hi everyone this is Joseph Tsang today we'll be talking about the Reinhardt story this is a story
where our client has been out of the U.S. for 10 years with a green card and needed to come back to
the u.s the problem is the CBP U.S. custom border protection agency the people at the airport asking
you questions where you've been they have a policy where if you've been out of the U.S. for over six
months typically they'll put you into questioning if you've been out of the U.S. for over one year
they generally assume presume that you have abandoned your green card why well i mean
it's a long-standing policy if you are a lawful permanent resident if you're a green card holder
you're supposed to be in the us working living paying taxes consuming spending money building
up the economy you're supposed to be a resident now this case started like almost all of these
entry package cases where we get a phone call it's a client outside of the country they say hey
um we saw your success story we want to come back in the country problem is we've been out of
the country for x amount of time typically it's one year two years you know something like that
this case it was my client and the girlfriend and they've been out for 10 years my first question is
well what have you been doing you know you CBP officers they're pretty strict and they will
want to see a lot of documentation and explanation as to why if you can't convince me if you can't
convince yourself if you've you know if you don't have a tax return in the u.s if you have
no home in the u.s if you have no bank accounts and you have your driver's license in the u.s
it is very hard to convince somebody that you are actually a resident in the U.S. and that
you haven't abandoned it so that was my line of questioning and they didn't have any of that and
that pretty much ended the conversation it was like okay it's really difficult there's very
little that i can help you but they said please try to figure something out and let's try so
we went in a little bit deeper and i asked well how did you get your green card because
sometimes the officer would like to say well you got it once just get it again and this is
when Reinhardt said i got to the lottery what you got the green card through the lottery
and yeah so he's one of the super small percentage of people that want the lottery to get the green
card there's another video about that you can watch it but it's tremendously lucky and
i was like okay well that's a good starting point because unlike other people through employment or
family generally you are forewarned when you get the green card and you could be well prepared and
it makes sense that you needed more time than the average green card holder you won the lottery so
you needed an extra year two years okay well what happened next right why didn't you come
within two years or three years then Reinhardt said well i was getting a phd so i was finishing
my studies and i couldn't i mean i couldn't just drop everything go to the us um i had no job and
no family there so finishing my education was very important i was like okay so maybe that lasted a
couple more years and and then what right after you finish your education now you got to win hard
why didn't you come through us then and and start your career and your family here well they were
going through a divorce and so right after that a couple years there was a divorce that happened and
life was very stressful okay and then what happened and then um the family business that
for three generation was winding down um he wanted to close down everything
do a good transition and then come to the us to build the bakery and so he's a bread man and his
whole family has been bred men and women and they make really good bread but they can't he
can just abandon everything mother and father they were old like okay so that lasted another
couple years and finally that ended last year and they and finally he's ready to come to the us
in total it lasted over 10 years before between getting the green card and now coming to the us
and so okay i think this is a pretty good story i think we could put it together and i think you
would be able to convince the officer we had to do a lot of practice runs help him explain
everything his english wasn't the most fluent he had a very deep accent but it was very cute he's
tall bread man with a phd wanting to come to the u.s to start his big shop um his he he had bits
and pieces of his plans figured out about opening a shop in Santa Monica but that was only part one
that was only part one in getting the story because even if he was able to be interviewed
by the officer and everything gets approved he had no way to get there you would think that you
would just buy an airplane ticket and fly to the us and everything will be fine but with his green
card already expired without having a proper visa very few airlines were going to allow him to board
now it is a very set policy that if you have expired 10-year green card you can still board
but how many airline officials understand that they're just clerks they're just checking you
in they're just have they have a standard they don't know every immigration law in every country
so it was actually tremendously difficult to try to find an airline in Germany that would allow
him to come to the us at one point he had to just go to the airport and just go from one airline to
another and see who was understanding enough to board him finally got the airline ticket finally
board the plane and finally before the CBP officer explained everything and then entered the U.S, he
is one of the super lucky ones that have been out of the U.S. for a tremendously amount of time and
was able to board a plane and come in and explain everything and the cpp understands and lets them
in i want to say we're very very fortunate we know cases that you've been out for more than seven
months and the CBP officer puts you in a room questions you and confiscates the green card so in
this case he's super lucky in reality this is just the way our system is there might be a better way
hopefully there can be a better way instead of people going on long flights after 10 plus
14 plus hour international flights super tired flying in two o'clock in the morning
the officer is sleepy they're tired they're just going through the regulation and when two
people are at their worst trying to understand a complex situation bad things could happen and
there must be a better way but until then right now the CBP the immigration officers they are
the last line of defense they are the immigration officers that are adjudicating these type of cases
they are reviewing and if you've been out of the country for six months or a year they will
question you and if they don't think your story holds up they don't see documentation they their
policy is to put you in the room and then either you forfeit the green card or they confiscate it
and then you go before a judge it is extremely difficult but that's all the reason why you
really want to prepare the case well if you guys have any questions would love to talk to you feel
free to grab coffee with me my tree let's go over a success story let's go over a strategy session
but i'm very happy for Reinhardt and now the U.S. has better bread because of him thank you bye-bye