Applying for parents

[murmur]

I was trying to get a quick answer for this question but was not able to find one.

SO I will be applying for my parents GC this week, here is the confusion, they already have 5 year valid visitors visa and are not too keen to get the US citizenship. Their biggest concern is that once they get the GC does that mean that they are going to need to come here every 6 months or is it a year.

I thought you can not be out of the country for more than a year but somebody told me its 6 months????

thoughts??

[Triple Citizen]

If they do not intend to live in the US, why are you bothering to sponsor them for GCs?

Originally Posted by murmur

. Their biggest concern is that once they get the GC does that mean that they are going to need to come here every 6 months or is it a year.

[Jackolantern]

Originally Posted by murmur

I thought you can not be out of the country for more than a year but somebody told me its 6 months????

More than six months outside the US but less than a year, and the burden is on you to prove you didn't intend to abandon your US residence. More than a year, and you're basically screwed unless you have a reentry permit or a returning resident visa.

If they apply for a green card, it will hurt their ability to renew their tourist visa while it is in process, and possibly cause problems even when they visit with their existing visa. So I would advise against going ahead with it if they don't plan to actually live in the US.

As far as citizenship is concerned, the green card is not equivalent to citizenship, nor does having one come with an obligation to apply for citizenship. So if their problem is that they don't want US citizenship, that shouldn't stop them from applying for a green card. But if their problem is that they don't want to spend the majority of every year living in the US, they should not apply.