It's official - I've applied for US citizenship. The n-400 has been completed, all the supporting documentation accumulated, the photos taken and the fees submitted. It's all in the hands of UPS and on its way to the processing center in AZ.So now the next phase begins, a phase of mostly waiting. From what I understand, my application is going to a USCIS Processing Center - there are 2, and which one you send to is based on the state you live in. Living in Missouri, my Processing Center is in Arizona. The application will go through an initial processing/screening etc. there and then be sent to the local USCIS office for the remainder of the processing. The n-400 is one of the only USCIS forms that is processed mostly at the local offices, which cuts down on the processing time considerably! I actually found a processing flowchart that someone did online (gotta love Google)....if you were really interested in the details you can go here: n-400 Flowchart. Have to give a shout-out to the USCIS's advancements in notification processes, I was able to include a request to recieve confirmations and updates by e-mail and text message. That has certainly changed since my initial residency process. While I'm waiting, I guess I can get started on preparing for the English and Civics tests...that should be entertaining.
One week until n-400 submission. My due date for getting this show on the road is quickly approaching! Time to buckle down and get this done.
Since I have been thinking about all of this for about a year now (original self-defined due date was in 2011), I've known about one of the real stickler sections of the n-400 for a while now. I speak of Section 7. Ah, section 7...
Section 7 of the n-400 is devoted to the time a permanent resident has spent outside of the United States. There are some eligibility requirements for citizenship around how much time you spend living inside the U.S. in a given year - basically you have to live here the majority of the time in order to be eligible for citizenship.
In order to complete Section 7, the applicant (aka. me) has to "List all the trips of 24 hours or more that you have taken outside the United States since becoming a lawful permanent resident". HWHAT??? For me - that means listing every trip I've made since December 2002!!! Considering that I have made several trips to Canada a year for personal and even work reasons, and a couple of trips to Mexico - the list of dates I'd need would be a lengthy one!
So, how do you suppose I'm going to do that - is what I asked myself and promptly got to Googling. First step was to call the USCIS to confirm my suspicion of having to get over 9 years of travel dates. Easily confirmed. I was also directed to contact US Customs and Border Protection to try and get the information I'd need.
A little more Googling got me to the US Customs and Border Protection website and my new friend the g-639. Form g-639 is the Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Request form. Essentially, if you ever want to request information under the Freedom of Information Act from the US government - this is the form you would fill out. And that is what I did - I filled out the form asking for all of my entry and exit dates going back to December 2002.
When I told people that I had done this, I was asked why I couldn't just use the stamps in my passport to get the dates. And the answer is that my passport is not stamped every time that I enter or exit Canada....quite often it's just my boarding pass that is stamped! BUT my green card is scanned EVERY time I go through Customs. So, I figured there had to be a record of my entries and departures somewhere.
To hedge my bets - I also tracked down a contact for Canada Customs to see if they could provide me with the information. They sent me a nice email saying that they don't have it. No Freedom of Information equivalent in the homeland??? Hmm.
This all took place in April. The report with my dates arrived just in time for Christmas - like a little present in a manilla envelope. It may not have been speedy - but it did the trick.
Section 7 has been successfully completed.
