kins

1. By living abroad and being gone for more then one year am I putting my green card status in jeopardy?

2. Would I still be able to have my conditional green card status removed after the two year period and would I be able to become a USC?

I went through this. We returned to the UK so my husband could train as a teacher. The USCIS (actually it was still the INS then) told me I could apply for a year's extension to my conditional green card. I did this. I then asked if I could have another year. They said no. I asked if I could have the conditional status removed while living abroad. I was told categorically that I had to be living in the US to have the conditional status removed.

My green card expired and I had to apply for a new one when a few years later we moved back to the US.

Not what you want to hear, sorry.

I am a green card holder and leaving the US for 4 years but be coming home every 4 to 6 months and staying for only 2 weeks every time I visit my family here in the US. My concern is, do I need to file for I-131? But they only allow 2 years to be out of the country. What should I do. I need to pursue my studies for my children's future. My husband and I can't afford to send me to school here in the states. That is why I need to go back to the Philippines to take up nursing.

This is how I lost my green card. They did give me permission to leave the country for one year, but no longer.

My sister-in-law also lost her green card this way.

If you want to keep your green card then I'd look at every other option you can.

We did it using assets.

My husband was actually already in the US and earning money by the time we got to the stage of I-864, but they still weren't interested in his income because he'd only been working there a few weeks.

We were talking about this today too. Our house in the UK, which we thought of as quite big, is about 1900 square feet. THe one before that was less than 1000 square feet. We are about to move into a house that's 3000 square feet, plus it has a basement, toolstore out back, and double garage. We have three kids, so space really does make a difference. We struggled so much in a small house. It will be heaven to have a larger one...

Mine was 4 or 5 weeks I think...

When I arrived at Boston with my IR1 visa and my three USC kids (all under 7) I was told by the immigration officer that we all had to go through the non-USC line together.

When my husband had asked about it a few weeks earlier at the same airport he'd been told we should all go through the USC line together.

I think it's just how they feel on the day...

Depends on the airline -- some are very reliable.

Which one's that then?

United, never had a problem.

Ditto BA.

Last time I flew Manchester to New York on BA they didn't load enough fuel to get us there so we had to stop and refuel in Connecticut. Made us two hours late which meant we missed our connecting flight.

On our flight home we had to take a BA shuttle from Heathrow to Manchester. Should've been a 35 minute flight... it arrived three hours late because of a malfunctioning warning light, followed by a passenger collapsing due to the air conditioning not working.

Never flown United but I'd be deeply impressed if they've never had a plane arrive late somewhere?

Depends on the airline -- some are very reliable.

Which one's that then?

Anyhoo,

So it is now time for us to file the affidavit of support. I have a few questions I hope someone will help me out with.

1. I ordered my tax transcripts for the last 3 years from the IRS 3 weeks ago - no sign of them yet however I did 'confirm' they were sent - called them the other day. Anyway, has anyone just sent in a copy of their 2006 return in lieu of the transcript? I have no W2's etc to send and I have no U.S. income - so the income figure on the return is zero (will use assets).

2. Question 15. Country of Domicile - For those of you who are both living in another country did you enter '<country name>' or the 'U.S.' for Country of Domicile.

3. What did you send along to prove U.S. domicile? "You intend in good faith to reestablish your domicile in the United States no later than the date of the intending immigrant's admission or adjustment of status".

We submitted our 2006 tax return (1040) rather than a transcript. I had the 2005 and 2004 tax returns handy just in case too. We had no W2s and we also had no US income - all our income was foreign earned. We put zero in as our US income.

We had no problems.

I was about half an hour in secondary immigration. Someone official took my bags off the carousel and set them aside for me and a porter helped me get them through customs (8 bags, just me plus 3 small children to carry them).

Dread to think what they do with the bags if you're in immigration for hours though...

There was a 4-bed house almost identical to ours that sold for 199,000 in spring 2006 one street over from us, so we were thinking we could get at least 195,000. Didn't turn out that way; each house sale is individual and I guess they just got lucky because we struggled to get to 185k. In the end we took the offer because I was sick of waiting for something better and we were having trouble getting rid of the thing. There was a 3 bed house that sold for more than ours did. I didn't understand it then and don't understand it now; our house was much nicer than that house, but the housing market is just like that sometimes.

Yep and it depends on your position too. A few months ago we could be picky about who bought our house because we were still living in it. Now we are living 3000 miles away, paying rent here and a mortgage for an empty house back in the UK. We're still getting plenty of offers on the house but three buyers have fallen through and to be honest I'd take £20-30k less than the original asking price just to get the money over here now...

I've moved back and forth a few times.

UK to US just before we got married in 1999. Had no kids and had plenty of disposable income. No idea what it cost because I didn't care at the time. Took me about two weeks to find myself a job once we settled in Seattle.

US to UK a year later. Still no kids and managed to move back for less than $2000. Lived with my mother-in-law for the next year to save money. Worked freelance from home so didn't have to worry about finding jobs.

UK to US last month. Now have three kids and had to apply for another green card. Removal costs around $15,000, not counting fees for green card, and other expenses. Would never have done it if my husband hadn't already found himself a job out here. Just too scary...

It costs a lot to move with kids... I think I would stay home and try to find more jobs and till then take the assistance - that's what it's there for...

Thank you all, I'll wait a while longer before I panic!

I arrived in the US on 30th June, I thought the green card was supposed to arrive within two weeks but it's been three weeks now and nothing in the post... should I start getting worried?

I used to use 0844 861 2121, calls were a penny a minute to the US I think...

I just asked my mother-in-law to bring me the biggest box of decaff tea she can find when she visits from the UK next week. I hope it doesn't suffer the same fate!

I already abandoned my green card once when I moved back to the UK for 5 years, and it was such a hassle getting it back again. Me and my kids had to live 3500 miles apart from my husband/their dad for two months, apart from anything. I never want to do that again.

I'm DEFINITELY applying for citizenship as soon as I can. I will still be British.

I was born in Malta so I already have a couple of citizenships. My husband is American, British and Brazilian. It's no big deal.

I would be tempted to leave the majority of the money in the UK till you have a bank account in your name in the US. Till then just take enough dollars/travellers cheques to get you by, and remember you can still use your UK Visa/Mastercard/Switch card in US ATMs and shops.

When you have a bank account in the US I would use something like www.interchangefx.com to transfer the money over to your account. You open an Interchange account and get a quote from them on what rate you'll get for what sum of money, call your UK bank and instruct them to send the money to Interchange's bank account, then Interchange will deposit the US funds in your US bank account the day of the exchange.

I've no idea what the IRS does in this situation, but that way it's obvious that it's your money that you're bringing in, and your fiance doesn't have to get involved and worry about IRS issues.

Having said that, I have so far transferred £20,000 and have heard nothing from the IRS and don't know what happens next...

Does that help?

I used to live in Seattle and one time I flew in I had a NIGHTMARE with immigration.

When I first moved to America on my K1 visa I lived in Connecticut so my file was held there and a lot of processing including work permit, advance parole etc was done there.

Then I moved to Seattle and my file was moved over there.

Then I flew to the UK, then flew back to Seattle, and the immigration officer gave me half an hour of hell. He tried to tell me that I couldn't fly into Seattle with an advance parole issued in Connecticut. He had no interest in the fact that my paperwork was all perfectly legal, and that I had been through the correct process to have everything moved to Seattle.

In the end he gave up and let me in.

So watch out for immigration officers in Seattle - I'm sure most of them are fine but the one I encountered was a complete #######.

I got my green card in 2000, then moved back to the UK shortly afterwards initially for a year so my husband could do teacher training there.

I did get an extension for that year, but after that I was told if I stayed abroad I would risk losing my green card.

When the two year conditional period was up I was still in the UK, and I phoned to ask if there was any way I could get the conditional status removed from my green card if I was living in the UK and I was told absolutely no way.

I was then told if I wanted to travel to the US I needed to formally give up my green card, which I did.

I then went through the whole green card application process this year which took 6 months, cost me hundreds of pounds, and meant that my husband and I ended up having to live apart from each for two months.

If I did it again would I stay in the US or move to England and give up the green card again? No way! I would stay in the US till I had the green card, and probably till I had US citizenship, rather than go through it all again.

Jill (Macclesfield) and Mike (USC) now living in Portland Maine with our three children

I used Interchange FX too. I sent the money to them in a day which I had to pay for, but you can send them the money via BACS which takes longer but is free. They didn't charge me any fees and they transferred the money to our US account the day they received it. My own bank (First Direct) could give me a similar exchange rate, but they were going to take four days to get the money to the US.

Thank you all for your congratulations. The bags did finally arrive - only took three days It is still great to be here

Congratulations Lina, I'm so happy for you especially after all you went through to get this visa.

If I can help with questions about house selling, transferring money, moving stuff then just ask. I recently transferred some money with Interchange FX and they were very professional and fast and gave good rates. I got loads of quotes for removals and they were all very similar. Basically if you have a lot of stuff to move then it's expensive (we have a 20 foot container and it's £4500) or you can sell/give away as much stuff as possible and try to bring minimal stuff with you then start again over here (can't believe I'm saying 'over here' now!)

Good luck with it all! You've done the hard bit, feel proud of yourself

Flew to the US on Saturday 30th...

Flew Manchester to Boston with three small children, eight pieces of luggage, three carry on bags and a buggy. Check in was broken (don't ask) and at one point they wanted me to carry all my bags to the plane for them. One mini-tantrum later they dropped that idea. Needless to say some of my bags still haven't arrived two days later.

POE was dead easy. We had to go through the non-US-citizens line even though all three of my children are US citizens.

Immigration told me that my 6 year old had to sign her US passport then they asked if I'd lived in the US before - I said I had, then struggled to remember dates. He said go to secondary immigration.

We waited in secondary immigration about 10 minutes, with my kids going bonkers all over the place. Immigration officer came out and said 'Are these your kids?' to which I rolled my eyes and said 'Yes' in a 'please sympathise with me' kind of way. He asked if I'd told the US embassy in London that I'd had a green card before - duh, like I wouldn't tell them that. Also I'd put my new address on my white form that I'd filled in on the plane, so that was different to the one on my file, but that was fine.

He processed my paperwork, got me to sign something and did my fingerprint, then that was it - no 'welcome to America' but then no hassles either.

It's great to be here! My kids are loving it - they're with daddy again, the sun has been shining, we have a lovely big car and much more space in our house. The beach is nearby. The people are friendly. We don't even have particularly bad jetlag.

Thanks to everyone on here for answering my dumb questions, and I hope I can return the favour to others. Good luck to those still going through it. It is worth it...