Time Out of Country for Visits

[Charles C 0]

My wife wants to apply for citizenship - she has reached her 3-year mark and is married to me, a US citizen. We want clarification on the "time out of the country" requirement. She is well under the 6 months out of country requirement... in fact, so far this calendar year she has not been out of the US at all. But she wants to visit Honduras for a couple weeks. Does her time in the US need to be continuous and without interruptions? She was out of the US last year from 01 June until 07 August - that is the only time she was out since January, 2015.

Thanks for any clarification - I read the rule as "cumulative time away" in the last 12 months but she is worried it requires continuous residency in the US. Help!

Charles F

[JimmyHou 610]

My wife wants to apply for citizenship - she has reached her 3-year mark and is married to me, a US citizen. We want clarification on the "time out of the country" requirement. She is well under the 6 months out of country requirement... in fact, so far this calendar year she has not been out of the US at all. But she wants to visit Honduras for a couple weeks. Does her time in the US need to be continuous and without interruptions? She was out of the US last year from 01 June until 07 August - that is the only time she was out since January, 2015.

Thanks for any clarification - I read the rule as "cumulative time away" in the last 12 months but she is worried it requires continuous residency in the US. Help!

Charles F

There are 2 requirements:

1- Physical Presence

She has to be physically present in the country for over 18 months out of the 3 years prior to applying.

2- Continuous Residency

She has to have maintained continuous residence (not continuous presence) for those 3 years.

A short trip counts against the 18 month quota, but does not interrupt continuous residency in most cases.

There is no rule related to cumulative time away in a 12 month period or in a given calendar year.

Longer trips may be deemed to have broken continuous residency.

So go back to the day she became a permanent resident. Add up all the days she was out of the country (entry and departure days to and from the US count as days in the US according to the Naturalization Guide). If the total is less than 18 months, then she meets the first requirement.

Then look at the length and frequency of her trips. If no trips are over 6 months then she is almost certainly meets the second requirement, unless she has multiple back to back trips (4 months away, one month in US, 5 months away, one month in US, 5 months away).

[Charles C 0]

Awesome - thank you. Working this out, I get something like this...

1) She has been here since June, 2013 and not even close to 18 months out of the country. Maybe 6 or 7, but that is a stretch. So Physical Presence seems to be fine.

2) Yes, she has been a resident non-stop. I am not even sure how her residency would be interrupted. Her longest time out of the country has probably been about 8 or 9 weeks.

So, it seems we are well inside the requirements and if she wants to go visit for a couple weeks, there won't be any problem.

[JimmyHou 610]

Awesome - thank you. Working this out, I get something like this...

1) She has been here since June, 2013 and not even close to 18 months out of the country. Maybe 6 or 7, but that is a stretch. So Physical Presence seems to be fine.

2) Yes, she has been a resident non-stop. I am not even sure how her residency would be interrupted. Her longest time out of the country has probably been about 8 or 9 weeks.

So, it seems we are well inside the requirements and if she wants to go visit for a couple weeks, there won't be any problem.

Then assuming that she has filed for Removal of Conditions already, she can send her application 90 days before the "Resident Since" date on her green card provided that:

-She has been married to you for 3 full years on the day that she sends the application

AND

-You have been a US citizen for 3 full years on the day that she sends the application.

[Charles C 0]

She has received approval for ROC and has her 10-year GC.

We have been married the entire time since she arrived in the US (March 2013)

I have been a US citizen since the day I was born - a lot longer than 3 years!

Any other thoughts or comments are appreciated.