A U.S. citizen whose wife had just given birth in Nigeria called the Immigration Answer Show ready to file an I-130 and I-130A for both his wife and their newborn. He had come across the term CRBA and wanted to know whether he could skip a petition, and a second $675 filing fee, for the baby. Founding attorney Jim Hacking went straight to the only question that matters.
mic What the Attorney Says
“So the big question is when did you become a U.S. citizen? … And so you lived in the United States for at least 5 years … so your kid’s a citizen.”
A child born outside the United States to a U.S. citizen parent generally acquires citizenship at birth under INA § 301, or 8 U.S.C. § 1401, as long as the citizen parent was physically present in the United States for the required time before the birth. For a citizen parent, that is five years, at least two of them after age 14. If the test is met, the child is already a citizen. You do not petition for a citizen; you document the citizenship they already have.
The tool for that is the Consular Report of Birth Abroad, filed at the U.S. embassy or consulate. It produces Form FS-240, the child’s proof of citizenship, and the child can then be issued a U.S. passport. An I-130 does the opposite: it treats the child as a foreign relative who has to wait in the immigrant-visa process, costs the petition fee, and can take well over a year. Filing it for a child who is already a citizen throws away money and time.
One practical catch Hacking flagged: the passport is not mailed to the parent in the United States. The child has to be brought to the consulate, and viewers confirmed the post generally wants to see the child in person before issuing the document. So the newborn stays with the mother abroad until the CRBA and passport are done.
The wife is a different case. She is not a citizen, so she does need an I-130, and if her country sits on the immigrant-visa pause, that petition is only the first step of a longer road. Split the two: a CRBA for the citizen child, an I-130 for the spouse. The same logic drives cases where a parent naturalizes before a child immigrates and the old petition no longer fits. Match the filing to the person’s actual status, not to a form you assumed you needed.