More than one-third of green card holders who are eligible for naturalization choose or are forced to remain permanent residents instead of becoming U.S. citizens. While U.S. citizenship carries significant privileges, lawful permanent residents face critical financial, testing, administrative, and legal considerations when deciding whether to naturalize.
Administrative and Structural Obstacles to Naturalization
For many eligible permanent residents, administrative requirements and structural barriers present significant challenges to completing the naturalization process:
- Filing Cost Variations: The price for a naturalization application stands at $760. By comparison, renewing a green card costs $465, resulting in a cost differential of less than $300. Although official fee waivers are available for low-income applicants, a general lack of program awareness prevents many from utilizing them.
- Testing and Exam Anxiety: Applicants must pass an English language proficiency test and a U.S. Civics exam administered by a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officer. Older immigrants frequently struggle with the language requirement, and general test anxiety is widespread. Many falsely fear that failing the examination will automatically jeopardize or terminate their existing green card status.
- Exemptions: Long-term permanent residents can qualify for specific age and timeline exemptions regarding the English language requirement, though these accommodations are rarely widely known.
- Past Adjudication Vetting: Applying for naturalization reopens an individual’s entire immigration and criminal background file to intense scrutiny. In some cases, USCIS officers inadvertently issued green cards in the past without requiring mandatory legal waivers or verifying full eligibility. During a citizenship interview, officers possess the absolute authority to review past mistakes, deny the application, revoke the permanent residency, and place the individual directly into removal proceedings.
Global Travel, Dual Citizenship, and Identity Realities
For certain immigrant groups, naturalization demands structural sacrifices concerning their global ties and national heritage:
- The Dual Citizenship Ban: Nations such as China, India, Japan, and the Netherlands completely prohibit dual citizenship. Becoming a U.S. citizen requires immigrants from these countries to forfeit their original nationality and turn in their home passports.
- Passport Utility: Although a U.S. passport provides visa-free entry to 172 countries, certain foreign passports offer superior global travel access or entry rights to specific jurisdictions barred to U.S. citizens. Permanent residents who intend to return to their home countries long-term find remaining foreign citizens logistically simpler.
- National Identity: Many residents deliberately choose not to become American citizens due to political turmoil within the United States, deep ideological disagreement with U.S. foreign policy actions, or an unyielding personal attachment to their native country’s identity.
Transnational Tax and Property Obligations
The choice between a green card and U.S. citizenship introduces binding long-term fiscal liabilities under internal revenue laws:
- Lifetime Global Taxation: Both U.S. permanent residents and U.S. citizens are required to pay taxes to the U.S. government on all income earned worldwide, regardless of where it is derived. However, U.S. citizens retain this absolute fiscal obligation for life until the day they die, no matter where they physically reside.
- Exiting the Tax System: If an individual decides to relocate abroad permanently, abandoning a green card to sever ties with the U.S. tax system is significantly simpler than the formal process required to renounce U.S. citizenship. Under U.S. tax codes, permanent residents who have lived outside the country for fewer than 8 years out of the preceding 15-year window can legally abandon their residency while avoiding a mandatory exit tax.
- Foreign Property Restrictions: Countries like China, Thailand, and the Philippines enforce strict statutory bans on foreign citizens owning real estate. Acquiring U.S. citizenship can legally force an individual to liquidate existing properties held in their home country or bar them from buying or inheriting ancestral property. Furthermore, U.S. citizens must continuously pay U.S. taxes on any income generated by foreign real estate holdings.
Weighing the Structural Differences
Lawful permanent residents can live, work, and travel in and out of the United States with minimal operational disruption. For individuals who travel rarely, green card limits are easily managed, and extended absences can be legally structured using a special re-entry permit.
However, a green card does not provide total legal security. Permanent residents lack the right to vote and remain entirely vulnerable to deportation. Committing certain specific crimes within or outside the United States, failing to pay taxes, or remaining outside the country for too long without authorization can result in the immediate revocation of permanent residency and placement into formal removal proceedings—procedural risks from which U.S. citizens are absolutely protected.
