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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawNationality LawNaturalization to US Citizenship: Impact upon Visa Processing Times

Naturalization to US Citizenship: Impact upon Visa Processing Times

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we are going to be talking about United States naturalization, so naturalization to US citizenship in the specific context of the US marriage visa and specifically what we're talking about here is how naturalization categorically changes the, well the nature of the petition for a marriage visa compared to lawful permanent residence.

So what are we talking about? Well let's say you are a lawful permanent resident in the United States, you wish to marry your foreign spouse or you wish to bring your foreign spouse to the United States presumably you're already married. Okay, so you file a petition and it's going to fall into a preference category, a fairly high preference category, but a preference category nonetheless and as a result of falling in that preference category, it's going to take a little longer to process the case as a visa number has to be granted and this is going to take longer when compared to an American citizen married to a foreign spouse because the lawful permanent resident doesn't have the same sort of benefits with respect to the immigration system as does an American citizen. But let's say that individual, while the US marriage visa case is processing, let's say that individual naturalizes to US citizenship well, "bada boom bada bing" that individual now is a US citizen and that information can be conveyed to the authorities concerned and as a result, it will speed up the processing time of the underlying US marriage visa case. Basically the case moves up out of a preference category and just becomes the immediate relative of an American citizen and that's a pretty fundamentally different thing compared to the preference categories. This is one of those situations where you can truly see the fundamental benefits of the United States citizenship. So that's what happens if the case is already processing. In some circumstances, especially where an individual is just right on the cusp of finishing the naturalization process, I'll often say " let's just go ahead and file it including the naturalization documentation so as to just sort of, well expedite is the wrong word, but put you on the best footing at the time of filing as opposed to doing it mid filing which will likely result in more delay compared to just getting it in up front”. But again that's going to depend on the case-by-case analysis of circumstances based on the given circumstances of the couple's given situation and for that reason I think it's a good idea to consult professional or seek professional advice with respect to processing a case such as this especially when naturalization may be in the offing as one citizenship or non-citizenship status can have a significant bearing on the timing of a US marriage visa case.