marrying for U.S. citizenship

a-ha! got you there did i?

im sorry to disappoint you but my story isn't as juicy as you hope it to be (lol),  because i can actually get my U.S. citizenship without the help of my h2b...

i came here in the U.S. as an H1B visa holder..... for those who doesn't know what that means, it's a type of working visa the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issue for specialty skills worker, like scientists, physicists and in my case software engineers (here's a link from USCIS explaining it and who are eligible to get that visa)........ then on 2009 my employer applied for my greencard via EB2 category (here's a link on what EB2 means) and on May of 2010 i was granted permanent residency and got my greencard....

now, if you have a greencard  its as good as being a US Citizen....example, you are not tied to any employer anymore and you can switch employers anytime (as H1b you can only work for the employer who sponsored your H1B), you can work at some government offices, you are free to go in an out of the U.S, you share the same line with the U.S. citizens at the airport immigration and immigration people would actually say "welcome home" to you when you left the U.S and came back........ the only thing you don't have as greencard holder is a U.S. passport (which is good if you love travelling-no more VISA applications to most countries) and the right to vote (which really doesn't concern me that much)......

now, if i really want to be a U.S. citizen which i wont deny i do because travelling is just so much convenient (i dont want to go thru that horrible experience i had with the Italian embassy again like when i was applying for my schengen visa ), here are the immigration rules.....

you can apply for citizenship if you:

(1) have been a greencard holder for 5 years.... or
(2) if you have been married to an american citizen for 3 years....


now let's put some numbers here to make it easier to understand and i'll use my situation as an example.... i got my greencard thru my employer year 2010....if we apply the first rule on my situation i can only apply for citizenship year 2015....

2010 + 5 years = 2015

clear?
good!


now, let's apply the second rule.... we already know my h2b is an american citizen.... we'll get married year 2012....

2012 + 3 years = 2015


so did you notice anything? yep, marrying my US citizen h2b won't buy me anything....either way i still need to wait til 2015 before i can apply for US citizenship....


how did i learn about this? the immigration lawyer who handled my greencard processing explained this to me....

and because i pride myself as an independent, self-sufficient woman (lol), i'm applying my citizenship thru my employer and not thru my marriage....




for a more detailed rules to acquire citizenship click the links below:

- Path to U.S. Citizenship

- Naturalization for Spouses of U.S. Citizens