Do Green Card Holders Have Good Reason to Put Off All International Travel?

By:  Richard Hanus, Esq.

March 28, 2025

These days I am getting unprecedented numbers of inquiries from Green Card holder clients who are seriously reconsidering plans to take short trips outside of the U.S. due to a fear they will be detained and/or denied reentry by U.S. immigration officials upon their return.    What’s prompting these inquiries are a combination of rumors and actual stories of non-U.S. citizens who, upon returning from international trips, are being detained for extended periods, marked for deportation proceedings or even denied reentry.

Given how widespread and scary these stories have become, and how vulnerable so many lawful immigrants are feeling these days, who can blame folks for this reaction?  More importantly though, is there a logically sound basis for Green Card holders to give in to this fear and put off all international travel?   In general, at this time the answer is NO, and here is why.

First, the U.S. immigration encounters making news are not the ordinary, smooth ones which make up the vast majority of the tens of thousands of transactions that take place at U.S. immigration inspection points day to day.  The cases that make news are those involving extended detention or denied reentry and truly, in my experience, those are few and far between.  But given how high the stakes, it’s no wonder these stories take on an outsized importance in peoples’ minds, causing noncitizens to understandably hesitate in going through with an international travel plan.  Still though, but for the rarest of cases, otherwise law abiding noncitizens with valid Green Cards and unexpired foreign passports should feel secure in proceeding with their international travel plans.

Which Green Card holders should think twice about, and perhaps put off, international travel?

• Green card holders who regularly spend extended periods outside the U.S. (e.g. half or most of the year).   Such individuals may give U.S. immigration inspectors the sense that they truly do not reside in the U.S. and improperly use their Green Cards more as a means just to visit the U.S.  As a rule, I advise Green Card holders to limit any single visit outside the U.S. to less than 6 months, and preferably no more than 3 or 4 months.  Further, Green Card holders should be spending most of the year in the U.S. and avoid taking jobs outside the U.S., unless their positions are connected to a U.S. employer.
• Green card holders with certain criminal backgrounds, whether arrests or convictions.  First, not all criminal backgrounds will prompt problems, but the more serious or numerous the criminal arrests in one’s background, the more important it is that competent immigration counsel be sought prior to departing.  This class of Green Card holder has always been vulnerable to added scrutiny and possible detention (and subject to removal proceedings) upon reentry into in the U.S., but these days, that scrutiny will be even greater.
• Green card holders who are politically active on college campuses where property destruction, criminal trespassing and/or ethnic group intimidation are part of or a byproduct of such activism.   This has been a topic making the headlines these days and most folks see legal consequences, including even deportation, for such activity to be intuitive, especially when the protests involve causes championed by designated terrorist groups.  Further, this class of immigrants face immigration consequences whether they travel internationally or not, but international travel will certainly heighten their chances of being detained or placed in deportation proceedings.

The above list is not exhaustive of course, but in our new era of heightened immigration enforcement, it would seem quite reasonable for Green Card holders and other noncitizen visa holders to make that extra effort to exercise caution when it comes to international travel decisionmaking.  On the other hand, that extra level of caution should not necessarily dictate that Green Card holders make drastic decisions to avoid all international travel when no good reason to do so exists.

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