No Title
It\'s a long and complicated story. Hopefully, it will be useful to somebody on this board - so here goes ...
I got my GC first in 1990, then got caught in the last great recession (it\'s scary how similiar the conditions nowadays are to those times!), and then went back to India, which is where I come from. Meanwhile, I got married - and spent the next several years shuttling between the US and India - unfortunately, my wife and son got onto the long wait because I had sponsored them - so I had to spend part of the year here alone and part of the year with them in India, and later, Australia where I moved. Also, there was the constant tension about making sure that I visited here at least once a year, and being afraid of what the INS would do every time I entered.
In 1999, I lost patience and surrendered my GC and came with my family to the US on a H1, which I later converted to an L1. Surrendering the GC itself is a straightforward process - I was living in Australia at that time - so I went to the US consulate in Melbourne, filled out a simple form and gave them my GC. They basically ask you several times whether you are sure about wanting to do it - I suppose to satisfy themselves that I was not out of my mind
- and then give you back the form with a photocopy of the GC on it. They issued me the H1 visa simultaneously.