reentry permit

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marie7711

Registered Users (C)
Hi all.
I need some serious advice please. I am a conditional resident and have filed to jointly remove the conditions 4 months ago (case received and pending, I have NOA extending my status for 1 year and bio was done). Since becoming a CR, I have left the US one time (just 10 days), so I have been in the US for over 2 years now. My husband is deployed to Iraq for 1 year and I am very homesick as I have no other family in the US (my husband has no contact with his family, and I am very close with mine, but my parents are old and it would be hard for them to visit me in the US). To sum up, I would like to return to my country for 8-12 months to be with my family while my husband is in Iraq. I understand I need to apply for reentry permit to be able to come back to the US. The problem is, my case for removal of conditions is still pending and god knows when it will be aproved. So if I leave the US with my expired GC (expired in december 07), NOA and reentry permit, will I be allowed to get back to the US in dec 08? I am eligible to file for citizenship in september of this year, however, if I leave the US for 8-12 months, I understand I will break my continuous residency requirement, and therefore will not be able to file for citizenship. Correct? What should I do? Please help. Thank you.
 
You are correct - if you leave the US for 9-12 months, there is a high probability you will have broken continuous residence, and thus be required to wait at least 2yrs+1day from the date of your return. (This is similar to the 4yr+1day rule for 5yr applicants.)
 
Where is your JAG office? You should contact them or an immigration attorney to verify your eligibility. After the Sep 11 aftermath, the law change facilitating the living of military/US gov spouses as long their spouses are in active duty/contract by USgov, deployed/or due to US work for at least 1 year overseas and the spouse (you) is currently US permanent resident...you could be eligible for citizenship. Please check this ASAP!!!

Contact your JAG office (their should be a JAG liason at least in his unit)

"Spouses of U.S. Citizens Deployed Abroad

If you are married to a U.S. citizen who is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces and your citizen spouse is or will be deployed abroad by the Armed Forces for one year, you may be eligible for expedited naturalization under section 319(b) of the INA. For more information, please refer to the USCIS handbook, "A Guide to Naturalization" (page 22)."


Print out the booklet since page 22 will send you to actually to page 20 where the charts starts:
http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/M-476.pdf

Good luck!
 
Expedited citizenship is only granted in the case where the applicant is going to be living abroad with the USC spouse for at least 1 year. If the GC holder is to remain behind in the US (as in this case), there is no possibility of expediting more quickly than the regular 3yr route.
 
another question

What if I leave the US only for 5 months, let's say from april-august, come back to US in august, am i then still eligible to file for citizenship in September right after I come back or I do need to wait a certain time before I can apply? Thank you.
 
You are eligible to apply for N-400 90 days prior to the 3yr anniversary of your GC (assuming applying based on marriage), and as single trip of 5 months will not break continuous residence.
 
Couple questions stem from this for me...non-military person here...

If 5 months doesn't break the continuous residency, what is the point in filing for a re-entry permit (I-131) which lets you stay out of the country for up to a year??? Seems like a trick.

Also is it advisable then to wait until you can apply for N-400 and then leave the country for 12 months (if needed)?

We are in a similar case and wanting to go to my wife's country to be with her parents and help them out for up to 12 month period. We are now eligible to apply for N-400. Should we apply now and then leave after applying for I-131? (We have already applied for I-131).
 
As far as I understand.....you don't need to file for reentry permit if you are going to be out of the US for up to 6 months, however, if you are going to be gone between 6 and 12 months, you CAN file for it just to be on the safe site and also so you have proof that you didn't abandon your permanent residency. Anything from more than 1 year out of the US, you definately need to file for reentry permit in order to be able to come back.

5 months won't break continuos residency, but anything between 6-12 months MOST LIKELY will regardless of having reentry permit or not. The burden of proof is on you.

Not sure what to tell you about citizenship. I am having similar problems, my I-751 hasn't been aproved yet and I am not sure if I should leave before it gets aproved. According to Vermont, it now takes up to 10 months.....
 
Thanks for the info. So you don't need a reentry permit if you stay less than 6 months...but you need a reentry permit if staying out of the country more than 6 months...BUT most likely will break continuous residency? What is the purpose of reentry permit then? just to waste money but HOPE that maybe because you spent the money on it, they will let you keep it as continuous residency? Seems like we wasted money on the reentry permit if this is the case...

I thought the whole reason for doing the reentry permit was to prevent continuous residency if longer than 6 months.
 
You can always file an N-470 to preserve your continuous residency for Natz purposes. which will be broken, with any trips past 180 days.
 
Continuous residency for Naturalization purposes

AND

Permanent Resident Status,

Are two different things.

If you leave the USA for longer than 1 year, without a re-entry permit (i-131), you will lose your permanent resident status. That permit, however, does not guarantee you that your "continuous residency for natz" will remain intact. Which means if you leave for more than 1 year, you will probably have to file for Natz using the 2+1 or 4+1 rules.
 
Got it...I didn't catch that. Thanks. What STILL baffles me is that they mention < 6 months case and > 1 year cases...Here is the guide to naturalization:
If you leave the United States for more than 6 months, but less than 1 year, you have broken or disrupted your continuous residence unless you can prove otherwise.

Then, on the I-131, it states:
If you stay outside the United States for less than one year, you are not required to apply for a reentry permit.You may reenter the United States on your Permanent Resident Card (Form I-551).

We were planning on staying in my wife's country just under a year. So it seems we wasted money on the I-131? No matter what, after 6 months, you break your continuous residency?

It gets so confusing because the next paragraph in the instructions for I-131 states:
If you intend to apply in the future for naturalization,absences from the United States for one year or more will generally break the continuity of your required continuous residence in the United States.

...making you think that first off, it says generally...meaning, some can still apply for naturalization even though they stayed more than a year out of the country. If that's the case, since we're staying over 6 months but less than 12 months, we thought we wouldn't break continuous residency.
 
I looked into that but it seems N-470 is only if employment takes you abroad? Can my wife still apply just for the reason of taking care of her parents?

Another thing I thought about is to just leave the country in 2 increments. 5.5month increments...coming back to the US for a brief visit and leaving again. Would this work in preserving the continuous residency?
 
I believe N-470 works only if a US based company sends you abroad for a period of time.

5.5 months trips.............may work or may not. From what I have read, some people succeed in preserving continuous residency this way, and some don't. It all depends on what kind of immigration officer you get at the port of entry and later at the naturalization interview. These cases seem to be under the discretion of the particular I. officer.

Please correct me if I'm wrong...anybody.....?
 
marie7711 said:
I believe N-470 works only if a US based company sends you abroad for a period of time.

5.5 months trips.............may work or may not. From what I have read, some people succeed in preserving continuous residency this way, and some don't. It all depends on what kind of immigration officer you get at the port of entry and later at the naturalization interview. These cases seem to be under the discretion of the particular I. officer.

Please correct me if I'm wrong...anybody.....?
Click to expand...

You are correct.
 
Ok. At this point since our travel plans need to happen, we will try that method and come back once during our stay there.

Thanks again for the responses. It has been much help.

PraetorianXI, not to be spoiled but you think you can also look at the post to ask any questions where I asked you an additional question? :P
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Junk240sx,

one last question. Did your wife's I-751 get approved yet? If not, are you going to leave the country before it gets approved?
 
PreaetorianXI, sorry, which question was that an answer to? These were the questions I still had:
So if we file for her citizenship now (M-476), would the continuous residency count stop from the day that application is received or do they continue to monitor is until it is approved?

Also, being that we are leaving the country very soon, will there be a chance that while we are in my wife's native country that we will be called in for anything? It will be pretty hard to make any appointments if we are not in the country. :P

You said I should be worried that we haven't gotten a reply from our application to remove conditional status. Is there anything we should be doing to figure out what's wrong? And can you elaborate a bit more about "if you file N-400 this will FORCE the I-751 to be adjudicated/approved"? Any bad outcomes from filing N-400 now before conditional status is removed?

Marie7711:
Yes, we were planning on leaving before the I-751 got approved but was under the assumption that as long as the I-131 was submitted that was ok. Are we mistaken? Our I-751 application was filed in Feb '07 and still pending so we're not sure what in the world is going on with it. :(
 
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