After CP & Green Card and how to maintain its status..

[sam Prasad]

Dear Immihelp,
My CP was approved on April 2001 and I have get in to US to get my Green Card.
I have left with few more days get in to US to get my Green Card.
Can anyone please let me know your thoughts about following questions?
Due to business constraints, I have to move back to India after getting the GC.

Q1) Under this condition, can any one let me know what is the minimum requirement
to keep the GC(status) alive. Are there any problems if I move back to India with in
few days of me after getting the GC? I will be doing the same work whether I am in US or in India for same company. I will be moving between US and India based on our business requirement doing the same job/functionalities. What is the minimum number of days that I need to stay after landing in US to get the Green Card (as I said mine is through Consular Processing). Minimum how many days do I need to stay in US


Q2) Lets assume I get the GC and what are the minimum requirements to maintain the GC given the condition that I have to move between India and US based on how the business dictates.

Q3) How safe to travel to US in this time interval, given the US/war conditions
(of course I hardly have no time to postpone my travel to US. My CP 6-months duration
will expire by the end of this month October 2001.

Please share any extra information that you might have which is useful to me.
Thanks for your fee-back.
Sam

[JoeF]

Re: After CP & Green Card and how to maintain its status

You maintain your status by having your residence in the US. It is called Permanent Residence for a reason.
As soon as you take up residence outside the US, you legally lose your GC.
This has per se not much to do with the number of days you stay in the US. If you work outside the US, it is pretty obvious to an observer that you don't reside in the US (unless you work in Canada close to the border and commute from the US).
To iterate again: if you take up residence outside the US, you immediately lose the GC.
If you stay outside the US for less than 180 days, e.g., for vacation, you will not have a problem coming back. If you stay abroad for less than 1 year, you may get asked to provide evidence that you still reside in the US. If you stay abroad for over 1 year, you lose the GC, unless you obtained a re-entry permit *before* you left. With the re-entry permit, the limit is 2 years.
Note that you also have to pay taxes on your worldwide income as a resident for tax purposes in the US (the IRS classification as resident is different than the INS PR classification). Failing to do so is considered evidence by the INS that you abandoned your GC.

-JoeF