USCIS Issues Policy Update on Eligibility for Citizenship for Green Card Holders Who Take Long Trips Overseas

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Wednesday announced an update to the USCIS Policy Manual that clarifies the continuous residence requirement for naturalization.

The policy update clarifies that:

An applicant who has been absent from the United States for more than six months but less than a year must overcome the presumption that they have broken the continuity of their residence in the United States; and
An applicant who has broken the continuity of residence in the United States must establish a new period of continuous residence, the length of which depends on the basis for naturalizing.

Permanent residents become eligible to apply for naturalization five years after they got approved for a green card (three years if they received the green card through a US citizen and are still married and living with that same spouse).

The update means that green card holders who stay out of the country for a period of more than six months but less than a year and cannot overcome the assumption of break in continuous residence will have to start a whole new five-year (3 years if married to a US citizen) period before they can apply for citizenship.

Applicants can overcome the assumption of break in continuous residence in the US by providing documentation showing that the:

The applicant did not terminate his or her employment in the United States or obtain employment while abroad;
The applicant’s immediate family members remained in the United States; and
The applicant retained full access to or continued to own or lease a home in the United States.