I-407 abandonment of Green Card

[kks 0]

Hi,

I am really hoping someone on this website can guide me in the right direction here. My sister has a GC since 2000 but she resides in our home country for her studies. She tries to enter the country once a year for the last 9 years. Last weekend while entering the country, the immirgation officer took her green card away and had her fill out form I-407. The document says that she is willingly relinquishing her green card and does not wish to appear in front of the judge. Obviously, she was asked to do this (partly due to poor english) and didn't know her options. She has been given a 6-month visa and I am wondering what are the next steps in this situation. She knows she made a mistake and is willing to stay here for the rest of her life. Please advise.

Thanks,

KKS

[Dakine 26]

Sounds like she should get a immigration lawyer.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

There isn't really any option for her now to live in the US unless she re-immigrates to the US. The Form I-407 form means she voluntarily renounced her permanent resident status. The fact that she was asked to do so or told she could go before a judge means that border officials doubt she was still a permanent resident due to the length of her absences from the US. If she had gone before a judge she would have had to prove to him/her that she was still a permanent resident living full time in the US and only visiting her country of origin. That does become hard to support after living outside of the US for 9 years. It is doubtful she would have been allowed to keep her green card even if she had gone before a judge. Still, it would have given her another option to explore.

The green card is for people who are living permanently in the US and instructions clearly state that moving to another country to live invalidates the green card. It appears that the border officers believed your sister to be living elsewhere than the US. It isn't enough to just return home every year for a visit.

As well, in order to leave the US for long periods of time she needed to file for a re-entry permit before she left. The maximum period of time appears to be about 2 years. Do you know if your sister filed for re-entry permits? I don't know if they would issue those indefinitely but they would give USCIS an indication that your sister did not intend to abandon her residency in the US.

Since she did file the Form 407 there really isn't much of a recourse for her now. If she is eligible she could start the immigration process all over again.

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...00045f3d6a1RCRD