The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ("USCIS") just announced that they have released the revised FormN-400, Application for Naturalization. The main changes in the new N-400 form are the new questions required by anti-terrorism and child soldier prevention statutes, the (according to USCIS) clearer eligibility instructions and the addition of a dynamic 2D data barcode [...]
USCIS has released a report on the number and characteristics of naturalization applications for 2011. The report focuses on the applicants who were 18 and over and who became U.S. citizens during 2011. According to the data, in 2011, the total number of persons naturalizing was 694,193. The leading countries of birth of new [...]
Our practice handles a number of N-400, Application for Naturalization, cases for U.S. lawful permanent residents seeking to obtain U.S. citizenship. In addition to preparing and filing a complete Form N-400 application with USCIS and submitting to a biometrics appointment, the N-400 naturalization process includes a personal interview and a naturalization test. While the information [...]
Along with the USCIS filing fee increase which went into effect on November 23, 2010, USCIS has revamped the guidelines, criteria and application process for filing fee waivers. While granting a waiver is still in USCIS's sole discretion, the process and qualifications are now more transparent. Which Forms are Eligible for a Fee Waiver? A [...]
On November 23, 2010, the pre-announced increase in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ("USCIS") filing fees went into effect. All applications and petitions filed must now include the new and correct filing fee, or the filings will be rejected. We have written in the past about the need of this fee increase and our [...]
Effective Monday, October 25, 2010, USCIS started issuing a redesigned U.S. naturalization certificate (Form N-550). The new certificate includes enhanced security features and, important for some, it is designed to be "a higher-quality certificate, which will now be easier to showcase in a standard 8 ½ by 11 inch frame." See a sample. New Features [...]
Our office continues to handle an increasing number of naturalization and citizenship applications so it is interesting to share with our clients and readers some recent numbers on the citizenship statistics for Fiscal Year 2009 (FY2009). During FY2009, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) received 743,715 applications for naturalization (in comparison to the 1,046,539 during [...]
As our office continues to handle an increasing number of citizenship application, we thought it would be interesting to share some naturalization statistics, grouped by decade, for the past four decades. According to numbers provided by USCIS, the period between 2001 and 2010 noted a slowdown in the number foreign nationals becoming U.S. citizens. The [...]
Most of our clients and readers remember the summer of 2007 when USCIS raised the filing fees for certain services by a substantial amount (in all fairness, USCIS decreased the fees for certain services) (see the archived May 29, 2007 USCIS press release). One of the motivating forces behind this fee increase was the collection [...]