husband is a permanent resident in US but wants to work in Qatar

[RANNK1 8]

Hello. My Nigerian husband has the two year conditional green card and is waiting for his removal of conditions. He has been offered a great job abroad in Qatar for three years. He might be able to travel home to visit us every few months. My question is how much time does he need to.spend living in USA in order to maintain his residancy and ultimately gain American citizenship? How often should he fly home to.see.us? Can he take.the job in Qatar while waiting for his green card is still processsing? What will he need to travel back and forth to Qatar?

[Dave&Roza 748]

Hello. My Nigerian husband has the two year conditional green card and is waiting for his removal of conditions. He has been offered a great job abroad in Qatar for three years. He might be able to travel home to visit us every few months. My question is how much time does he need to.spend living in USA in order to maintain his residancy and ultimately gain American citizenship? How often should he fly home to.see.us? Can he take.the job in Qatar while waiting for his green card is still processsing? What will he need to travel back and forth to Qatar?

First, I would not even worry about how this affects citizenship and concentrate on how to do this without loosing his LPR status. I will assume that he receives his 10 year GC before leaving, but that is not a real issue as he could travel on the 2 year GC and pickup the 10 year GC when it arrives on one of his trips to the US. The issue is for him to maintain ties to the US. It sounds like you staying in the US. Staying in the US will actually help him maintain ties to the US in the form of family, residence, and filing taxes. This can be done in a couple of ways. One would be to get a re-enrty permit and re-enter before it expires in 2 years and then finish out the third year by making visits to the US. The other is to make return visits to the US to visit his family. This should be done as much as possible and with documentation that he has a temporary job overseas and his family and residence are in the US. As long as he shows that his intent is to work for only 3 years and then return to the US the CBP should let him back into the US--it is all about proper documentation.

Good luck,

Dave

Edited October 9, 2012 by Dave&Roza

[ProudAfrican 5]

Hello. My Nigerian husband has the two year conditional green card and is waiting for his removal of conditions. He has been offered a great job abroad in Qatar for three years. He might be able to travel home to visit us every few months. My question is how much time does he need to.spend living in USA in order to maintain his residancy and ultimately gain American citizenship? How often should he fly home to.see.us? Can he take.the job in Qatar while waiting for his green card is still processsing? What will he need to travel back and forth to Qatar?

Hello,

Dave&Rosa is right...But i will advice you address USCIS for help.Immigration laws is funny and you might not know for sure what exactly they said in the Acts...He can't not stay away for more than 12 months or else he would lose his status and if he can be traveling and visiting the family frequently that would be ok but could affect him in the future if he decide to apply for citizenship.Call USCIS...

[RANNK1 8]

Will he always need a reentry permit to return to USA? Some people are telling me that he has to live at least 6 months of the year in USA on order to keep permanent residence. I was thinking that if I stay in USA for now until he is a us citizen that will help a lot. Also I have a joint custody of my daughter from a previous marriage and can't just leave her and go live in Qatar.

[Little_My 463]

He can apply for a re-entry permit, which will protect his greencard status for up to two years spent abroad. Without the re-entry permit, it is not advisable for him to be gone for more than 6 months at a time, and anything beyond 12 months of continuous absences from the US will most likely result in his greencard being revoked due to him having abandoned his permanent resident status. If he does not get the GC, he also cannot live in Qatar for 3 years, just popping in the US every 5-6 months or so for a couple of weeks - this can work for a brief, clearly temporary stay abroad, but not for three years.

If he does get the re-entry permit, while it will protect his permanent resident status, it will zero his citizenship clock, and in terms of his eligibility for naturalization he will start from zero once he returns to the US.

[ndu26 114]

As long as he can come in three times a year you guys will be fine. he should just not stay our for more than six months at a time.

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

He will end up basically resetting his citizenship clock so all the time he has spent here is gone. There is also a chance that they will take the whole card away. Residence is defined as living in the US which in legal speak means more time here than anywhere else. The arguement that his family is here and he is just working out of the US could fall either way. They could say the HE isn't residing in the US. Frequent ( as in every other month at least ) might be a good counter but 2 -3 visits a year probably aren't going to do it. Is the job that great that he wants to be separated from you ?

Edited October 20, 2012 by NigeriaorBust

[LIFE'SJOURNEY 970]

He can apply for a re-entry permit, which will protect his greencard status for up to two years spent abroad. Without the re-entry permit, it is not advisable for him to be gone for more than 6 months at a time, and anything beyond 12 months of continuous absences from the US will most likely result in his greencard being revoked due to him having abandoned his permanent resident status. If he does not get the GC, he also cannot live in Qatar for 3 years, just popping in the US every 5-6 months or so for a couple of weeks - this can work for a brief, clearly temporary stay abroad, but not for three years.

If he does get the re-entry permit, while it will protect his permanent resident status, it will zero his citizenship clock, and in terms of his eligibility for naturalization he will start from zero once he returns to the US.

This was the best advise and the most resonable option given. Just poping back in every 6 months is like playing a game with his immigration status.

[mujdxb 0]

Is it six working months? i read it somewhere just want to check...