Travel after green card expires -- 1 year extension also expired!

[turtle]

I'm surprised I didn't see this issue crop up in my quick search here. So we filed the Removal of Conditions in March 2007. The latest NSC processing time is June 2006. So technically we shouldn't get a result on our case until Dec 2008 at the earliest. Problem is my wife's green card expired last May. So what can we do between May and December? We were planning to head back to China this summer for a while. Is that possible?

[dnoblett]

This is an easy one to deal with.

 

You schedule an Info-pass appointment to your USCIS field office, take passport, green-card, and extension letter, and get an I-551 stamp in the passport. The I-551 = Green-Card.

 

VJ has this:

Keep the receipt with your green card. If by some chance you are not approved within a year you will want to make an InfoPass appointment to go to your Local Office to request an I-551 stamp in your passport. This does happen as it sometimes it takes over a year to be approved. After your NOA extension expires, this is your only evidence of legal status which you are required to have, by law. This happens occasionally, that a case takes over a year, but it's rare. Local Offices will not give an I-551 stamp is you have another type of evidence of status (ie, expired Green Card + extension letter).

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...p;page=751guide

 

http://infopass.uscis.gov/index.php

 

Another thing, if you are considering naturalization, the I-751 does not need to be complete and approved, you can file the N-400 within 90 days before the 3 year anniversary of the CR-Green-Card, this forces them to adjudicate the I-751, if an adjudicator starts working on the N-400.

[turtle]

Thanks, that's great news. Dealing with the local office is SO much easier than dealing with the NSC!

[turtle]

In case anyone has this problem in the future, it really was that easy. We were in and out of there in about 10 minutes. All we needed were her green card, passport, and drivers license. They actually took her green card away when we got the I-551 stamp. Apparently Nebraska is about a year behind schedule now-- the officer guessed why we were there before we even said a word.

[dnoblett]

In case anyone has this problem in the future, it really was that easy. We were in and out of there in about 10 minutes. All we needed were her green card, passport, and drivers license. They actually took her green card away when we got the I-551 stamp. Apparently Nebraska is about a year behind schedule now-- the officer guessed why we were there before we even said a word.

Excellent!