You need to read up on being a greencard holder and your rights.... USCIS website is a good place to start....
QUOTE
Yes you can travel outside the usa as a greencard holder... you need a valid passport from your home country and your greencard to get you back into the USA...
I'm curious where you are getting the information that you must have both a permanent resident card AND a passport from your country? If you look on the USCIS website on the new passport regulations and the customs and border patrol website, it states clearly:
U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs)
must provide one of the following:
* I-551, Permanent Resident Card (“Green Card”)
* Machine-Readable Immigrant Visa endorsed with a CBP Admission Stamp
* Temporary Residence Stamp (ADIT stamp) contained in a passport or on Form I-94
* Valid Reentry Permit
* Unexpired Immigrant Visa
It only mentions ONE document is needed for re-entry to the US.
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/alerts/w...ents_needed.xmlI'm trying to find out if my husband, who is not yet eligible for citizenship but has an expired passport from his country and a valid permanent resident card, can travel to Mexico or the Caribbean for a one week vacation and re-enter the US using only his green card. To renew his passport is now taking 8-12 months and costs $600.
From the websites, it seems he only needs his green card but when I have mentioned this to people, they get so alarmed and insist this isn't possible, so what's up? Even the Nebraska Service Center was wrong. I asked them clearly about a one week vacation to Mexico and they told me on the phone that he needed to file the I-131 ($170, 4-6 month timeframe) for a travel document but after reading the form instructions in detail I notice it said:
If you stay outside the United States for less than one
year, you are not required to apply for a reentry permit.
You may reenter the United States on your Permanent
Resident Card (Form I-551). http://www.uscis.gov/ - (go to the forms section and look for I-131, you have to download it to read the instructions)
So to cometaj, you might want to verify all this before you go to lengths renewing your passport, not sure it's needed from what I found but I would still like to know for sure from someone who has actually done it, though you would think the government websites I listed above are providing accurate information.