Told to surrender US green card.

fiz.sidd

Registered Users (C)
Hi,
i am a pakistani national.i became a permanent resident of us in feb 2008. I got married to a guy in canada and went to canada on immigration applied by my husband.so right now i am a pakistani national,a permanent resident of us and canada.
I went to usa last month and they asked me to surrender on of the permanent resident card and decide once where i want to live.i am back in canada and still have my pr card of both countries. If i stay in canada for 3 yrs and get canadian citizenship, will us allow me to keep my us pr? Or do i have to surrender us pr anyhow?
 
If you already had Canadian citizenship, you could keep it as long as you want without causing a problem for your green card. But in your case, staying in Canada and keeping your Canadian PR for a long enough time to obtain Canadian citizenship will probably result in your US green card being canceled.

If you surrender the green card, it will be easy for you to visit the US as a tourist. But if you try to use it again and then they take it away, you'll likely have problems visiting the US in the future, because your last attempt to enter was as an immigrant.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I had a similar situation. How long did you live in the US as a PR?

I think it's a tough situation. One of the grounds for losing your US PR status is establishing a permanent residence in another country.

Did they mean you have to decide and surrender one of the two immediately or you have some time to do that? Did they mean you would surrender either one of your PR cards to the authorities of either country or to the authorities of the country that issued the document.

You can perhaps try to apply for a re-entry permit for the US which would allow you to be absent from the US for up too 2 years and not lose your GC, but I don't know if they would approve it in this case, because it's probably in their notes that you have the PR status in Canada. You would have to somehow prove that you don't intend to live in Canada permanently but that you intend to live in the US.

Good luck.
 
you can really only be a permanent resident of one country at a time, both legally but also wrt your personal life style... Considering you're currently living with your husband in Canada, you're no longer a US LPR, which is perfectly fine. It seems best to give up your US GC now, before the IO rescinds your GC status on a future entry. As Jack mentioned, a rescinded GC would make future tourist entry into US much harder. With a future Canadian citizenship, travelling and even working in the US will be easier again.
 
File form I-407 at a consulate to officially surrender the GC. You can apply for a tourist visa in the same visit, which will be easy to get because surrendering the GC is a strong indicator of NOT having the intent to immigrate to the US.
 
you can really only be a permanent resident of one country at a time, both legally but also wrt your personal life style..

I can understand the lifestyle perspective, but is there an actual law (either in US or elsewhere) that explicitly states you cannot have dual permanent resident visas ?

Implicitly of course the word 'permanent resident' can be argued to mean resident of only one country. But then many countries allow dual citizenship too and that doesn't make sense.
 
I can understand the lifestyle perspective, but is there an actual law (either in US or elsewhere) that explicitly states you cannot have dual permanent resident visas ?
There is no explicit law that I know of, but acquiring permanent residence in another country is a strong indicator of having abandoned your US residence.

Implicitly of course the word 'permanent resident' can be argued to mean resident of only one country. But then many countries allow dual citizenship too and that doesn't make sense.

Dual citizenship makes more sense than dual permanent residence, as the dual citizenship says nothing about where you live.
 
As Jacko points out, its not the obtaining or having of Cdn PR that jeopardizes US PR, it is the steps required to maintain Cdn PR at the same time as trying to maintain US PR that bring about conflict.

Even a Cdn citizen returning to live full-time in canada with US GC status would be in trouble with each crossing the border into US, and the officer would ask the same pointed question as to deciding where you live. A re-entry permit would be a minimum requirement. Without this, the same surrender threat as experienced above would be likely.

If one were, at say the 4th year of US PR status, apply an recieve Cdn PR status, and then immediately move back to US (completely legal under both statuses), he could in short order apply for natz in US, and then, before the 3 years of Cdn PR has passed, return to canada, and live there the required tuime to naturalize there too.

But, short of being married to a Cdn citizen living in US, it is pretty much impossible to maintain both PR statuses and residency requirements long-term.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
you can really only be a permanent resident of one country at a time, both legally but also wrt your personal life style

A Cdn PR, living in US with a Cdn citizen spouse, legally maintains his Cdn PR status indefinitely. During this time he is quite free to obtain US PR status and meet all its requirements.

So there is no such proscription against dual PR status.
 
thanks alot guys. it is quite helpful. So what i get from this discussion is that it is better that i surrender my us pr. they have asked me to surrender at the us embassy in Canada by filling form 1-407 i guess. but the thing is that my whole family is in USA. I do not want to surrender my pr card but i think i have no choice.It is better to surrender than they cancelling it.
I have lived in us for 10 months and then came to Canada.
i have once applied for re-entry in 2008.so i have leave till July 2010.
but i just want to know that are canadian citizen allowed to keep us pr and still live in Canada? what is the point of applying for re-entry again if they would not allow me to keep my pr even if i become a Canadian citizen?
 
US does not allow dual citizenship. It only allow dual citizenship in that case when one citizenship is of the birth place.
 
US does not allow dual citizenship. It only allow dual citizenship in that case when one citizenship is of the birth place.
Wrong. You can naturalise in another country and retain the US citizenship because the US Department of State now assumes that you intend on keeping it by default.
 
I have the exact same fear. If my re-entry permit does not get approved, that's a very clear indication that if I want to save my GC I have to move to the US. If, however, the re-entry permit is approved, and I try to come to the US before it expires, is it possible that at that time they might still seize my GC, because they could make a judgment that I had abandoned my US PR status, despite the RE permit? I don't want to risk jeopardizing my chances to ever enter the US, even as a visitor or a Canadian citizen, as I also have my closest family in the US.
 
But could this be a solution?

Well - Canadian PR requires to be physically present 2 years out of 5 years.

The US PR means you have to live in the US.

What if you have a job say in Seattle and stay in Seattle during the week. But you go to visit Canada on the weekend. Could this work? ou technically satisfy Canadian residency requirements but also US residency requirements. And then once you get US citizenship you could move to Canada to acquire Canadian citizenship.

===========
Note: I am not sure this will work. I am not an attorney. I know very little about immigration laws.
 
so i can surrender my pr,get canadian citizenship thn move to us n get us?is this possible?i have pakistani.
 
Top