Some permanent residents who have conditional permanent residence (Green Card) based on marriage wonder if they can file their Naturalization Application (N400) while they have a pending I-751. The answer is “Yes” to this. To understand the context, a person who marries a US citizen can obtain a Green Card by the US citizen filing for I-130 petition and the foreign spouse filing for the I-485 concurrently (if the foreign spouse is in USA). If at the time of grant of permanent residence, the marriage is less than two years old then a conditional green card is granted which is valid for a two year period. Within 90 days of expiration of the conditional permanent residence (conditional Green Card) one can file I-751 to remove the conditions and get an unconditional Green Card valid for 10 years. But due to high backlog of I-751 applications the adjudications take a long time like 17 to 30 months depending on the service center where it is being adjudicated. Meanwhile, the foreign spouse may qualify to file for naturalization since based on a marriage based permanent residence one can apply for naturalization after three years of being a permanent resident. In this situation if one does not want to delay the filing of naturalization they can go ahead and file the N-400 naturalization application while the I-751 is pending. When filing for the naturalization application one can mention the fact that the I-751 is pending and enclose the I-751 receipt notice. If a I-751 is pending for interview, then there is a high likelihood that I-751 interview may be conducted as part of the N-400 application interview process. This way the officer will first adjudicate the I-751 and then adjudicate the N-400 since a N-400 cannot be approved before approving the I-751. It will be a good practice to send evidence of continuation of marriage with such N-400 application when the I-751 is pending.
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