Question from a US resident living abroad

[vikadeva]

I will appreciate an advice.

I am a US greencard holder, got greencard through lottery. I lived in the US for three years, and I am currently living in Europe where I came to join my husband. I know that if I intend to apply for a citizenship I need to come and stay in the US for a month every six months to continue my residency. Is there any way around it?

Also, do i need to collect any evidence of me being in the US for a certain period of time, or is this information registered somewhere anyway every time I cross the border? If I need to collect evidence, what can it be?

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[Jackolantern]

I will appreciate an advice.

I am a US greencard holder, got greencard through lottery. I lived in the US for three years, and I am currently living in Europe where I came to join my husband. I know that if I intend to apply for a citizenship I need to come and stay in the US for a month every six months to continue my residency. Is there any way around it?

You need to come back every six months to maintain your green card (unless you have a re-entry permit, which allows staying away for up to two years), but that won't maintain residence for citizenship purposes. See post 31 of this thread: http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?p=1763477#post1763477

If you have spent over a year outside the US with only short stays in the US, you break continuous residence and your citizenship clock will be restarted when you start really living in the US again.

Also, do i need to collect any evidence of me being in the US for a certain period of time, or is this information registered somewhere anyway every time I cross the border? If I need to collect evidence, what can it be?

Every time you use your green card at an airport, your arrival is registered. But at some land and sea-based ports of entry, it might not be. Since 9/11, USCIS also gets a passenger list of everybody who flies in or out of the US.

You simply have to reconstruct your dates of presence in the US based on memory, passport stamps, boarding passes, etc. and tell the truth. USCIS doesn't know 100% who was in or out of the country at any given time, but you don't know how much they know or don't know about your travels.

 

[Amerikanus]

I am a US greencard holder, got greencard through lottery. I lived in the US for three years, and I am currently living in Europe where I came to join my husband. I know that if I intend to apply for a citizenship I need to come and stay in the US for a month every six months to continue my residency. Is there any way around it?

That's wrong.

You should be living and maintaining residence in the U.S. , not for naturalization, but also in order to keep your green card valid. Coming for one month every six months is not enough. If you stay more that one year outside of the U.S. you may get you green card taken from you at airport upon your arrival, and yourself being deported (sent back) to where you came from.

CIS has a list of reasons why a green card holder may be absent from U.S. for longer than one year, e.g. studying abroad, being sick, etc. You would need to obtain a reentry permit if you stay outside of U.S. for a long time.

As for citizenship, the basic rule of thumb is that you need to live for five years in the U.S. before applying for naturalization.

Also, do i need to collect any evidence of me being in the US for a certain period of time, or is this information registered somewhere anyway every time I cross the border?

The information about your coming and leaving does get registered with CIS. When you depart, you give your green card to airline company rep, who scans it. The scanned info goes into passenger list called manifest, which gets sendt to various law enforcement agencies including CIS. When you arrive and come to the immigration officer for inspection, he scans your green card and verifies its validity online, while also making a record of your arrival in CIS database. If you get called into CBP room for whatever reason, all information about your trips can pulled out from CIS computers. I know that for once I was taken for questioning at JFK when I flew in there, and immigration interrogator asked me about every one of my recent trips, citing when and where I was going to.

You however should collect your itinerary information on your own..
Most people keep the airfare tickets and boarding passes. If you use e-tickets, don't forget to make a printed hard-copy of every e-ticket, because once e-ticket is used up, it's info is not available online anymore.

Same for bus or train.

If you travel by car, you may consider keeping cash receipts issued by some state authority. Also, highway toll statements are useful.

 

[boatbod]

I know that if I intend to apply for a citizenship I need to come and stay in the US for a month every six months to continue my residency.

Whoever told you that is rather uninformed. US citizenship is normally only conferred on genuine lawful permanent residents, and USCIS IOs have a sixth sense for spotting people who live abroad and only "visit" the US as a means to circumvent the rules.

Read USCIS's M-476 Guide to Naturalization and familiarize yourself with the basic criteria. Then move back to the US and start working on your continuous residency.

 

[uhbiv]

Let me try to re-phrase it from what every body els ehas said:
You are thinking how many days you need be in the US to maintain PR.
USCIS looks for how many days you were'nt here between entries.
Bottom line you should not be out of the US for more than 6 months at a time and between your GC and applying for your naturalization, you should have stayed 1500 odd days in the US.

 

[BOHEME]

how about if I travel to U.S say every 8 months with GC and stay in 10 days
and repeat this kind of trip two years timeframe
will they still take my GC away ?

 

[Amerikanus]

how about if I travel to U.S say every 8 months with GC and stay in 10 days
and repeat this kind of trip two years timeframe
will they still take my GC away ?

They may. It's up to the friendly immigration officer who greats you at the airport each time you come in.
The main thing to remember is that it's your burden to prove that you maintain your resident status; it's not theirs to prove otherwise. Time is not the only factor. Besides being physically present, you have to live in the U.S. i.e. live, work, or study etc

 

[vikadeva]

Trying to clarify...

Thank you very much for your feedback! It is very helpful.

However, I remember my friend sending me a link to a government website telling smth like after I get a greencard I need to live in the US for a minimum of 2 years (I lived there 3 years, appr. 1080 days), and that if I intend to continue my residency, and therefore, obtain citizenship, I may not be absent from the country for more then 6 month, and to stay in the country for at least 1 month every time I come.

(I probably need to find back this link instead of bugging people on the forum , but immigration laws are very complicated and I feel I need some help to make sure I understand everyting ok).

I also have a special reason to be abroad: my husband is a non US citizen and he is working in Europe, do you think it would also count towards my right to keep a greencard and possibility of US citizenship?

Thanks again!

 

[Jackolantern]

I also have a special reason to be abroad: my husband is a non US citizen and he is working in Europe, do you think it would also count towards my right to keep a greencard and possibility of US citizenship?

That actually counts against you. The combination of taking long trips overseas and being married to a non-US citizen who works abroad is an indicator that you intend to live outside the US indefinitely.

To safely preserve your citizenship eligibility clock, you need to be in the US about 6 months out of every 12 month period. Otherwise, you would be spending more time outside than inside the US over the course of a year or more, which then puts things in the immigration officer's discretion whether they want to decide that you have broken continuous residence.

Read the Guide To Naturalization (download from http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/M-476.pdf). In your case, you need to accumulate 2.5 years of physical presence in the 5-year period prior to applying for citizenship. You also need 5 years of continuous residence leading up to the point in time of applying, and that continuous residence additionally needs to be maintained from when you apply until when you are granted citizenship.

You can get a re-entry permit to preserve your green card for up to 2 years while outside the US. However, continuous residence for naturalization has stricter criteria than for maintaining the green card, and the re-entry permit won't preserve your continuous residence for naturalization. Your citizenship clock will restart when you finally return to the US (but you would only have to redo 4 years and 1 day of continuous residence instead of a whole 'nother 5 years).

I assume you plan to bring your husband with you to the US? For that, citizenship is extremely important because with only a green card the process would take about 5 years. If you want things to go as smoothly and quickly as possible, my suggestion would be to spend no more than 6 months out of any 12-month period outside the US. You already have 3 years of continuous residence; apply for citizenship when you reach the 5 years minus 90 days point. Citizenship should then take 4-8 months (maybe a little more or less if you are lucky/unlucky), after which you can file for a green card or K visa for your husband which takes another few months to get approved. Otherwise, spending more and more time outside the US risks delaying your citizenship eligibility, which in turn delays your ability to bring your husband to the US.