Immigration Corner | Is my daughter an automatic US resident?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

My husband is now a US citizen. Our daughter was born while he was a permanent resident. Does my husband have to file for her, or does she already have automatic residency status at 10 years old?

NB

Dear NB:

There is no automatic residency status in your situation – that rarely happens and an instance that comes to mind is when a permanent resident has a baby outside of the United States and upon their first return to America, with certain applications at the border if approved, the baby would be afforded US residency.

Your husband was clear to file for you his wife and his minor daughter as a green card holder. In fact, he could have filed one petition for you and your daughter would have ‘ridden’ on the same petition until it was approved and then the file would have been split into two for visa processing.

Yes, your US citizen husband does have to file a petition for residency for your minor child and a separate one for you – if you are not already a US resident.

If your daughter migrates to live with her US citizen father before she is 18 years old, she can qualify for derivative US citizenship. But she must live with her father and prove this in order to derive citizenship from her dad. She will need to show, e.g., that she is enrolled in school in the school district where her father resides and that they otherwise share the same address.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq. is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a mediator and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com