US citizenship?

Question

Hello, I am an Italian citizen who needs to obtain a US citizenship or permanent residency for personal reasons. How long does it take? What is required? I am an EU citizen too, of course (even though I don' t think it changes much). Thank you.

Answer 1

To become a US citizen, you need to have been a permanent resident for 5 years, or 3 years if you are married to a US citizen, so let's focus on permanent residence since US citizenship is a rather simple formality once permanent residence is acquired.

So first of all, you can't just obtain permanent residency for "personal reasons" or just because you "need" it. Billions of people would like to get a green card but not everybody can be satisfied.

There are several ways you can obtain a green card, and the most common ways are:

1) Family immigration: if you are the spouse or fiance of a US citizen, or their child under the age of 21, then you are immediately eligible to apply for a visa to come to the US and adjust status to obtain a permanent resident card, a.k.a. green card.

2) Employment immigration: a US employer may sponsor a foreign national to be granted a green card, although in most cases such an employer will first sponsor the alien for a temporary work visa, and later on for a green card if the employer wishes to retain the services of the alien beyond his or her maximum length of stay under the terms of the temporary work visa.

3) The diversity lottery (check http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ for more info), which grants up to 50,000 green cards a year to qualifying applicants selected from millions of participants worldwide.

There are other ways, such as investing a million dollars in a business in the US resulting in the employment of a certain number of US citizens, but the 3 above are the most common ways of getting a green card.

Answer 2

Years.  If you are married to a US citizen, they can apply for you.  It takes up to a year but it is straight forward.

Otherwise, you need to be sponsored by a US company for a work visa, which is getting increasingly difficult.  You can also enter the diversity lottery.  The 2008 one is closed but there will be one for 2009.  You need to look at the State Department website.