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Filed: Country: Saint Lucia
Timeline
Posted

can someone help me. if i got my green card in April and traveled to my country of birth in May where i have a young daughter and a sick grandfather who i grow up with. then i travel back to the US end of September and was pulled off the line after i collected my baggage and was told by an officer that if i stayed outside the us for this amount of time again i would loose my green card. i was out for about 4 months and the welcome note said that i could stay out for any period under a year. i had already planned to return to my birth country in 2 weeks? what do i need to ensure that i'm granted entry when i come back?

Posted

Yes, the general rule of thumb is that a GC holder can stay abroad for up to 12 months without a re-entry permit. However, CBP officers have the right to question you upon re-entry if they think you've spend considerable time abroad. They have the right to deny you entry if they think you've abandoned your residency - even in cases of shorter absence than 12 months.

When are you planning to remain in the US? If it looks like you have to spend considerable time abroad, you should apply for a re-entry permit to make sure you won't run into trouble at POE when returning from your next trip.. You'll have to be in the US to apply for the permit, and to have your biometrics done - so I would get that application going ASAP.

Adjustment of Status from F-1 to Legal Permanent Resident

02/11/2011 Married at Manhattan City Hall

03/03/2011 - Day 0 - AOS -package mailed to Chicago Lockbox

03/04/2011 - Day 1 - AOS -package signed for at USCIS

03/09/2011 - Day 6 - E-mail notification received for all petitions

03/10/2011 - Day 7 - Checks cashed

03/11/2011 - Day 8 - NOA 1 received for all 4 forms

03/21/2011 - Day 18 - Biometrics letter received, biometrics scheduled for 04/14/2011

03/31/2011 - Day 28 - Successful walk-in biometrics done

05/12/2011 - Day 70 - EAD Arrived, issued on 05/02

06/14/2011 - Day 103 - E-mail notice: Interview letter mailed, interview scheduled for July 20th

07/20/2011 - Day 139 - Interview at Federal Plaza USCIS location

07/22/2011 - Day 141 - E-mail approval notice received (Card production)

07/27/2011 - Day 146 - 2nd Card Production Email received

07/28/2011 - Day 147 - Post-Decision Activity Email from USCIS

08/04/2011 - Day 154 - Husband returns home from abroad; Welcome Letter and GC have arrived in the mail

("Resident since" date on the GC is 07/20/2011

Posted

Basically the officer is looking at your record. You had the green card for one month, and then left for four months. Then you come back in September and plan to go back in two weeks. That pattern does not indicate someone who intends to reside in the US. You have to remember, the officers at point of entry hear every excuse in book. Many of them may be true, but they have no way to know, If he pulled you out of line the last time, you can bet you are now in the system to be looked at every time you return to the states.

Filed: Other Timeline
Posted

The Green Card you received is the permission to live and work in the United States. Many people look with anticipation to the day they receive their Green Card (I did). You got your Green Card and only a month later left the U.S. again. You had a good reason (your daughter and grandfather), but you were outside the U.S. four times longer than you were inside, and CBP does not like that at all.

There is no firm rule for how often and how long you can be outside the U.S, aside from the absolute maximum. It helps to apply common sense. If CBP feels that you are not really residing in the U.S. they can pull the plug on you at any time. Now you are mentioning that you are planing on leaving again. See, most people have to work for a living. Thus, they cannot afford vacations that take four months, come back for a bit, and then leave again. Those who do not work are usually married, and it's also not "normal" that one spouse lives in the U.S., while the other one spends most of her time in a foreign country. You can't really blame CBP for giving you a formal warning. You should be grateful for this.

Since it's possible that CBP made an entry in your A-file, I would suggest for you to take the residency requirement serious. Reside in the U.S., permanently, take one or two vacations per year, but not vacations that take several months, if you don't want to risk losing your Green Card.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all . . . . The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic . . . . There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

President Teddy Roosevelt on Columbus Day 1915

 
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