Hello,
I will be attending a university in the US this fall, however, my parents have decided to move back to their home country (for financial reasons), which will lead to them losing their Green Cards. With them leaving the US, I am very confused about the permanent address I will have next year as a student. As far as I learned from other discussions, a permanent address is an address where your parents live. However, if I put my parents’ abroad address as my permanent address, I will likely lose my green card (As it will make them think that I’ve resided in a place outside of the US for more than 6 months in a year and thus claim it as my residency). Will I be able to put the address of my University as my permanent address (I will, after all, live there for most of the year), or will I have to rent an apartment over each summer just to fill that “permanent address” field on the documents (My bank account, Services, and financial aid)?
Holy cow, your parents don’t lose their GC automatically when they move, so did they give it up? Was it an investment GC?
Where are you now (USA?)? You are a minor still? Your GC status is still valid? Assuming you are in the USA now, don’t you have an address?
My parents are still in the US right now and I am with them (my sleep schedule is broken rn due to quarantine). They are planning to leave the US in August, so it will take about 6 months after that for their GC to be invalid. I will still have my GC and I am not a minor (I am 18 currently and will be 19 in fall). I will have my current address until October of this year available due to the lease terms (I will not be there when the lease ends. I will be in college already), so I am just asking this question for the future years.
@happymomof1 your thoughts?
What does your immigration lawyer say? Get some advice from them about this too.
Once you and your parents move to two different places, their legal address isn’t automatically yours. Your own legal address will be wherever you live. For example, what will you use as the address on your driver’s license? Where will you insure your car? Where will you be registered to vote? Where will you have your mail and tax paperwork go? It is easier if you live off campus, but yes, there are systems for making this work if you live on campus. There are lots of students whose parents move once they go off to college, and the students sort things out. Your legal address can change multiple times in a year (Dorm A to Cheap Summer Sublet to Dorm B to internship in a different state).
How the financial aid system sees your parents’ change of address is a whole different thing. For its purposes, where you yourself live might not matter at all.
Because of where your parents expect to be, you probably won’t have a truly permanent address for a while. That’s OK. Just keep the US Postal Service up-to-date whenever you do move again.
And for tax purposes, try to avoid moving from one state to another during any given tax year to save yourself the headache of having to file part-year and/or non-resident returns umpteen places.
The question I would want answering is your PR status reliant on theirs? You want a definitive answer to that before anything else. Really, their PR status doesn’t become invalid, you think they want to surrender it? For tax reasons? Lot of people do stretch out the overseas part, and file for a reentry visa. How long have you had your green card?
Are you asking for federal financial aid purposes? If so, use your current permanent address for now. As your address changes, update at that time. I had a lot of older students who had no permanent address … when they moved to come to school, they no longer had an address other than whatever their current address was (so they used their school address). If you borrow loans, you should always keep your address updated with both your servicer and the National Student Loan Data System. You will be updating your permanent address when you complete your next FAFSA, and by then, you will know the new permanent address.
Yes, use your current address, don’t even mention the relocation of your parents yet but do research your future schools to the issues about residency if your parents do relocate. For example when we relocated (June before matriculation), our old state kept our kid as instate because this was their admission status which applied for the whole degree, some states/schools do not behave this way.
As soon as you can, get your citizenship application in. The current climate is ugly. Do not waste a minute past the date that this occurs.