I have green card, family's returned/surrendered. Now what happens?

S

shekhar63

Registered Users (C)
Hi there,
I am a physician and received US Green Card, EB1 category. Just to cut long story short.
March 2004 - Received US Green card for me and family.
May 2005 - Moved to USA with family.
May 2006 - Family (wife and children) moved back to India. I will be in US, till
finishing my residency in June 2008.
May 2007 - The green card of family (wife and 2 children aged 14 and 9) returned/surrendered to US Consulate in Mumbai.

My question to the helpful guys here is as follows:
1. When can I apply for US Citizenship? I have been for almost 30 months.
2. My son is 14. If he wants to come to US for higher studies (University), can I apply for a green card for him at that time, provided I am citizen at that time?
I will appreciate your help/advice/suggestion in this matter.
Thanks.
Shekhar
 
shekhar63 said:
1. When can I apply for US Citizenship? I have been for almost 30 months.
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Four years and nine months after becoming a permanent resident.

My son is 14. If he wants to come to US for higher studies (University), can I apply for a green card for him at that time, provided I am citizen at that time?
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I imagine you could try for FTJ for him, even without being a citizen.
 
TheRealCanadian said:
I imagine you could try for FTJ for him, even without being a citizen.
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That might not be possible, given that his son already got a green card as a dependent linked to the original case and has since surrendered it. I don't think you can reuse the same primary case to bring the same dependent a second time.
 
TheRealCanadian said:
I've never heard of anything that prevents it. He's not linked to a "case", he's linked to the alien.
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For derivative applicants, the dependent is most definitely linked to the case. The dependent must have been a spouse or child of the primary applicant before the I-485 was approved, and the dependent cannot file I-485 until the priority date of the primary applicant is current. A child born or adopted after the I-485 is approved cannot enter the US except under certain additional conditions, and a spouse married after I-485 approval has to go through a separate family-based category instead of tagging along with the primary applicant. Those aspects are very case-dependent.

Filing a fresh I-130 and I-485 for the spouse or child is a different matter ... the dependent then gets his/her own priority date and family category, and the sponsor becomes the spouse or parent instead of the employer or relative of the primary.

This business of giving up and refiling green cards, and applying for citizenship while one's family is outside the US, makes things a bit convoluted and I would advise the original poster to seek advice from a lawyer instead of anonymous message boards. Not necessarily to spend thousands to have the lawyer handle the case, but to seek a consultation or two to figure out a strategy for what he wants to do.

Anyway, if follow to join cannot work, provided that the poster obtains citizenship before his son gets married or turns 21 he can file for his son as an immediate relative of a US citizen and get a green card for his son (via consular processing) in less than a year (if there are no unexpected delays in the case).
 
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Hello everybody,
Thank you very much for taking time to reply to my post. Things have become so complicated, I think, a lawyer's consultation seems the only way out.
By the way, thank you very much for your valuable advice.
Shekhar
 
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