‘Adjust’ yourself without any fear

Lisa, Brooklyn

Unless U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services revoked your daughter’s petition, which is unlikely, she can file her adjustment of status application. If you did not receive a USCIS notice of intention to revoke, the petition approval is likely still valid.

Check to make sure her priority date (the date you filed the petition for her — her place in line under the quota system) is still “current.” To be current, the filing date must be before the cutoff date in her category.

The 245(i) rule allows individuals to adjust status (interview in the United States) who ordinarily would not qualify to do so. To qualify under the rule, a relative or employer must have filed for them by April 30, 2001. That benefit is hers forever if the case was “approvable when filed.”

Did I get U.S. citizenship when my parents naturalized? When my parents became U.S. citizens, I was under age 18. I turned 18 before the law changed on Feb. 18, 2001. If I am a citizen, can I get a U.S. passport, or must I first get a USCIS Certificate of Citizenship? Rich, by email

If you became a permanent resident before turning 18, you are a U.S. citizen. You can get a U.S. passport. You need not get a Certificate of Citizenship.

Permanent residents who turned 18 before Feb. 27, 2001, whose married parents were together “derived” U.S. citizenship from their parents if both parents naturalized before the child’s 18th birthday. Allan Wernick is an attorney and director of the City University of New York’s Citizenship Now! project. Send questions and comments to Allan Wernick, New York Daily News, 4 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004 or email to questions@allanwernick.com. Follow him on Twitter @awernick.