WorriedInEngland

Hello everyone, I am back! I received an email notification about replies on this topic.

In the end, I couldn't get anywhere with this so I just gave up and followed milimelo's advice. I got married, I applied for and was offered a job in the US,  got my husband a Green Card, and as of August we are now US residents!  Next is kids!

Ah sorry, what I wrote didn't make sense - we both live in the UK, and there is a specific requirement for DCF that the USC must have been resident in the UK for at least 6 months (for which I easily qualify thankfully!).

Update: I emailed the USCIS London field office about this and they replied today; they are just requesting a signed & dated explanation of the spelling difference and that seems to be it. Phew!

Also, NLR: from what I have read we are eligible for DCF here (the requirement for UK residency seems to be on the petitioner rather than the beneficiary) so - fingers crossed, if we get properly organised - we are hopefully looking at 5-6 months from I-130 submission to interview.

Next step... Get prepared with regards to proving intent to re-establish domicile! Thank goodness for online forums, after a full day of reading I think I understand how I can do this :-)

You don't need it sorted before the I-130, just before the NVC stage.

To give you an idea of the flow of everything read here:

http://www.visajourney.com/wiki/index.php/EZGuideSpouse

Thanks very much once again, this is super useful!!

NLR - funny you should ask; no I am not up to date (I did not realise I should have been filing since age 18!). I have contacted some US tax attorneys in London to help me sort this out. I was a full time student paying no tax until 2014 and have been working since (under the taxable limit for the IRS perspective), so I am hoping it should not be too tough to sort out. Thanks for pointing out that I need to sort this before filing an I-130!

Nich-Nick, thank you! My birth certificate matches my US passport, and if they accept that I go by both names (as evidenced by my UK passport I suppose) that would make everything easy! I think I can make a minor change to my UK passport as you say but I believe I cannot do this in time to re-register my marriage in my corrected name by the 28 day deadline before the wedding. As well as that this will mean various important UK documents will no longer match my UK passport (I am thinking particularly of my degree certificate), and I am not sure how much of a problem this would be...

I have also emailed the USCIS London Field Office for a verdict on whether this is a problem (I may also try to call them as they open for public calls for 2 hours a week).

Finally the local council where we will get married have said it MAY be possible on the marriage certificate to write: "Mary Catharine Smith (also known as Mary Catherine Smith)", which might in itself solve the problem if they can indeed do this?

Thanks again everyone!!

Thanks NLR! I have been living in the UK under my UK name for more than 5 years so can easily prove I am also known by this name. I will try applying for the name change this way. Cheers!

I think the following from the London US embassy page may apply to me but only if they accept UK versions of the documents, e.g. UK passport, UK drivers license, etc - I cannot tell whether the documents they request are supposed to be from the US?

Change of Name Through Usage

An applicant may obtain a U.S. passport in a new name provided he/she has been known exclusively by that name for at least five years. The applicant must submit at least three public documents that show exclusive usage of the name for at least five years including one government issued ID with photograph. Acceptable documents include but are not limited to:

Drivers License

Non-Driver State Issued ID

Employment Records

Tax Records

School Records

Census Records

Hospital Birth Record

Baptismal Certificate

Medical Card/Records

Foreign Passport

Military Records

The applicant must submit their application in person at the Embassy and should follow the instructions on this page.

Thanks very much all but the area in which we live requires us to register our marriage 28 days in advance of the wedding and as I am abroad for another week this does not leave time for me to change my name by deed poll, then get a new passport on fast track, and then allow 28 days notice...

Any other ideas of how to fix this would be greatly appreciated. What about change the name on my US passport instead? I am not sure how easy this would be. If it is important, when i last lived in the US it was in Massachusetts.

Thanks!

Hi there,

I am a dual UK/US citizen living in the UK. I am marrying an EU citizen in the UK in just under 2 months. I would like to file a I-130 petition for my new husband as soon as we are married but I have a potential problem.

My middle name is spelt very slightly differently on my US and UK passports and as we are living and will marry in the UK, my name on the marriage certificate will be taken from my UK passport. To give an idea of the difference in spelling it is like having Catherine on my US passport and Catharine on my UK passport (these are not my real names). The spelling has always been different due to one of my folks making a mistake when applying for my UK passport when I was a baby, and I never bothered to change it.

I have heard how strict USCIS can be and I am wondering if anyone knows how big of a problem I should expect this to be! If it is relevant I have tons of official documents with my full UK name (bank statements, degree certificate, mortgage) and some with my US name (mainly my passport, old passports, birth certificate) so I think I can easily prove that both names belong to me...

Thanks so much in advance for anybody's $0.02 on this.

If you can afford moving to the US to have the children (i.e. health care coverage) that will be the easiest way.

However you do have some more options (i.e. NA-3, N-600 or IR-2) if the CRBA doesnt work. But it will depend on when you have the baby, you're martial status etc...

Btw, that guy with more evidence than you, and who had all the problems, that was me

It was my post I was refering you to.

Oh my, that's embarrassing, I hadn't realized it was you - sorry!!

Yeah, we are hoping that it will be an option to move over there - my fiance works for an American company here in London and he has already discussed with his boss here the possibility of a transfer to NC. Sadly we may well not stay in the US forever (likely just a year or two) as my fiance feels that he will be too far from his family in southern Europe, and I don't know if only living there for a short period will affect our options. I will look into the ones you suggested - thanks so much again!

You are jumping the gun a little. If I were you I would just go to the embassy/consulate and apply for the CRBA with the evidence you have at the moment. They will then give you more information on what you need. This will be the easier thing and you will then know how they will handle your case and which information they still require from you.

But one thing is for sure: If you can't provide them with enough evidence (and that is not that easy), they will deny the CRBA. This post might help you in that case:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/431566-our-story-crba-for-our-child-denied-entering-the-us-with-a-baby-transportation-letter-and-citizenship-through-the-cca/

Thanks for the advice!

I should make it a bit clearer - we don't have a child yet! We are hoping to have a baby next year. I just want to make sure I have all the required documentation in advance, so that the CRBA will be granted hassle-free when the time comes. If there is a risk of the CRBA being rejected we will reconsider all our plans and try to move to the USA to have our kids (we are planning to move back at some point anyway) so as to ensure their citizenship.

I did actually already see that post, and it was quite concerning because that guy has a lot more evidence than I do - he had his own school records, business records, tax returns etc, and his CRBA application still got rejected. The alternative route he took - using his wife's green card and her time spent in the US - wouldn't work for me either as my fiance doesn't have a green card and has never lived in the US.

I am hoping that my Dad's tax returns, my passports, and my CBP entry/exit records will be sufficient - these are the easiest to get so I guess I will try with these to start with and see what the embassy say.

Hi there,

I live in England but was born in the US. I have been looking into how to transmit my US citizenship to my future children. My fiance is not a US citizen and I know if we marry then I need to have spent 5 years in the USA, 2 of which need to be after my 14th birthday, for my kids to be US citizens - I have not done this. My parents and I moved to England just before I turned 4, and I have been back for only a year since.

However, I know that if I am unmarried when I have my children then I only need to have spent one continuous year in the USA to transmit my citizenship. This I have done, but it was when I was around age 2-3. I know this because my Mom kept meticulous calendars from the early 1980s onwards, which came to me when she passed away earlier this year. She was a US citizen (but lived here, there and everywhere) and my Dad is British.

I have all my US passports, including from when I was a baby - but not all my dates of entry/exit have been stamped, and in fact the last stamp in my infant passport, when I was 1 year old, shows me leaving the US but there is no stamp showing my returning (though I did). So I doubt these are sufficient.

I have just submitted a FOIA request for my entry/exit dates during that period of my life, and I have also contacted the embassy to ask if CBP entry/exit records would be sufficient to prove I was physically present in the US between the dates listed on it. I am assuming they will be strict and say no, which is why I am here.

How on earth can I prove I was there as an infant, and for 365 straight days? I obviously have no school records, work records, tax records...

All I can think of is as follows: I can try (!) to obtain my medical records from my pediatrician (side note: should I contact him directly, or the clinic at which he was working? He has since moved), I can contact my Mom's orthodontist who treated her during that period and ask if he will send me her medical records (unlikely since she cannot consent to that), and I can also ask my Dad to request his old tax returns from the IRS (we are talking about 1990-1992), which should list me as a dependent; I've found this which looks like it might be what I need: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506t.pdf

I guess that the above would prove I was living there, and then the entry/exit records would prove that I didn't leave during the 365 day period?

I would really appreciate any advice or suggestions from anyone who has had to do something similar - I am wondering if my plans are sufficient, or if there is anything better/easier anyone can think of. My Mom would probably have known exactly where to find all the stuff I need, but without her I am really lost! Thanks so much to anyone who can help.

Best wishes x