Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

Can someone explain this in simplified terms, with a bachelor's degree you will get conditional residency and have to wait six yrs to get citizenship. O.k. what about changing conditional residency status to that of lawful or permanent resident status? Is that two yrs after you acquire conditional basis? I know this is premature, but just want to be clear!

4) I have meet all the requirements to apply for citizenship; I have completed two years of college. Can I petition for citizenship without the six-year wait?

Unfortunately, no. This was true back in 2003-2004 when the bill was first introduced. Now:

“An alien may petition to remove the conditional basis to lawful resident status during the period beginning 180 days before and ending 2 years after either the date that is 6 years after the date of the granting of conditional permanent resident status or any other expiration date of the conditional permanent resident status as extended by the Secretary of Homeland Security in accordance with this Act.”

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

You still have to wait the 6 years... reread the bold part. It says you have between 180 days (6 months) before the 6 years are up and 2 years after the 6 years are up to apply for lawful status. You can't apply before 5 and a half years and it seems you can't apply after 8 years of conditional status.

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

The above quote from the text of the DREAM Act says that you can apply to remove the CONDITIONAL BASIS from your conditional permanent residency in the period 180 days (6 months) before and 2 years after the date that is 6 years from when you first achieved conditional permanent resident status. So if you become a conditional permanent resident through Dream on January 1, 2010, then between June 1, 2015 and January 1, 2018 (6 months before and 2 years after January 1, 2016), you can apply to remove the conditional basis and therefore become just a permanent resident.

Once you're a regular permanent resident, then you deal with the naturalization requirements. The text of the bill does mention that those 6 years as a conditional permanent resident WILL count towards naturalization requirements. So once you're a regular permanent resident, if you happen to meet all naturalization requirements right away, you could apply for naturalization right away.

I hope that made some sort of sense.

***Yea, what Hrvatica said lol

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

^ Made a lot of sense to me and written much better than what I attempted to do. :)

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

^^You're still light years ahead of me in terms of sexy-handed awesomeness, but I'm trying!

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

Thanks for all the feedback, I'm most definately going to bookmark your responses, it is clear now. Deng! Immigration laws are so convoluted!lol

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

The laws are simple but the language is convoluted. Whoever drafts the language in a Congressional bill has a Ph.D in passive voice writing.

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

Wait, so you can get residency by obtaining a bachelor's degree if you're illegal? Or am I missing something here?

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

I am also very interested to know if by having a bachelo's degree the possibility of obtaining residency its even an option.???

Re: Citizenship w/out the six-year wait!
 

^^Everything above is in the context of the Dream Act. As in, if one had a Bachelor's degree and the Dream Act had passed, etc etc