The benefits of U.S. citizenship over permanent residence are well worth considering.
They include:
- ability to sponsor family members more effectively
- ability to bestow citizenship on a child born abroad
- ability to reside even outside the U.S. indefinitely without losing status
- ability to vote
- eligibility to hold public office and serve on juries
- enjoyment of additional constitutional and statutory rights to due process of law
- freedom from applications to renew permanent resident card and from notices of address changes
- diplomatic protection when abroad
- eligibility for certain welfare benefits
- ability to own a gun
- eligibility for sensitive government and government-related jobs
- entitlement to a U.S. passport
- certain tax exemptions
- and a greater sense of belonging and community within the U.S.
How We Can Help
The Baker Donelson Immigration Group helps clients evaluate, develop and present claims to citizenship through passport, certificate of citizenship, naturalization, and other applications. On several occasions we have been meeting with a client seeking permanent residence and informed them of their claim to citizenship (these are happy cases indeed!). We have helped clients assert a claim to U.S. citizenship in defense of removal proceedings in Immigration Court. We represent families who enjoy the opportunity to adopt children from other countries, arranging immigration, adoption and re-adoption (cooperating with adoption lawyers in their country or state), and citizenship. We represent clients in appeals of application denials, in both administrative and court proceedings. We represent people who (before coming to us) have found themselves in removal proceedings, or even under criminal indictment, arising from a poorly calculated naturalization application. We help clients in urgent situations, such as when their passport and identity documents are stolen while they are traveling abroad. We help evaluate the prospects of dual citizenship and its numerous ramifications and help preserve it when desired. We help defend government actions to cancel someone's citizenship.