Applying for Citizenship with Pending Green Card Application: In today’s, we are going to learn the answer to this question, can somebody apply for naturalization (Citizenship) to become a U.S citizen, even if their application to remove the condition from their green card is still pending?
If you’re somebody that’s a conditional, lawful, permanent resident, you have your conditional green card and you’re waiting for the application to remove the condition from your green card, so that you can become an unconditional green card holder. You’re wondering if you can file your application for naturalization, then this guide will help you out, make sure you read it to the end.
Applying for Citizenship with Pending Green Card Application
In many cases, when somebody gets their green card based on marriage, they first get a 2-year green card and they’re referred to as a conditional lawful permanent resident. They basically have a green card with a 2-year expiration date on it.
Toward the end of that 2-year period, the individual can apply to remove the condition from their green card to become an unconditional lawful permanent resident.
In the context of a marriage-based green card case, the application to remove the condition from the green card is referred to as the Form I-751. The issue is, oftentimes the Form I-751 can take a very long time to process.
While the Form I-751 is still processing, the individual becomes eligible to naturalize, meaning that they are now eligible to technically apply for naturalization to become a citizen of the United States.
In many cases, they’ve satisfied the continuous presence requirements and the physical presence requirements that are required for naturalization purposes, meaning that they have been a green card holder for the minimum required time to apply for naturalization, and they have been physically in the United States for the required minimum amount of time to also apply for naturalization.
But the issue is that their application to remove the condition from their green card is still pending. The question is, can somebody still apply for naturalization in this situation? The answer is yes.
Somebody can still file their form N-400, even if their application to remove the condition from their green card is still pending, assuming they satisfy the naturalization requirements.
Here’s a very important point to note:
USCIS will not approve somebody’s naturalization application until the application to remove the condition from the green card is approved. But you can still file your Form N-400.
What’s interesting is that in some cases, what we’ve seen is that, filing the Form N-400 can at time increase the processing speed of the Form I-751.
It can actually, at times, result in a faster decision of the Form I-751 by initiating the Form N-400. It may not always do that, but it happen at times.
Another important point is that:
Does it always make sense to do this? To file the Form N-400 while the Form I-751 is still pending? The answer is no.
One of the situations that you want to watch out for is if your Form I-751 might be a little bit doubtful. If you do not have a strong application to remove the condition from your green card or there might be something at issue in your case and you’re not confident that the Form I-751 will be approved, then it may not necessarily make a whole lot of sense for you to file your Form N-400 and to spend the money on the filing fee for the N-400 and go through that whole process when you’re not sure that the Form I-751 application to remove conditions will be approved.
That’s one instance where you might want to wait for the I-751 petition to be adjudicated before filing the naturalization application.
Another situation where you might not want to file the Form N-400 naturalization application, is if there’s issues with your naturalization application.
You want to make sure that you clearly satisfy the naturalization requirements before submitting your N-400, because ultimately there’s a big process with filing for naturalization. You have to submit an exhaustive application and you go through a biometrics appointment and a naturalization interview.
There’s a lot of steps to the naturalization process, and you do not want to initiate that process unless you know that you satisfy the requirements. To that end, it can be very beneficial to consult with an experienced immigration lawyer that can guide you through these various considerations.
That’s it about whether it’s possible for somebody to apply for naturalization while their application to remove the conditions from their green card is still pending.
I hope you found this guide about Applying for Citizenship with Pending Green Card Application very helpful.
Source: Ashoori Law
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