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Holding on to a green card

  • 12-09-2006 3:44pm
    #1
    Wishfulthink
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23 ✭


    Hi all

    I am looking for your/friends/family experiances with the green card especially post 9/11.

    I want to know how strict they are about people leaving the country for extended periods of time and how long i would have to spend there every year/two years.... (days weeks months) and if i would have to work to keep it?

    I know if your gone for more than one year you have to fill in a reentry permit. can you keep doing this indefinately and just go back show your face and expect to hang onto it?

    As we all know there are rules and there are "rules" so real life experiances would be great

    Thanks


Comments

  • #2
    Gandhi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 976 ✭✭✭Gandhi


    They are getting stricter than they were. It used to be that the time limits were barely enforced at all, but they are being enforced now. A few years back, they never bothered stamping your passport if you had a green card, so they had no way of knowing how long you had been gone.

    One friend of mine had to hand in his green card at the airport about two years ago, as it was no longer valid. I can't remember if it had actually expired (ten-year limit) or if he had been out of the country for too long of a period. He was pretty much settled back home at that stage so he didn't care.

    As regards how long you have to stay, you probably only need to come into the US for a few days, and head back again. As long as you have the stamp, you should be good. Also the time limit was dropped to six months a while back, and there was talk of making it three months. I don't know if that ever happened.

    Edit: Almost forgot, in one of the threads linked to in the Green Card sticky at the top, one poster talked about the process of getting extensions to a back home stay. Might be a bit of a job to trawl through it, though.


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