Dwyer's Citizenship Question

With the news yesterday that Sporting KC forward Dom Dwyer married US women's national team forward, Sydney Leroux recently one of the questions that I've seen over and over again is what this does for Dwyer's citizenship prospects. Last year after he really started to hit form a number of questions were asked about his ability to represent the United States internationally, and with his recent nuptials, people were asking if this cleared a lot of the red tape for Dwyer internationally.

The short answer to that question is no.

The longer answer to that question is that spousal citizenship is not an automatic thing, it's not immediate. Unlike back in 1998 when David Regis used a provision primarily used by spouses of military and government officials, Dwyer has to go the long way.

The requirements for Dwyer to become a citizen through his marriage to Leroux has at least a three year waiting period. Dwyer would have to have a green card for three years and living with Leroux during that time, and meet all other citizenship requirements.

Dwyer does have a green card, he received it back in 2012, about three years ago now. With that, Dwyer is actually closer to citizenship through the standard naturalization process, which requires him to be a green card holder for five years. As long as Dwyer is continuing the naturalization process, he should still be on target to earn his citizenship in 2017 if he so chooses, as Robb Heineman mentioned back in July.