~Kamie~

My husbands mother is an American citizen by birth - though after
marrying a Canadian she lived and has lived in Canada since - they
married at the age of 21 and lived in the states together for about 4
years before moving to Canada. My husbands father is a Canadian citizen
by birth. They were married in the US in 1971. My husband was born in
Canada and lived there for 19 years, before marrying me (American
citizen by birth) and applying for his green card in the US. Does he
have any claim to US citizenship or would he have - through his mother
being a citizen?

Jgbreton

Originally posted by ~Kamie~

    > My husbands mother is an American citizen by birth - though after
    > marrying a Canadian she lived and has lived in Canada since - they
    > married at the age of 21 and lived in the states together for about 4
    > years before moving to Canada. My husbands father is a Canadian
    > citizen by birth. They were married in the US in 1971. My husband was
    > born in Canada and lived there for 19 years, before marrying me
    > (American citizen by birth) and applying for his green card in the US.
    > Does he have any claim to US citizenship or would he have - through
    > his mother being a citizen?



Your husband may already be a U.S. Citizen. It appears that he was born
between 1952 and 1986. If that is the case, the following statute seems
to apply to him:



4. December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986



If at the time of your birth both your parents were U.S. citizens and at
least one had a prior residence in the United States, you automatically
acquired U.S. citizenship with no conditions for retaining it.



If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that
parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at
least five of which had to be after the age of 16. There are no
conditions placed on retaining this type of citizenship. If your one
U.S. citizen parent is your father and you were born outside of
marriage, the same rules apply if your father legally legitimated you
before your 21st birthday and you were unmarried at the time. If
legitimization occurred after November 14, 1986, your father must have
established paternity prior to your 18th birthday, either by
acknowledgment or by court order, and must have stated in writing that
he would support you financially until your 18th birthday.



If the mother of your husband filed for a Consular Record of Birth (Form
FS-240), that is enough proof of U.S. Citizenship for your husband and
he can apply for a U.S. passport. Otherwise, your husband can submit
the following as proof of U.S. citizenship when applying for a U.S.
passport: his Canadian birth certificate, proof of citizenship of his
U.S. parent, and an affidavit of the U.S. citizen parent(s) showing all
periods and places of residence or physical presence in the United
States and abroad beforehis birth.



To apply for a U.S. passport, your husband would complete Form DS-011.
Please see the following link:
http://www.travel.state.gov/get_forms.html



Please note that I am not a lawyer and encourage you to confirm all
information enclosed within this reply.

~Kamie~

Thank you. I read over the same thing you quoted in here, and I got the
same thing out of it. It just seems a little too easy to me, so I
thought I had to be misunderstanding.



Would it have any bearing - I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore -
I was just curious since I'd come across the page that said he should be
able to - ]http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/a...ctID/5365F1DF-
5EEB-4DC0-BD003808196CBB9E/catID/E597E251-BB1C-4AA4-
9D0AE7EC758B6391[/url] - but he has had his green card for 6 months
already - would not the INS have told him at our interview if he was
already able to - Hehe, no they wouldn't have I suppose.



Originally posted by jgbreton

    > Your husband may already be a U.S. Citizen. It appears that he was
    > born between 1952 and 1986. If that is the case, the following statute
    > seems to apply to him:


    > 4. December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986


    > If at the time of your birth both your parents were U.S. citizens and
    > at least one had a prior residence in the United States, you
    > automatically acquired U.S. citizenship with no conditions for
    > retaining it.


    > If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that
    > parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years,
    > at least five of which had to be after the age of 16. There are no
    > conditions placed on retaining this type of citizenship. If your one
    > U.S. citizen parent is your father and you were born outside of
    > marriage, the same rules apply if your father legally legitimated you
    > before your 21st birthday and you were unmarried at the time. If
    > legitimization occurred after November 14, 1986, your father must have
    > established paternity prior to your 18th birthday, either by
    > acknowledgment or by court order, and must have stated in writing that
    > he would support you financially until your 18th birthday.


    > If the mother of your husband filed for a Consular Record of Birth
    > (Form FS-240), that is enough proof of U.S. Citizenship for your
    > husband and he can apply for a U.S. passport. Otherwise, your husband
    > can submit the following as proof of U.S. citizenship when applying
    > for a U.S. passport: his Canadian birth certificate, proof of
    > citizenship of his U.S. parent, and an affidavit of the U.S. citizen
    > parent(s) showing all periods and places of residence or physical
    > presence in the United States and abroad beforehis birth.


    > To apply for a U.S. passport, your husband would complete Form DS-011.
    > Please see the following link:
    > http://www.travel.state.gov/get_forms.html


Please note that I am not a lawyer and encourage you to confirm all
information enclosed within this reply.

Mrraveltay

~Kamie~ wrote:

    > My husbands mother is an American citizen by birth - though after
    > marrying a Canadian she lived and has lived in Canada since - they
    > married at the age of 21 and lived in the states together for about 4
    > years before moving to Canada. My husbands father is a Canadian citizen
    > by birth. They were married in the US in 1971. My husband was born in
    > Canada and lived there for 19 years, before marrying me (American
    > citizen by birth) and applying for his green card in the US. Does he
    > have any claim to US citizenship or would he have - through his mother
    > being a citizen?
    >

It sounds like he is a US citizen.
I don't believe there is a residency requirement for the child if the
parent obtained citizenship based on their parent being a US citizen.
However, his children wouldn't be citizens based on his citizenship
since he hasn't lived in the US.

Jgbreton

Originally posted by ~Kamie~

    > Thank you. I read over the same thing you quoted in here, and I got
    > the same thing out of it. It just seems a little too easy to me, so I
    > thought I had to be misunderstanding.


    > Would it have any bearing - I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore
    > - I was just curious since I'd come across the page that said he
    > should be able to -]http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/a...ctID/5365F1DF-
    > 5EEB-4DC0-BD003808196CBB9E/catID/E597E251-BB1C-4AA4-
    > 9D0AE7EC758B6391[/url] - but he has had his green card for 6 months
    > already - would not the INS have told him at our interview if he was
    > already able to - Hehe, no they wouldn't have I suppose.



INS/USCIS probably would not tell your husband all the details because
they would be making a decision on your petition, rather than
determining whether he is indeed a US Citizen already. It would take an
aware and knowledgeable adjudicator to have caught your husband's
potential for derivative citizenship. .. or maybe I am assuming that the
AO would not know all these details?



I hope that your husband is indeed a US citizen and that you don't have
to deal with USCIS any longer!

~Kamie~

Thanks - What if he has lived in the US though(for I our future
children - though I am assuming it would be the same as he had it since
there would be one American and one Canadian Parent, but I'm curious
since we've both (my husband and I) lived in the US since December of
1997 - 6 years.



    >

    > It sounds like he is a US citizen.

    > I don't believe there is a residency requirement for the child if the

    > parent obtained citizenship based on their parent being a US citizen.

    > However, his children wouldn't be citizens based on his citizenship

since he hasn't lived in the US.

~Kamie~

Thank you - that makes sense and as I was posting it I was laughing at
the thought simply because it wouldn't be what they were looking into. I
guess I thought there might be a chance since on his biographic
informaiton it shows his moms place of birth, ect.



I hope as well that our USCIS stuff is over - though my husband has a
10 year green card so we are over for a bit!



Originally posted by jgbreton

    > INS/USCIS probably would not tell your husband all the details because
    > they would be making a decision on your petition, rather than
    > determining whether he is indeed a US Citizen already. It would take
    > an aware and knowledgeable adjudicator to have caught your husband's
    > potential for derivative citizenship. .. or maybe I am assuming that
    > the AO would not know all these details?


I hope that your husband is indeed a US citizen and that you don't have
to deal with USCIS any longer!

Jgbreton

Originally posted by ~Kamie~

    > Thanks - What if he has lived in the US though(for I our future
    > children - though I am assuming it would be the same as he had it
    > since there would be one American and one Canadian Parent, but I'm
    > curious since we've both (my husband and I) lived in the US since
    > December of 1997 - 6 years.



If your children are born in the US, they will be U.S. citizens (and
probably also Canadian citizens through your husband).



If your children are born abroad, it appears that they would be US
citizens through you. You would have to file a Consular Report of Birth
Abroad for them if this is the case or you could file for an N-600 for
them. Please see the link below, it has more details on who is and is
not a US Citizen:



http://uscis.gov/graphics/formsfee/f...iles/N-600.pdf

Rich Wales

"~Kamie~" wrote:

> My husband's mother is an American citizen by birth - though
> after marrying a Canadian she lived and has lived in Canada
> since - they married at the age of 21 and lived in the States
> together for about 4 years before moving to Canada. My hus-
> band's father is a Canadian citizen by birth. They were
> married in the US in 1971. My husband was born in Canada
> and lived there for 19 years, before marrying me (American
> citizen by birth) and applying for his green card in the US.
> Does he have any claim to US citizenship or would he have -
> through his mother being a citizen?

It definitely sounds to me like your husband is automatically a US
citizen by birth, through his mother. This would be the case even
if your mother-in-law had not realized he had US citizenship and
had never registered his birth with US consular officials in Canada.

Note that your husband's US citizenship (assuming he does in fact
have it) would not conflict in any way with his also having Canadian
citizenship. He would have acquired both citizenships at birth, and
contrary to widely held misconceptions, he would never have had any
obligation to pick one citizenship and give up the other -- he can
keep both citizenships for life.

The only event I can think of which might prevent your husband from
having US citizenship would be if his mother became a Canadian citizen
before he was born. Until well into the 1980's, the acquisition of
non-US citizenship as an adult typically led to loss of one's US
citizenship if US officials found out about it -- and if your mother-
in-law lost her US citizenship before your husband was born, he would
not have had any claim to US citizenship through her. (Please note
that foreign naturalization doesn't cause loss of US citizenship any
longer -- but it used to.) Note that merely marrying a Canadian
would =not= have been enough to give your mother-in-law Canadian
citizenship or cause her to lose US citizenship -- she would have
had to file a specific application for Canadian naturalization.)

"jgbreton" wrote:

> December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986 . . . . If only one
> parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that
> parent must have resided in the United States for at least
> ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age
> of 16.

Not quite. That was the rule prior to 24 Dec. 1952.

Between 1952 and 1986, the requirement (for a child born abroad to
one American parent to have US citizenship at birth) was that the
American parent must have been LITERALLY, PHYSICALLY PRESENT in
the US (or US territories or possessions) for at least ten years.
Physical presence is not necessarily the same as "residence"; time
spent travelling abroad while one's home was in the US, for instance,
did NOT qualify toward the required ten years of physical presence.
Also, at least five years of physical presence in the US had to have
occurred after the American parent's 14th (not 16th) birthday.

On 14 Nov. 1986, Congress changed the law to say that a child born
outside the US to one American parent would acquire US citizenship
at birth if the American parent had spent at least five (not ten)
years of physical presence in the US -- including at least two (not
five) years after the parent's 14th birthday. But note that this
new version of the law does NOT apply retroactively to people born
prior to 14 Nov. 1986. What this means is that a person's exact
birthdate can be crucial in determining which set of rules control
his/her entitlement to US citizenship at birth.

Rich Wales http://www.richw.org/dualcit/
*DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, professional immigration consultant,
or consular officer. My comments are for discussion purposes only and
are not intended to be relied upon as legal or professional advice.

Rich Wales

"~Kamie~" wrote:

> Thanks - What if he has lived in the US though (for our
> future children . . . .)

If =both= parents of a non-US-born child are US citizens, the rules
determining whether the child automatically gets US citizenship at
birth are much more permissive than if only one parent is American.

In this case, all that is necessary is for =one= of the parents to
have =ever= resided in the US prior to the child's birth, at any
time in the parent's life (even when the parent was a baby).

It seems clear that you've already more than met this requirement.

Of course, if you have a child in the US, he/she will automatically
have US citizenship at birth anyway, because all US-born children
(except children of foreign diplomats) are always automatically US
citizens regardless of the status of their parents.

It would be worth noting, BTW, that any children you and your husband
have will also automatically be Canadian citizens by birth. Under
Canada's current Citizenship Act (in force since early 1977), any
child born anywhere in the world to a Canadian parent automatically
has Canadian citizenship by birth. (Additionally, any child born
in Canada -- except for a child of foreign diplomats and such -- is
automatically a Canadian citizen; Canada has basically the same rule
in this regard as the US.)

Rich Wales http://www.richw.org/dualcit/
*DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, professional immigration consultant,
or consular officer. My comments are for discussion purposes only and
are not intended to be relied upon as legal or professional advice.