.

HM

Edited April 15, 2009 by AntandD