Advice on strategy about sponsoring parents

[jefkorn]

Say USC sponsors his and his wife's parents. Their case is approved and they get the visa stamped from embassy (assuming Consular Processing).

How long do they have before they absolutely have to travel to US?

They may not be ready to sell everything off in their native country but would like to maintain their GC until they become eligible to apply for citizenship, how can they do that? They don't have a job in their native country and are supported by the USC who sponsored them.

So they live at the US address where their USC children (sponsors) live and then go off to their native country and then travel back, how long can they be gone?

I guess I'm looking for boundary conditions here, meaning what can and can't do in order to maintain their permanent status in US and also spend time overseas.

I will have probably more questions to plan a strategy on how best to do this. I'm new to this side of the forum so bear with me as I get used to the terminology on the sponsorship side of things


You may have seen my other question posted here about what's the best way to get health insruance for older parents? That to me seems like more of deal breaker if one can't afford to buy the health insurance.

 

[jefkorn]

In terms of timelines:

1. USC files for I-130 for the parent overseas. How long does the approval take?

2. After the approval, the US embassy overseas is notified and parent is invited for interview.

3. After the interview, parent is advised whether the visa will be issues or not.

4. If the visa is issued, will there be a time limit within which the parent has to travel to US?

5. Parent lands in US, stays in US for 7 months and travels back to live with other family members.

6. Is parent considered to be maintaining residence in US becase he was living with USC and spending more time in US that overseas
and USC's primary residence will be the address where parent lived while in US. Parent's overseas trips were not more than 6 months in any year.

7. In short, a old parent who may still want to live overseas for part of the year and rest of the year wants to live in US. Has family on both sides, US and overseas. Will this be a problem in terms of mainlining permanent residence status and eligibility for naturalization at the end of 5 years?