US Citizenship Application (N-400)

By: Paul Anderson | Posted: 05th February 2011

Getting US citizenship is not only a privilege but also allows enjoying the rights that are part of US citizenship. An individual can become a U.S. Citizen either through birth in the United States or through parents or grandparents who are citizens or through naturalization. To be more specific, he/she can become a U.S citizen either by acquisition of citizenship through birth to U.S citizen parents or obtain automatic derivation of US Citizenship through naturalized parents or can obtain it through law.

The law states that to be eligible to apply for US citizenship application, it is very necessary to meet certain requirements, which is stated as follows:
•The immigrant should be age 18 or older
•The immigrant should be a permanent resident (has a Green Card) now and during all of the past 5 years.
•The immigrant should meet the Continuous and Permanent residence requirement, which means that the immigrant if married to a US citizen, then it is three years of permanent residency. It is that you have to be in marriage to a U.S citizen and should be living with that U.S citizen for the past 3 three years of your permanent residency. Or an immigrant must reside in the U.S. for a continuous period of five years after lawful admission to the U.S. as a permanent resident.

Apart from this, there are certain general requirements as well. The immigrant should have resided in his or her current state for at least 3 months, should not be involved in any crime, should be of good moral character, should speak, understand, read, and write simple English during an INS interview, should take an oath of allegiance to the United States. When all the above requirements are met, the immigrant can go ahead and apply for US citizenship application by filing the form N 400.

Immigration form N 400:

While applying for N 400 Application there are certain important aspects which should be considered. Like if a person who was born outside the US to the US citizen parents does not have to apply the form N 400. Further if the immigrant is above 50 years of age he/she does not have to take the English test and can take the civics test in his language of choice and if the immigrant is more than 65 years of age he/she does not have to take the English test and take a simpler version of the civics test in his language of choice.

The Immigration Form N 400 is completely user friendly, where the user has to enter genuine details. It consists of different parts and all portions have to be completed. Any error while filling can lead to rejection of the application. The citizenship application packet should contain Form N-400, copy of the permanent residence card as evidence of lawful permanent residence, two passport style photographs, fees, and the required supporting documents. The instructions in the Form N 400 application is very clear and will guide how one has to enter details. Hence utmost care should be taken while filling the N 400 application, so that your application can be approved and you can later on enjoy the rights of being a citizen.
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Tags: grandparents, age 18, current state, permanent residency, naturalization, immigrant, permanent residence, law states, moral character, green card, permanent resident, n 400 application, form n 400