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United States Residents Green card holders may travel out of the
country multiple times and re-enter the country, as long as they
do not intend to stay out of the U.S. for 1 year or more. If a
U.S. permanent resident (green card holder) stay abroad for more than 6 months this may
already cause suspicious of intent to abandon U.S. residency.
The travel out of the U.S. must be temporary and the green card
holder must be able to prove that he did not intend to abandon
his US Legal Permanent Residence. If a green card holder stay
outside of the U.S. for 1 year or more, or if the immigration
officer believes that a green card holder is living out of the
U.S. permanently, then the green card holder may be found
inadmissible and be denied entry into the U.S. Some exceptions
may apply for green card holders temporarily living abroad because they or
their immediate relatives work with the United States armed
forces abroad, or are civilian employees of the U.S. Government
stationed out of the country due to official orders. In this
type of cases, the spouse or child of the government or armed
forces employee must not have relinquished residence, and be
preceding or accompanying the member or employee, or be
following to join the member or employee in the USA within a few
months of his return to the country.
Even if you have a valid unexpired green card, you might be
considered out of status, for example if you abandoned your
residence in the United States and moved away to another country
abroad; also the opposite may happen, you may have an expired
green card, but still have a valid status as a legal resident of
the United States.
Re-entry Permit
Green Card holders that need to travel out of the country and
stay abroad for a long period of time may apply for a re-entry
permit before leaving the U.S. This is important to avoid having
your immigration status as a resident removed. Not being able to
prove your temporary stay abroad may result in losing your green
card. Order this guide to learn how to apply for a reentry
permit to live temporarily stay abroad with a valid green card.
Green Card holders must fulfill certain residency requirements
in order to apply for the
US citizenship, and the time
spent abroad does not count towards this requirement. However,
some residents are eligible to apply for the "Application to
Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes".
Some Green Card holders decide to live out of the U.S.
temporarily due to personal, business or employment reasons, and
some of them just leave the country and move out of the U.S.
believing that their resident status will be valid indefinitely,
but when coming back to enter the US they are asked to give up
their green card by the immigration officer at the port of entry
to the United States. This individuals lose their resident
status or green card, and when wanting to travel to the U.S.,
they would have to obtain a non-immigrant visitor visa. If in
the future they want to live again in the U.S., they will have
to go again over the complicated process of applying again for a
new green card, in some cases the condition that helped them to
apply for a green card won't be valid anymore, so they won't be
eligible to apply for a new green card. However this difficult
situation can be avoided in most cases if the green card holder
intend to come back to live in the U.S. in the future, there is
special immigration permit that can be obtained to live out of
the US temporarily and keep a green card or resident status
valid, it is called the reentry permit and is usually valid for
a maximum of two years. The green card holder can apply for a
new permit after the current permit expires. Several green card
holders are not aware of this immigration re-entry permit or
aware of the fact that they will lose their green card if moving
out of the U.S. and end up losing their green card or resident
status permanently.
For more information about how to obtain a Green Card Reentry
Permit, download the "Reentry Permit" Immigration Package. |
CLICK HERE to download the Green Card Reentry
Permit Application Information Package, including FAQs and instructions for
application forms.
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