Attorney Grafton Discusses Travelling Abroad With Lawful Resident Status

Transcription: Hi, my name is Rebekah Grafton, I am an immigration attorney at Fay Grafton Nunez in Raleigh, North Carolina. I’m a certified specialist in immigration law. I wanted to answer a quick question that we’ve been getting in our office a lot lately and we’ve been getting a lot of calls from lawful permanent residents who may have been offered a job abroad and they’re looking at what they can do to try to maintain their residence status even after they depart the United States. This is the same situation if they have a spouse that’s moving abroad and they want to go with them abroad without losing their green card. As I’m sure and hope that you know, if you are a lawful permanent resident in the United States, you are required to maintain your residence in the United States. And that means living here more than you’re living somewhere else. This can present a challenge for someone who has got a great job offer. They’re looking at moving abroad, even if it’s a temporary move. They don’t want to risk losing that green card that they spent so much time working hard to get. So when I meet with someone like that, what I always want to look at is what kind of job it is. There is sometimes the possibility of doing expedited naturalization, which means we can actually do naturalization for you before you leave the United States. Even if you haven’t been a green card holder for five years or three years if you’re married to a citizen. So we always want to look at the job, who you’re working for, what you’re doing to see if you can qualify for the expedited naturalization. We also want to look at how long you’re going to be gone for and possibly doing a reentry permit for you, which will allow you to leave the United States for two years at a time without abandoning your residence. It is important that your long term intention is to return to the United States, but there’s a lot of ways that we can preserve that green card so you don’t risk losing it, and you don’t have problems at the airport when you’re trying to travel back. One of the common misconceptions I hear is that as long as I don’t spend more than six months at a time, I’ll never have a problem. That’s not entirely true. So be careful and don’t just try to come here every five and a half months for a week-long vacation because that’s not going to work to maintain that green card. So if you have any questions, we’re always happy to answer them. You can schedule a consultation at faygrafton.com and then we can look at your specific case and what we can do to help. Thanks.