Restauración de pérdida voluntaria (Afroyim/INA 349)

Eligibility under this route is narrow and class-specific, not residence-based. The three operative paths are: (1) INA §324(a) = 8 USC §1435(a) resumption for a woman who lost U.S. citizenship solely by reason of marriage to an alien (or the alien's loss/naturalization) before the marital-expatriation rules were repealed — she resumes by taking the oath of allegiance, without re-naturalizing; (2) INA §324(c)/(d) resumption for certain other former citizens (loss by foreign-state service under (c); the INTCA-1994 (d) provision for the pre-1978 retention-loss cohort and related former-citizen classes); and (3) an administrative 'never lost' determination by the Department of State where a prior expatriating act lacked the voluntariness or specific intent that Afroyim/Vance require — in which case the person is recognized as having retained citizenship throughout, no resumption being necessary. Crucially, none of these turns on a period of U.S. residence; there is NO general residency-qualified 'restoration' (scoping §4.7).

For §324 resumption, the applicant files the USCIS application prescribed for resumption/reacquisition under 8 USC §1435 and takes the oath of allegiance (the oath being the INA §337 = 8 USC §1448 instrument). For an Afroyim/Vance 'never lost' determination, the vehicle is typically a U.S. passport application to the Department of State (which adjudicates the underlying nationality/loss question) or a request to review/cancel a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (Form DS-4083) through the DOS process. If neither resumption nor a 'never lost' finding is available, the person must first obtain LPR status (the relevant immigrant-visa/adjustment forms) and then file Form N-400 for ordinary naturalization under INA §316. Supporting documents track the cohort: marriage/era records for §324(a); foreign-service or retention-loss records for §324(c)/(d); intent evidence for the 'never lost' theory.

There are three procedural tracks. (1) §324(a) marital-loss resumption: the woman files the prescribed application with USCIS and takes the oath of allegiance (INA §337 = 8 USC §1448 oath); no residence period or re-naturalization is required. (2) §324(c)/(d) resumption: the former citizen applies under the applicable subsection, establishing class membership (foreign-state-service loss under (c); pre-1978 retention-loss or related INTCA-1994 class under (d)) and takes the oath. (3) Afroyim/Vance 'never lost' determination: the person applies to the Department of State (typically via a U.S. passport application or a request for a Certificate of Loss of Nationality review / Board of Appellate Review process) arguing the historical expatriating act lacked voluntariness or intent; if DOS agrees, it recognizes continuous citizenship and issues documentation, no resumption being needed. If none of these fits, the person must obtain LPR status and file Form N-400 for ordinary naturalization under §316.

Timelines vary by track and are not fixed by statute. A §324 oath-based resumption, once class membership is documented, can be relatively quick (an adjudication plus an oath ceremony), but USCIS processing times govern and can run several months. An Afroyim/Vance 'never lost' determination by the Department of State depends on the complexity of the intent inquiry and any Board of Appellate Review proceedings, and can take many months to over a year for contested historical cases. If the person must fall back to §316 re-naturalization, the full LPR-then-naturalization timeline applies: independently obtaining LPR status (often years, depending on the immigrant category) plus the 5-year continuous-residence clock plus the 8-24-month N-400 processing typical for general naturalization. There is no expedited residence credit for former citizenship — a key consequence of the no-residency-restoration rule.

Costs depend entirely on which track applies, and there is no single 'restoration fee.' (1) §324 oath-based resumption: the applicant files the USCIS application prescribed for reacquisition under 8 USC §1435 and takes the §337 = 8 USC §1448 oath; USCIS fees follow the current G-1055 fee schedule for the applicable form, but there is no resumption-specific statutory charge and no exit-tax analogue (resumption is acquisition, not loss). (2) Afroyim/Vance 'never lost' determination: where the vehicle is a U.S. passport application to the Department of State, the cost is the ordinary passport-application fee; where it proceeds as a request to review/cancel a Certificate of Loss of Nationality, no benefit fee analogous to the renunciation charge applies — the matter is an administrative adjudication of an existing status, not a new grant. Note that the $450 Certificate-of-Loss-of-Nationality administrative-processing fee (91 FR 12296, eff. 13 Apr 2026, VC-01) is a RENUNCIATION/LOSS-side charge under US-XCT-01, NOT a resumption cost — a person seeking to be recognized as never having lost nationality does not pay it. (3) §316 re-naturalization fallback: the full ordinary cost applies, governed by the N-400 fee matrix ($760 paper / $710 online / $380 reduced) per 89 FR 6194 (eff. 1 Apr 2024), plus any costs of independently obtaining LPR status. The fee structure thus mirrors the no-residency-restoration rule: the cheapest, fastest outcomes (oath or documentation) are reserved to the narrow §324 classes and the 'never lost' cohort, while everyone else bears the full re-naturalization cost.

El estatuto que rige es INA §324 = 8 USC §1435 (promulgado originalmente como parte de INA 1952, 66 Stat. 246; modificado mediante Pub. L. 103-416 (1994)). La subsección (a) establece la reanudación basada en juramento para el grupo de mujeres que han sufrido una pérdida matrimonial; la subsección (c) se refiere a ex ciudadanos que se expatriaron sirviendo a un estado extranjero; la subsección (d) fue AGREGADA por la Ley de Correcciones Técnicas de Inmigración y Nacionalidad de 1994 (INTCA, Pub. L. 103-416) y permanece disponible principalmente para la cohorte de pérdida de retención anterior a 1978 (niños que adquirieron la ciudadanía en el extranjero y la perdieron por no cumplir una condición de retención antes de que esa condición fuera derogada prospectivamente por la Ley del 10 de octubre de 1978, Pub. L. 95-432). El estatuto de pérdida complementaria es INA §349 = 8 USC §1481 (actas de expatriación; chapeau de intención vigente desde el 14 de noviembre de 1986 según Pub. L. 99-653). El texto del artículo 324 confirma que no existe un mecanismo de restauración basado en la residencia: opera mediante membresía de clase más un juramento, no mediante el restablecimiento de la residencia.

Review depends on track. For a denied §324 resumption application, the applicant pursues USCIS administrative appeal and, ultimately, a declaratory-judgment action on nationality under INA §360 = 8 USC §1503. For an Afroyim/Vance 'never lost' claim, the Department of State adjudicates the loss/retention question (historically via the Board of Appellate Review for Certificate-of-Loss-of-Nationality disputes), and a person denied a right or privilege as a U.S. national may sue under 8 USC §1503(a) (with 28 USC §2201 supplying the declaratory mechanism). The governing legal standards on review are Afroyim (no involuntary expatriation) and Vance (government must prove voluntary act + specific intent by a preponderance). Because the regime is class-specific, litigation typically turns on factual questions — class membership for §324, or intent/voluntariness for the 'never lost' theory — rather than on the validity of the statute, which is settled.

The defining 'exception' here is the categorical ABSENCE of a general residency-based restoration: U.S. law contains no provision by which a former citizen regains citizenship merely by residing in the U.S. for a period (scoping §4.7; VC-confirmed RST reframe). The only carve-outs are the enumerated §324 classes — (a) marital-loss women, (c) foreign-state-service losers, (d) the INTCA-1994 / pre-1978 retention-loss cohort — plus the Afroyim/Vance 'never lost for want of intent' pathway, which is not a restoration at all but a recognition that citizenship was never effectively lost. A person who voluntarily and intentionally relinquished citizenship (e.g., a formal renunciation under §349(a)(5) abroad) falls within NONE of these and has no resumption right; that person's only path back is ordinary re-naturalization under INA §316 after independently obtaining LPR status. There is no 'reversal of renunciation' remedy for a valid, intentional expatriation.