How to Give Up A Green Card

Alfred Tsai of Taipei

The statements from both sides on whether Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is a permanent US resident have been confusing, so I went to the library to look up the issue in a legal encyclopedia. I found an informative article in American Law Reports (193 A.L.R. Fed. 673). Below are two relevant paragraphs: "If an alien has been abroad for a lengthy period of time, however, his commitment to permanently residing in the US is called into question."

"Abandonment of permanent resident status is generally found when there has been a lengthy absence from the US. Whether an alien has abandoned his status is a matter of subjective intention proven by objective facts, the ultimate issue being whether there is a continuing intent to return. Whether there was an intention to maintain permanent-resident status is not the issue, but rather whether there was a continuous, uninterrupted intention to return to the US."

A "temporary visit abroad" is generally defined as a situation in which either the permanent resident's visit is for a "period relatively short, fixed by some early event" or the permanent resident's visit will terminate upon the occurrence of an event having a reasonable possibility of occurring within a relatively short period of time.

A "temporary visit," however, cannot be defined in terms of elapsed time alone.

The alien's intention, when it can be determined, is a controlling factor. Some of the factors a court can use in determining whether an alien harbored a continuous, uninterrupted intention to return are: his family ties, property holdings and business affiliations within the US; the duration of residence in the US; family, property and business ties in the foreign country and whether the alien's conduct while abroad showed that he intended to remain in the foreign country.

The law seems to favor Ma, but he seems quite evasive and his explanation is not of the quality one would expect from a Harvard law graduate. What does he have to hide?