How frequent trips outside US affects Residency requirement for naturalization

[Soooocal 0]

 

This is about my fiance. 

He has become a permanent resident over 15 years ago. However, he’s spent the majority of time in Europe for the past 7-8 years for study and work. He’s come back to the states a few times (each trip lasting a few days to two months) each year during that time and his family maintained in the states the whole time(the rest of his family have become US citizens) 

My question is, 
1. Does the fact that he’s been a green card holder for a long time affect at all? 
or Should he just start counting days until he satisfies the 30 months out of 5 years requirement? 

2. He no longer has his old passport and he has traveled very frequently. How else can he find out his exact travel dates?

Edited December 12, 2018 by Soooocal

[Crazy Cat 39,261]

He can view travel history here: https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/home

 

 

[Brian&Larissa 73]

This might help you out:  https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/home

[geowrian 22,335]

1) No. The physical presence and continuous residence requirements are strictly required by law. Count the days.

2) Airline tickets? I'm not sure...I'll defer here.

 

If he's been spending that much time abroad, he's very lucky he hasn't had this green card deemed abandoned. A permanent resident is required to have their permanent residence within the US...generally spending more months in the US than out of it. Is he in the US right now? When was his last time in the US?

 

Note that I mentioned a continuous residence requirement in #1 above. It sounds like he clearly broke this and would need to return to the US to start that clock over.

 

NOTE: LPRs are not issued an I-94, so the above links likely won't show anything.

Edited December 12, 2018 by geowrian

[Brian&Larissa 73]

OOPS...@geowrian you are right!  OP you will have to go through and match up stamps in the passport, or take a well educated guess-stimate, unfortunately.  

[Soooocal 0]

38 minutes ago, geowrian said:

1) No. The physical presence and continuous residence requirements are strictly required by law. Count the days.

2) Airline tickets? I'm not sure...I'll defer here.

 

If he's been spending that much time abroad, he's very lucky he hasn't had this green card deemed abandoned. A permanent resident is required to have their permanent residence within the US...generally spending more months in the US than out of it. Is he in the US right now? When was his last time in the US?

 

Note that I mentioned a continuous residence requirement in #1 above. It sounds like he clearly broke this and would need to return to the US to start that clock over.

 

NOTE: LPRs are not issued an I-94, so the above links likely won't show anything.

He is in the states right now and his greencard has always maintained valid. Although he spent a significant amount of time abroad, his trips were never longer than 6 months. His permanent address has always been in the states. His career(music) required him to travel to many different countries.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Soooocal

[aaron2020 11,651]

7 minutes ago, Soooocal said:

He is in the states right now and his greencard has always maintained valid. Although he spent a significant amount of time abroad, his trips were never longer than 6 months. His permanent address has always been in the states. His career(music) required him to travel to many different countries.

Days of physical presence in the US matters.  You said he spends the majority of the last 7-8 years in Europe.

He needs to count days.  The burden is on him to prove that he was physically present in the US for the required number of days.

[geowrian 22,335]

1 hour ago, Soooocal said:

He is in the states right now and his greencard has always maintained valid. Although he spent a significant amount of time abroad, his trips were never longer than 6 months. His permanent address has always been in the states. His career(music) required him to travel to many different countries.

Count the days for physical presence.

 

As for continuous residency, multiple trips abroad in excess of 6 months in a year can still break this. One cannot, for example, spend 5 months abroad - return for 2 months - then go abroad for another 5 months in a year and expect to meet this criteria.

See the policy guide: https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartD-Chapter3.html

"An officer may also review whether an applicant with multiple absences of less than 6 months will be able to satisfy the continuous residence and physical presence requirements. In some cases, an applicant may not be able to establish that his or her principal actual dwelling place is in the United States or establish residence within the United States for the statutorily required period of time."

[Ontarkie 13,917]

~~Moved to US Citizenship General Discussion, from General Immigration~~