Applying for new green card without relinquishing old green card

[mkclaibo 0]

My wife received her green card in the U.S. in January 2018. For various reasons we ended up staying abroad from February 2018 until now. We never went through the process of formally relinquishing her original green card, considering that it was de facto relinquished due to our long stay abroad. Now we are intending to move back to the U.S. and applied for a new IR-1 visa. We are nearing the end of that process awaiting the interview at our local U.S. Embassy. I'm concerned that have a previous green card that we did not formally relinquish may be a problem for my wife's new petition.

 

Any experience or insight on whether this will be a problem and if so, how we could address it would be much appreciated.

[arken 4,197]

4 hours ago, mkclaibo said:

 

Any experience or insight on whether this will be a problem and if so, how we could address it would be much appreciated.

It may or may not pose a problem during the interview but to make sure they have a record of abandonment of her LPR status, she can mail i407 to USCIS. She may also make an appointment at the us embassy to submit the form but not all embassies accept it.

[pushbrk 12,899]

During the interview, she could say, "I think I was supposed to do something about this old card." then hand it to the Consular Officer.  Don't expect anything bad to happen when she does.