lega4

At this step you should have walked away and try another SSA office. The employees there are dumb. I'm 99% sure all the data was there, just this particular person had a bad day. My story - went to one office, they told me the same as to you: "Cannot see or check anything, file application to issue SSN, wait 2 weeks". I tried to go to another clerk in the same office, but he was sitting too close to the first one, so she noticed and screamed at me. Then I walked away, drove 15 minutes to another office and there was super friendly person who has checked in a few places in their system and in 5 minutes just wrote me my SSN on the sheet of paper. Received the physical mail a few days later btw, just needed to get the number itself. You can say something like "Need to start a job earlier" or so. While there might be indeed the chance the data from DS260 wasn't sent/propagated, I see it as *very* unlikely event. So worth trying at least few different clerks and offices before you file an application.

Sure, I know. I expect due to double-taxation-treaty and given that German tax is way higher than US, I wouldn't need to pay anything to the US in this case, so don't see a problem here.

I'm holding this one already. And I don't want to lose it "just like that". Not sure what is the other stuff about, I can also say "as German citizen one can stay in the US for 90 days without a visa (eSTA)", but this feels like off-topic here.

I would like to go with both, I like opportunities and don't really want to lose either. At least until I'm facing the "hard" choice (hopefully, not earlier than in a year or two, if not never) Thanks, good to hear that.

I'm somehow asking for general comments and for "what I can do today"

Well, I do have planned vacation in November and for New Year and I will have a few new countries visited. So during my time out of US, there was a vacation for sure. And actually the vacation in November was scheduled before getting an immigrant visa, so I could argue here quite hard. As for the rest, that's exactly what my topic is about. I am planning to live in US, but need at least a year more. And while reading quite a lot of reports when GC holders successfully return after 1-2-5-9 years of continuous absence, I'm getting a feeling that I might be in a better position if I return every 180 days (which I expect to happen maybe 3 times max)

I'm still trying to figure out what shall I do and how to behave in current situation, so asking for maybe any advice/insights on my situation. So here are the facts: - I'm citizen of Russia - I live from 2017 in Germany and have permanent residence permit here as well as job. - I won DV-2023 and in October 2023 have entered US for two weeks as LPR. - When I was in the US, applied for driver license, opened a bank account. What I want is to do not lose everything I've put in Germany so far (almost 7 years for now), especially given that there are some great news on the horizon that soon Germany will allow dual citizenship and decrease required time to citizenship to 5 years. Right now it's 8 (so I'm not eligible), also it doesn't allow dual completely (and I'm still hesitant to give up RU passport). But also I'd really love to end up in the US, but just having the "backup plan" like EU citizenship, maybe for future pension, maybe for hassle-free travels etc. And I definitory don't want the awful situation "Oh I moved out of Germany for good and in 6 months I could be eligible for German passport with dual citizenship". Currently my thoughts are to come back to US in ~March (before 180 days of the last departure), probably stay there maybe for a month or two, then come back to Germany and... here it gets tricky. Going back and forth every 6 months for some time in US is not a big deal for me, but from what I've read, at some point it will raise questions from CBP at the border. I expect first 1-1.5 years should be somehow "acceptable" (as it was DV I could probably say "need time to finish stuff in my current country")/ I've applied for a driver license and opened a bank account in US when I was there. I do plan to file taxes (though might have some questions how to do it better given that I have a lot of foreign income and no US one...). There are no really particular questions, rather only general ones: - How realistic my plan is, how bad is it going to be? - Is the fact of still having "permanent resident permit" from Germany already flags me for CBP? I've read that "getting new permanent residency" is a red flag for LPR, but what about keeping old one? - Should I apply for reentry permit if I'm not really planning to be absent for more than a year continuously anyway (but even return before 180 days)? What shall I write in "purpose of the trip"? Seen somewhere "just in case of emergency", is it enough? - If I'd get question from CBP like "What were you doing while being absent from US", how should I answer? "Had some vacation, been there and there" (which is quite true, I fond of travelling and probably will have at least 2-3 countries visited every 6 months). But how can I put the fact I'm still employed and working in Germany (this is a bad sign for LPR, right?)? Especially if it's not in the next months (when I could say "Still finalizing" or so), but in a year? - If I'm getting German citizenship after becoming LPR, would this potentially cause questions at naturalization interview for US (if/when I decide to apply later when I move there completely)? How would I answer this?