GC Holder Staying in India over 6 months Limit

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Pachai_Tamizhan

Registered Users (C)
Hello everyone,
I am not sure whether I can ask this question here. One of my friend who is a GC holder wants to know whether his wife who is also a GC holder, can stay in India for an extended period over 6 months. He says GC holders can stay outside US for only 6 months and if they don't come within that time frame their GC would get cancelled. I would like to know the procedures to extend the stay outside US beyond the USCIS set time limit.


Appreciating your answers in advance and Thanks for all
 
There is no silver-bullet!

Pachai_Thamizha!!!

There is no silver-bullet to this question. There isn't anything in the law that says you must not reside more than 6 months outside the US. That's more of an empirical number people use to satisfy the minimum 50% of your 5-year (or 3-year, if you were married to a USC) period to apply for naturalization. So, assuming you haven't stepped out of the US for the immediate 3.5 years, you can take the rest of the 1.5 years outside the country. However, while you are still OK with regards to fulfilling the law for qualifying to apply for naturalization, any long stay outside the US can definitely bring a person under the radar-scope for abandonment of LPR status. At Port-of-Entry, the CBP officer will make that determination. So, anybody who had a long stay outside the US will have to satisfy the officer that they never abandoned or severed their connections to the US. They can do that by various means, including filing all the IRS tax-returns promptly, maintaining bank-accounts, having house in the US, job in the US etc.

The best way for an LPR to maintain status without inviting special scrutiny would be to file for an Advance Parole -- Yes, Advance Parole -- I-131 before planning to go outside the US for a long tryst in some other foreign country.
 
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