ParisPigeon

When I was young I went on many adventures around the world and along the way ended up with a Greencard granted in the mid-90's via my fathers work. Following on from that in the mid '00's I did some travelling myself and ended up in Paris where one wine fuelled night I lost my wallet with my greencard in it. I consulted with the embassy in Paris before returning to the US on a visit to my family and after paying a a few hundred dollars I was issued with 2 packets to provide to the airline and to Immigration officers. I travelled to the US and at immigration was charged another approx $350 there to file a form I-90. This was in 2008. I stayed my 3 weeks in the US and went back to Paris. 2 biometric appointment notices were subsequently sent to my parents address which were both returned as "Unable to attend" and a third never came. I have copies of both of these notices. I have, since then, travelled in and out of the US numerous times on my UK passport and was once asked if I had a Greencard to which I replies something along the lines of "I used to but gave it up". I was allowed to enter as a tourist again I have filed ESTA's every time I enter the US since they became a requirement. When I check the status of my I-90 on the USCIS website it says "Case Accepted By The USCIS Lockbox. On May 28, 2008, we accepted your Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card, Receipt Number *************, and mailed you a notice describing how we will process your case. Please follow the instructions in the notice."

So here I am 13 years later, my parents and siblings are now all US citizens and I am desperate to return to the US to join them. In my late 30's I'm now paying for mistakes I made as an uneducated 20-something and I have massive regtets. Do I try to somehow get back my old LRP, is that even a possibility? Or do I accept I will have to be apart from my family for the 13-15 years that it will take for an F3/F4 family sponsored visa to be granted. Would my previous Alien registration number give me any advantage?

tht

Have you been filling your US tax returns and FBAR every year?

In terms of being apart from family, do you have any education or useful skills now? Why not find a job and have the employer move you on a visa while you have the other application pending…

civilservant

Immigration attorney would be the way to go here, it certainly will be worth the fee. Try to find someone that has dealt with Green Card abandonment. Unless you formally gave up your green card status, no one can take it from you apart from an Immigration Judge. The card itself is only evidence of the status, not the status itself.

I think it's likely that you will have to file for one again in the end, and wait the long years, but an immigration attorney would be better positioned to make that determination.

newacct

Did either of your parents naturalize before you turned 18? If so, it's possible that you are already a US citizen.

The fact that you don't have the card and didn't file or complete I-90 is not the issue -- permanent resident status does not expire, even if the card is expired or lost and you never renew it.

The problem is that you have left the US for 13 years. After such a long absence, it is almost certain that you would be determined to have abandoned residence if it goes before an immigration judge, even if you had an unexpired green card.

So you would have to be petitioned to immigrate from scratch, which as you already know has more than a decade of wait. (Since you mentioned F3, I am assuming you are married? If not, then you would be in F1 with a much shorter wait.)

Also, another poster mentioned taxes. If you haven't file I-407, you are still considered a resident alien for US taxes and would have been subject to US taxes on your worldwide income all these years. You should file I-407 if you want to stop this.

ParisPigeon

No, I haven't and will file back taxes. My annual I come wouldnt have been high enough to have needed to make any payments but appreciate this would need to be done if I intended to get my existing LPR number "reinstated"

I work in procurement so not a huge amount of options available to me but my husband is in AWS Cloud / DevOps so plenty of jobs in the US for that type of work, but how does he find an employer to sponsor him? So far everything seems to require the applicant has an existing legal right to work in the US. It's a lot more difficult than just finding another job.

ParisPigeon

Thanks for your response and I think this is probably the eventual outcome. The initial step is to start the I-130 to get a priority date and then look at the existing LRP and see if anything can be done. This may be a question for a different topic but the I-130 asks for the beneficiary's details, including any existing Alien Registration number and Social Security number, both of which I have. Why does it want this if I'm starting over?

ParisPigeon

Yes married to a Brit who would has lost his parents and my family are his family now.

I get what you're saying in both points about having abandoned residence and taxes, but surely it's one or the other. I've either abandoned residence and have no tax obligation or I still have the right to residence and I would need to file delinquent tax returns.

civilservant

Your actions may have abandoned residence, but you haven't made a formal declaration of such, nor have you had it taken away.

So you were liable to file, irregardless of the immigrant issues surrounding being out of the country for 13 years..

Immigration and tax liability are separate areas of law.

And you remain an LPR until you surrender it, or an IJ takes it away.

christmasoompa

Is a transfer with his current employer not an option?

newacct

See IRS Publication 519, section "Green Card Test", subsection "Resident status abandoned"; there is a "caution" which says,
Basically, if there is even a theoretically possibility of you being allowed to resume residence (even if extremely unlikely), you are still considered a resident alien for tax purposes.

ParisPigeon

Unfortunately not, he's employed by a small consultancy based in Edinburgh who don't operate in the US.

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tht

You may be right on the taxes, which state were your resident in before leaving? Assuming you have had more than $10k in assets in that time the FBAR may be your bigger issue.

christmasoompa

Ah. Shows how much I know about that type of job, I thought ‘AWS’ was Amazon Web Services, and I know they transfer a huge amount of people so was hoping that would be a route over. Sorry.

Pulaski

There is a formal process for this, it can't be implied, inferred by your actions, or done over the phone. Unless you were stripped of your permanent residence by an immigration court, or completed the paperwork, you are potentially still deemed a permanent resident, which has the potential, at least in theory, to be resurrected.

As per Civilservant's advice above, a conversation with an immigration lawyer experienced in the matters of abandonment of permanent residence status, is the way to go.

PetrifiedExPat

A conversation with a tax professional maybe a good idea also. The FBAR implications lead to my username..