Maintaining Green Card while living in India
Can some one advise the minimum number of times one has to go to America to maintain Green Card, I would be thankful. more
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I have a GC. I go once a year to keep my G.C going . In between I had to apply for a 2 years extension. But this Extension can be applied only from U.S. You can not come back to India and then apply for 2 years Extension. The law says all extension must be applied from U.S. I have taken 2 years Extension twice on Special Grounds by applying before I left U.S.. Naina. If you have to stay in India and also in U.S. It is better to become a U.S. Citizen and get a OCI. Then you can stay in India as long as you want. You can enjoy the best of 2 Worlds. Lot of people are doing that. more
Dec 15
The law says that you have to maintain your residence in the US. So legally, your GC becomes invalid as soon as you take residence somewhere else, regardless of the time you are out of the US. If you are outside the US for less than 6 months, INS would need to show that you abandoned your US residence. Since that is hard to do, they don't even try. If you are outside the US for more than 6 months, but less than 1 year, you may need to show that you did not abandon your residency, e.g., by owning real estate, having a bank account in the US, etc. If you are outside the US for more than 1 year, you automatically loose the GC, unless you have a re-entry permit, which increases the limit to 2 years. If you stay outside longer, there still is a possibility that you can get your GC reinstated, but you need good reasons to convince a US consular officer. If you file a non-resident tax return from abroad, INS could get this info from IRS and this could be an issue when applying for citizenship. more
Dec 15
