I am a male who was between age 18 and 26 when I received LPR status or filed I-485 and I did not not register with selective service. What are my options?

You cannot file N-400 until you reach the age of 31. 

When a male LPR goes to file N-400, he often finds himself stymied by the Selective Service (SSS) questions on N-400. As in he did not register with SSS before he turned age 26 and so he doesn’t know what to do.

So here is a cookbook:

• First verify that in fact you are not registered. Go to Verify Registration and enter your details. Sometimes if not most times, the LPR finds out he is registered. Usually this is because the USA government did so automatically as per the DS-260 or I-485 you signed which authorized the government to register you.

• Even if online verification fails it is worth calling the phone number listed at the aforementioned link to see if you were registered. Sometimes whoever registered you didn’t know your SSN or you didn’t have an SSN yet. With this phone call if you are registered, SSS can add your SSN to your registration record and you will be able to verify it online.

Assuming it appears you did not register the next step is to see if you were required to register. You are required to register if either of the following are true:

1. You were present in USA for any length of time on anything but a lawful nonimmigrant status between age 18 and age 26 minus a day (26-1D for short). If you entered on say a B-2 status, filed I-485, then after your I-94 expired, even though your pending I-485 gave you authorized presence, it isn’t a lawful nonimmigrant status any more. You needed to register.

2. You were an LPR for any length of time been age 18 and 26-1D. It is possible to be an LPR without setting foot on USA soil if you had an immigration visa and “entered” the USA at a CBP or INS pre-clearance station outside the USA. So for example you were age 25 when checked in for your flight at YVR with your immigration visa at 8pm. At 8:30pm the CBP officer stamped your passport and you legally became an LPR. Your flight boarded at 11:30 PM leaving you plenty of time to visit sss.gov to register (if you had an SSN). You didn’t. You landed on USA soil after midnight on your 26th birthday.

If you didn’t have to register then you need to gather evidence that between age 18 and 26-1D, your presence in the USA was a lawful non immigrant status. Passport stamps, I-20s, visas, I-94 travel records, etc will make your case.

If you failed to register and should have or failed to register and cannot prove you did not need to, what then?

If you are under age 26, register now.

If not then you must or might need to wait until age 31 to file to naturalize. Not age 31 less 90 days.

Once you are age 31, do the following:

1. Write a letter of explanation (LOE) explaining why you didn’t register. Since DS-260 and I-485 say the government will register you, that is a plausible excuse.

2. Go to Status Information Letter and follow the instructions to request a status information letter (SIL).

3. After you get the SIL, make copies of the SIL and LOE.

4. Include a copy of the SIL and LOE in your N-400 application

5. At the interview bring a copy and original of the SIL and LOE. Try to keep the originals and show them if asked.