Unique Continuous Residency situation – please help!

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sophsoph

New Member
Need your urgent help, currently I am outside US, if the below plan does not work, I need to make plan to travel back to US in 2 weeks. thanks in advance!

I am a green card holder since May 2005. In the last 39 months, I stayed 28 months in US, and only been out of country for 11 months with multiple trips. Now I am facing an unusual family situation, which will force me, in the next 2 years, to spend most of time outside of US.

In order to apply the citizenship, I plan to keep each of my future trips less than 4-5 months, and come back to US stay 1-2 months between trips. Meanwhile, my husband, holding green card same as me, does plan to stay in US with his permanent job in next 2 years, so I should have no issue showing my intention to stay in US.

Do you guys see any issues with my plan? Do the following items risk my green card, and/or jeopardize my Consistent Residency requirement?

1) I will have couple back-to-back 4~5 months trips with only 1~2 months in between.
2) I will stay 9 months (totaled with multiple trips) outside US in calendar year 2008, and likely do the same in 2009. Does this break my Continuous Residency record, and in turn forfeit my previous 27 months stay in US?

Thank you in advance for all your help!!!!

Here is detail of my travel record.

5/2005 - 1/2006 -- 242 days in US
1/2006 - 2/2006 -- 27 days outside US
2/2006 - 4/2007 -- 400 days in US
4/2007 - 9/2007 -- 174 days outside US
9/2007 - 1/2008 -- 122 days in US
1/2008 - 6/2008 -- 153 days outside US
6/2008 - 8/2008 -- 56 days in US
8/2008 - ?? -- currently outside US, plan to be back in 12/2008
 
So you plan to be outside the US for a total of 16-20 months out of 2 years. If you can stay for 1-2 months (and not just 1-2 weeks) in between your trips, with your husband and house/apartment in the US all along, you green card should be OK, but you definitely are risking naturalization denial by doing that. You can still get approved depending on how well you present your case and how the interviewer evaluates it, but none of us can tell you for sure what will happen.

Suppose we told you, with supporting evidence to prove it, that you will 100% be denied naturalization if you stay outside of the US like that. You would still go ahead with your travel plans anyway, right? So go ahead and do what you're going to do, and deal with the naturalization issue when the time comes. Whatever happens will happen. If they say you broke continuous residence, you can rebuild it in the years afterwards.
 
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I think you might have you GC abandoned.
What you you going to do in that country?
Study?
Work?
What status do you have in that country?
The same questions about your husband.

Do you have other members in your family?
Where are they going to stay?
 
180 days rule?

Thank you all for your kindly reply!

Like said, my situation is purely due to family obligation. I could try to stay more time in US, however I am afraid I would have to spend at least 5-6 months outside in a year.
My next question would be… Does it make any material difference if I stay accumulatively <6 months or 10 months outside US in a calendar year?
Someone told me that 180-days is a magic number, I have to limit my total stay in a year to 180 days to be on the safe side. Can someone comment on this?
If <180 is real safe number, I could probably scratch myself to meet it in order to secure my citizenship application. If staying <180 days also puts me under risk, and makes little difference than being out 300 days in a year, I would rather take this bigger risk in order to take care of my family.

To answer Reavsky question... I still have citizenship in the country I am going to stay. It is not for work or study, but for family matters. I own a small business in US, and might start a branch there since I will be spending significant time there. I have a daughter born in US, she is with me outside of US, attending a international school there.
 
The issue is that continuous residency is not a black and white subject.

For a SINGLE trip, spending less than 6 months outside the US does not break your continuous residence, whereas a trip lasting between 6 to 12 months is presumed to break residence. However there is nothing formally written for MULTIPLE trips to the same destination. On the face of it, that should mean you would be safe following your plan as outlined, however in practice, you run afoul of the "intent" laws and are likely to be denied. (By this, I mean that you might be deemed to have shown insufficient intent to maintain a US residence, and be denied on those grounds.)

Recent report from people with approved N-400 cases seem to suggest USCIS is open to the idea of people being temporarily abroad for longish periods provided they are taking care of family medical issues, or undertaking overseas study. That might be good news, but ultimately the decision rests with the IO, and some take a harder line than others.

FWIW, I think your strategy is flawed. Whilst I doubt you'll have much problem with retaining your GC, I do think it places a significantly higher risk on your short term ability to naturalize.
 
sophsoph said:
Need your urgent help, currently I am outside US, if the below plan does not work, I need to make plan to travel back to US in 2 weeks. thanks in advance!

I am a green card holder since May 2005. In the last 39 months, I stayed 28 months in US, and only been out of country for 11 months with multiple trips. Now I am facing an unusual family situation, which will force me, in the next 2 years, to spend most of time outside of US.

In order to apply the citizenship, I plan to keep each of my future trips less than 4-5 months, and come back to US stay 1-2 months between trips. Meanwhile, my husband, holding green card same as me, does plan to stay in US with his permanent job in next 2 years, so I should have no issue showing my intention to stay in US.

Do you guys see any issues with my plan? Do the following items risk my green card, and/or jeopardize my Consistent Residency requirement?

1) I will have couple back-to-back 4~5 months trips with only 1~2 months in between.
2) I will stay 9 months (totaled with multiple trips) outside US in calendar year 2008, and likely do the same in 2009. Does this break my Continuous Residency record, and in turn forfeit my previous 27 months stay in US?

Thank you in advance for all your help!!!!

Here is detail of my travel record.

5/2005 - 1/2006 -- 242 days in US
1/2006 - 2/2006 -- 27 days outside US
2/2006 - 4/2007 -- 400 days in US
4/2007 - 9/2007 -- 174 days outside US
9/2007 - 1/2008 -- 122 days in US
1/2008 - 6/2008 -- 153 days outside US
6/2008 - 8/2008 -- 56 days in US
8/2008 - ?? -- currently outside US, plan to be back in 12/2008
Click to expand...

I had a similar situation and I naturalized last month. Please search the forum for my posts on continuous residency and you'll get relevant information. Your case might actually be stronger because your husband will be in the US and you are planning to spend up to 1-2 months inside the US between your visits abroad.
 
sophsoph said:
Thank you all for your kindly reply!

Like said, my situation is purely due to family obligation. I could try to stay more time in US, however I am afraid I would have to spend at least 5-6 months outside in a year.
My next question would be… Does it make any material difference if I stay accumulatively <6 months or 10 months outside US in a calendar year?
Someone told me that 180-days is a magic number, I have to limit my total stay in a year to 180 days to be on the safe side. Can someone comment on this?
If <180 is real safe number, I could probably scratch myself to meet it in order to secure my citizenship application. If staying <180 days also puts me under risk, and makes little difference than being out 300 days in a year, I would rather take this bigger risk in order to take care of my family.
Click to expand...
I don't know about "180 days" per se ... but if you are spending more time inside the US every year than outside, and no trip is over 6 months, you are almost certainly safe as far as residence issues are concerned. If you limit your trips outside to a total of under 26 weeks every 12 months, while keeping your house/apartment and husband in the US, it will be extremely hard for them to concoct a reason to deny you on the basis of continuous residence.
 
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