Continuous Residency

[Basil F 0]

Good day to all! I've had my naturalization interview today and passed the english/civics test. However, a desicion has not been made pending further review of my application due to my trips outside the US.

A little bit of history.. I became a LPR on July 2004. Between years 2004-2009 I have disrupted my continuous residency multiple times due trips outside the US which exceeded 6 months (but less than a year), during which I was a full time student in the Philippines, and never seeked employment abroad. My immediate family stayed in the US. I never filed ITR during these years because I had no income.

April 2009 was when i started counting my continuous residence. Got a full time job and filed my ITR 2009-present. Between 2010 and 2012, I have had 3 one-month long trips outside the US with the intention of retaining my continuous residence.

The USCIS officer did not grant me a decision after my interview because my Oct 2012 trip outisde the US (30 days out) was in question. I was told that I might have yet again distrupted by continuous residency because of that 30-day trip and that they need further review of my case to determine my eligibility.

The predicament was whether to start counting from April 2009 or October 2012 (my last trip outside the US.).

I have not been able to find any documentation stating that a trip less than 6 months would break continous residency. In my understanding, I am over the required 4 yrs and 1 day for my residency requirements. Has anybody had this scenario? Please advise. TIA

[warlord 73]

Yes it can easily be pulled into question under 6 months. People have actually had their GC revoked for just being away for even 2 months. Why? It's the nature of the trip. There is a lot of documentation on it if you search for it explaining this.

Simple speaking the 6 month thing is just a time where the responsibility of proving or dis-proving continuous residency and or abandonment of the GC takes place.

Before 6 months: The IO needs to do all the work to prove that you had broken residency or have abandoned your GC (through residing and working in another country for a non-US employer for example). They will have to gather the evidence and such to prove that was the case to have you either revoke your GC or to have your clock reset. It's up to the IO to prove that YOU DID break or abandon your status.

After 6 months: Now it's up to you to prove to the IO that you have not broken residency or have not abandoned your GC. Now you are the one that needs to do all the work to prove that you DID NOT break or abandon your status.

So seems like the IO has enough evidence to follow through with your history of trips to prove that you in fact did break your residency over the time you've been in status in the US even if you were out less than 6 months. So now you need to get every bit of evidence you can find and try and prove that you didn't break your residency. Seems though you don't have to worry about the abandonment of the GC so that's a good thing, but yes, get your evidence together to show them you maintained your residency status...

Here's one article from the USCIS explaining the above:

http://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartD-Chapter3.html

Edited August 15, 2013 by warlord