Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers. Information provided on these pages is neither intended as nor should be interpreted as legal advice.

If you enter the US on a K-1 visa, you can apply for citizenship 90 days prior to the 3rd anniversary of the effective date on your permanent resident card, as long as you have remained married to and living with your spouse. It's important to note that 90 days is not quite the same as 3 months. Using March 4, 2001 - the effective date on my permanent resident card - I might have been eligible, using the 3 month rule, to apply for citizenship on December 4, 2003. However, if I count 90 days prior to March 4, 2004, I arrive at December 6, 2003. Had my application been dated December 4, it might have been turned down as that date was outside the 90 days stipulated in the regulations. To be safe, of course, I actually mailed my application on December 8, 2003.

Since I received my permanent resident card, there have been a number of changes in the government as a result of the September 11, 2001 tragedies at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. The most important change was the creation, 5 months later, of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which was given a broad mandate to protect the US against terrorism. The former INS came under control of the DHS and was eventually renamed the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS). After a while, its name changed again to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

I downloaded the "fillable" N-400 form from the USCIS website. I'll say this, the USCIS online forms have certainly come a long way in the few years since I received my permanent resident card. The fillable form allows you to enter the information directly on your computer and then print it out. It makes the information neater to read, and actually gives you more room to write. Also, if you need to change any information, you can simply erase what you've done - which is a lot better than having to fill out an entire page to correct one section. The form is 10 pages long but is fairly straight forward. In addition to the application, I included copies of my previous 3 years tax returns, Sheila's and my divorce decrees, our marriage certificate, our wills, our mortgage, her passport, two photos, the front and back of my permanent resident card, a check for $310 ($260 for the application and $50 for fingerprints ($320/$70 as of 4/30/04)), and a copy of my driving record. I needed to include the driving record to explain 3 speeding tickets that I received several years ago - this, in response to question 16, part D - Good Moral Character. The question specifically asks if you have ever been arrested, cited, or detained by any law enforcement officer for any reason. Well, 3 speeding tickets certainly qualify for "cited", so I answered truthfully.

I put all of the documents in a nice 3-ring binder and FedEx'd it to the Texas Service Center. I thought it would be a while before I heard anything, but a week later I received a Notice of Action indicating that my application had been received and was given a priority date of December 11, 2003. Within a month, I had received another Notice of Action to appear for fingerprinting on January 20, 2004 at the Immigration Support Center in Charleston, West Virginia. This actually worked well for me since the West Virginia office is closer than the office in Kentucky. Of course, this got me thinking that perhaps all the paper work would end up in Charleston and the USCIS site indicated that Charleston was 3 or 4 months behind Louisville for N-400 processing. As it turns out, however, my fears were unfounded.

I drove to Charleston for my 9:00 appointment. The building itself is really small by comparison to the office in Louisville - only one floor. There was an armed guard at the front desk who asked why I was there, wanted to see my appointment letter, and asked that I sign the log book and show him some photo ID. I gave him my permanent resident card and as he looked at it, he said - with an absolutely straight face - that I was lucky I came on a Tuesday and not a Monday because on Monday's they do a complete full-body cavity search! Of course, as soon as he was finished he burst out laughing - more, I think because of the look on my face! He invited me to sit and fill out a form for the technician. While I waited, we talked about antiquing.

There were 2 other people ahead of me, but I only waited for about 10 minutes before I was called in. As with most of the immigration offices now, they had a digital fingerprint machine and the technician was very efficient - I was finished and out of there within 5 minutes.

At the beginning of February, I received a third Notice of Action, this time to appear at my citizenship interview in Louisville on May 5 - less than five months since I submitted my application. I was instructed to bring that letter, my passport, my permanent resident card, Sheila's birth certificate, our wedding certificate, our divorce decrees, and originals of everything I submitted with my application. I also took Sheila's passport. Additionally, knowing that you can never have enough documentation, I called the IRS to request transcripts of our last 4 years worth of tax returns, so that there should be no question as to our income status. The transcripts are a free service offered by the IRS.