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New Green Card Holders. Maintaining LPR Status. Please Help!

O

olilio

Member
Hi Everyone!

My husband and I won the green card lottery DV2023 and received our green cards a couple of months ago. I had a question regarding filing taxes in the USA as new green card holders, made a Reddit post a couple of days ago, and received a few comments that made me worry about my LPR status. I then made another post and received more comments that made me nervous.

Currently residing in Canada as Canadian citizens, we are preparing to relocate to the US in a few months. In October 2023, we entered the US to activate our visas and obtain our green cards, now indicating, "Permanent residents since XX October 2023." My husband asked his employer to make a transfer from Canada to the USA but got fired. I still continue working for my Canadian employer. Both of us, being Software Developers, are actively sending out resumes for job opportunities in the US. I've had interviews with four companies, but haven’t received any offers yet. When contacted, we explain that we are still in Canada and would like to move upon securing an offer. Everyone has reacted positive and continued their usual interview process with us.

When we received our immigration visas, we had a plan:
  1. Activate the visas by entering the US promptly due to their expiration.
  2. Return to Canada for a few additional months to job hunt in the US while residing in Canada. This step also involves finding accommodation in the US and giving notice to my Canadian employer.
  3. Move to the US within a few months after activating the visas. Our goal is to maintain our LPR status. We are actively pursuing job opportunities, aiming for relocation by April 2024. Actually, we will be moving by the end of Feb, 100%.
However, some comments on my Reddit post have raised concerns. Suggestions were made that we need to return to the US as soon as possible to avoid losing our LPR status. We never planned to stay outside the US for more than 6 months but people say that we need to return ASAP (we've been outside for 2.5 months).

I acknowledge the necessity of filing I-131 for a re-entry permit if planning to stay outside the US for over a year, which does not apply to our case. Yet, I'm curious whether leaving for, let's say, 5 months without attempting to establish residency could pose a problem in maintaining our LPR status.

Consider a couple of scenarios:
  1. An individual becomes an LPR, resides in the US for a certain period of time, and then temporarily leaves for, let's say, 6 months, before returning. This should not pose an issue, right?
  2. Now, our situation: We don't intend to stay outside the US for more than 6 months, but we haven't yet established ties in the US. We activated our visas and left the US within 2-3 hours of entering. Is our case different from scenario 1? Should we establish some ties in the US before departing for a few months?
If anyone was in a similar position, your advice would be greatly appreciated. I want to clarify that we have no intention of living in two countries at the same time. We made our decision to move to the USA a long time ago. We’d like to move to the US ASAP but our objective was to secure jobs in the US before moving. Without employment and lacking a credit history in the US, finding housing will be challenging. Additionally, we’d need to pay for our medical insurance out of pocket, if we have no job.

Now I am not sure what to do because those comments made me super worry, and I am thinking of leaving everything behind and running to the airport right now. Being outside the US for 2.5 months, are we in a dangerous position already?

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and leaving a comment. Dear @Sm1smom @Britsimon , I would really appreciate if you'd share your thoughts.
 
Slow down. Take a couple of deep breaths. As of now, you’ve not done anything to jeopardize your LPR status, you therefore do not need to jump on the next available flight back to the US. It is quite common for most DV based LPRs to return to their original country for up to one year to tie up loose ends before making the final relocation. CBP officers understand that. While I haven’t clicked and read through your Reddit posts, I reassure you, you can ignore the alarming responses you got there.

Yes you may be questioned at the POE when you do return as to why you’ve been away, just calming respond by saying you went back to tie up loose ends which was necessary given the quick nature of how your GC came about, and that you’re now back to stay. You don’t need to go into any long explanations (like you did above) about trying to get a job from outside the US and all what not.

Also remember to do your US tax filing on your 2023 annual income, even though the income was earned in Canada. You became a LPR in 2023, so the income needs to be reported.
 
Hi @Sm1smom ! Thank you for commenting. What you say makes total sense, I had the same understanding; however, I was concerned because of the alarming comments on Reddit. We'll be moving within a couple of weeks anyway. Thanks again.
 
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