New Public Charge Guidance: How the State Department’s Expanded Health and Financial Review May Affect Visa Applicants
Recent reporting confirms that the U.S. Department of State (DOS) has issued new internal guidance—via a cable distributed to consular posts worldwide—significantly expanding how consular officers evaluate visa applicants under the public charge ground of inadmissibility (INA §212(a)(4)). Although the statute itself has not changed, this directive reshapes the analysis by placing far heavier weight…
Bringing an Interpreter to Your USCIS Interview: Rules You Should Know
If you have an upcoming interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — such as for Adjustment of Status (green card) or Naturalization (citizenship) — it’s important to understand who can serve as your interpreter and what the current rules are. You Must Bring Your Own Interpreter USCIS generally requires applicants who need language…
Dual Citizenship
In the simplest of terms, Dual Citizenship is when you have citizenship in two countries. For those who are planning to immigrate to the United States and eventually naturalize, this would mean retaining citizenship in their home country after naturalization. However not all countries will recognize Dual Citizenship, and some citizens may have to renounce…
Citizenship Series Part 6: Deriving Citizenship When the Child Was Born Out of Wedlock
Naturalization of Mother When Child Was Born Out of Wedlock and Paternity Not Established by Legitimation: While the concept of legitimate or illegitimate children seems very old fashioned, but even in this modern era, legitimation is important in many cases where a child’s parents were not married at the time of their birth. While this…
Citizenship Series Part 5: Deriving Citizenship when Your Parents were Legally Separated
Naturalization of Parent Having Legal Custody Where There Has Been a Legal Separation of the Parents: The USCIS phrase may sound complex, but this path to Derived Citizenship applies to children whose parents were divorced or legally separated. The key factor is “Legal Custody.” In this post, we’ll break down what counts as Legal Custody…
Citizenship Series Part 4: Deriving Citizenship with One Naturalized Parent
Derivative Citizenship is possible for those who only have one Naturalized Parent, but this is reserved for those in special circumstances. There are only three (3) situations in which having one Naturalized Parent may qualify you for Derivative Citizenship: In this Part of the series we will be discussing situation 1. Naturalization of a Surviving…
Citizenship Series Part 3: Derived Citizenship
In the two previous parts of this series, we discussed Acquired Citizenship under the Child Citizen Act of 2000 (CCA). It is understandable that you might feel it is unfair or arbitrary that the CCA applies only to children born on or after February 27, 2001, or those who were under 18 years of age…
Citizenship Series Part 2: Automatic Acquisition of Citizenship after Birth
As discussed by Part 1, there are 4 specific conditions that must be met on or after February 27, 2001: In this part of the Citizenship Series, we will discuss the specifics of these requirements and whether they may be applicable to you. In the event all these conditions were met before your 18th birthday,…
Citizenship Series Part 1: You might be a U.S. Citizen and not even know it
In today’s uncertain immigration landscape – marked by shifting policies and heightened concerns – it’s no wonder many individuals with Lawful Permanent Residency (Green Card holders) are thinking seriously about pursuing U.S. citizenship. For those of you who have had green cards since childhood, but your parents are U.S. Citizens, your own citizenship may be…
Consular Processing vs. Adjustment of Status: What is the Difference?
Editor’s Note (July 2026): This article discusses Adjustment of Status under current USCIS policies, including the agency’s May 2026 memorandum describing adjustment of status as an “extraordinary” form of relief requiring a favorable exercise of discretion. For a detailed discussion of that policy change, see our article “USCIS Reframes Adjustment of Status as Extraordinary Relief.“…
