I have met and know of many people who have overstayed their visa, and are terrified of leaving the US to go home because they can’t get a new visa for a number of years if they’ve overstayed a previous visa. This means that some of them haven’t seen their families for many years. I have several questions about this. Most of the people I know about in this situation are from Europe or Australia.
Does the US stamp everyone’s passport on exit? Even if you are required to show this stamp when you apply for a new visa, what if you lose your passport and have it replaced?
Why don’t people simply go home and renew their visa legally and come back? This is what I’d do if I loved a country so much that I wanted to be there. I have met some people that actually do this. As for the others, I can’t wrap my mind around a way of looking at things where you build a life in a country on a foundation that can collapse on you any time, and where you can never return to your family because once you leave here you can’t come back. Why do people put themselves in this situation?
I’m not talking about people from Third World countries, but places where the living is comparable to the US.
Why is “all forgiven” if you marry a U.S. citizen? I know of several people who were in the above situation, who got legitimately married and got their green card. I also know cases where that didn’t work, usually marriages where one party didn’t speak good English and immigration didn’t believe the marriage. Why does Immigration ignore “overstays”, if they find all kinds of other picky reasons to deny people their green card?
I’m hoping that someone with personal knowledge can answer these questions. I can’t ask the people I encounter directly, because it’s a sticky subject.
It’s been a long time (I’m a US citizen now) but at the time I never passed through passport control on the way out of the US. But I did have an I-94 stub that I had to leave with airline staff on departure. I assumed this made its way to some sort of record somewhere, and a lack of such a record would be suspect.
Or not. It all seemed very informal to me. I never overstayed but I was always worried that they’d think I had due to poor record keeping.
I’d be very surprised if all is forgiven on a marriage based immigration pertition. I don’t think an overstay is a death sentence to your chances but it probably hurts and requires additional bureaucratic pain and suffering. Or maybe they just got away with it.
I believe the airlines advised the USG that you have left. These days it’s done electronically. From what I have read it is so common not to get a report of a departure that TPTB don’t bother asking the person for clarification next time s/he arrives in the US, just amend it from stamps.
Well this is crazy: "It doesn’t matter, in this case, that you overstayed the visa. If you can manage to avoid getting picked up by the immigration authorities until the day you submit your adjustment of status application, then your subsequent stay in the United States will be lawful, and you’ll be able to get your green card here (unless there are other problems with your application or eligibility). "
All I can say is US immigration law is really inconsistent. I’m just curious why this one thing is an exception. I doubt anyone will be able to answer that.
It seems to me that it’s a question of the limited rights of a non-citizen visitor vs the constitutionally protected rights of a US citizen. If there’s a bona fide marriage, then the rights of the citizen spouse come into consideration. It seems to me that USCIS would need a much more substantial basis upon which to prevent a US citizen from marrying who they choose. Whereas if a non-citizen visitor (without a US spouse) breaks some minor rules, they can be deported or excluded with little recourse.
When someone leaves, their stamp will be checked and it will be noted if they over stayed their visa. Once they are caught overstaying, they will be entered into the system, which will prevent future visas. However, if that person never leaves, then the US will not know he/she has overstayed the Visa, because as your link explains, we do not have a system to track that.
It was noted in the news that the USA and Canada will begin exchanging information (formally) about who entered the country from the other, particularly land crossings. Of course, if you needed a visa for the USA, you probably also need one for Canada, so exit via Canada is not always a viable option. But for a UK or French national, for example, you should be able to drive up to Canada customs and enter, the fly home from Canada. The only question is whether the USA will know what date you did this, once you apply again back home.
Also note that without much fanfare, Canada has introduced a travel non-visa permission form that must be filled out before a person leaves their country; several news stories about people being surprised by this too late and being barred from their flight.
I don’t think I’ve ever had my passport stamped leaving the USA; in fact, I’m trying to remember any passport controls. Seems to me that exit control was the hallmark of many third-world countries.
Yea, I think you’re right. The airline is checking the passports, but I guess they’re only concerned that you have the proper authority to enter the destination country. I figured they were checking other things and would call an immigration officer if they saw an expired Visa, but I guess not. Wow, that’s insane.
Why would they scare away paying passengers? Plus, why would the USA discourage them from expediting people leaving who shouldn’t stay? The only downside for the airline is if they deliver you to a foreign country and you did not have the necessary papers - then the airline is on the hook to pay for your return (which they can try to recoup form you).
I suspect the USA has bigger fish to fry than people doing immigration on the installment plan. I assume one of the questions in applying for a temporary visa is “show us employment history, family connections, etc. so we know you have a reason to go home again”. If you just spent 3 years in the USA, your home country employment record could be rather spotty.
Like the Schengen Zone (i.e., most of Western and Central Europe)? Whenever I’ve left the Schengen Zone, I’ve had my (Australian) passport stamped, regardless of whether it was by air, bus, train or ship. As another example, you have to go through passport control when you leave Australia.
I have to concur with Giles. I haven’t travelled nearly so much in the last decade, but in extensive travel before that, the US stands out as one of the *only *countries I can recall that makes no check at all upon exit.
Looking through my passport, one of the only countries not issuing exit stamps is the US. I find that remarkable. I have exit stamps from Korea, The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Romania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, Cambodia, Jordan, Egypt, Czech, Albania and several that are too fate to make out. It appears that the UK, The Bahamas, and the United States are the only ones that didn’t make a mark (that I could find) upon exit. It’s definitely not limited to “third world” countries. Every country, the US included, should be concerned with tracking entry and exit. It’s insane that we’re not doing this.
If you’ve got an e-passport, Australia doesn’t stamp on exit either - you just feed your passport through the machine, it checks you’re not Carlos The Jackal, then you get let through.
I don’t appear to have have exit stamps in my passport from Canada, either, for what it’s worth.
I suspect this stuff is monitored electronically, though - when you’re going throught the security stuff at LAX, for example, there’s someone official just before the metal detectors who scans your passport and boarding pass; I suspect they’re involved with the “Yes, this person left the country” part of the proceedings.
A lot of countries just do an electronic ‘stamp’. I went I Australia on a working holiday visa 9 yeard ago, and had to go visit some immigration office in Sydney to get anything in my passport.
I didn’t need to do that, it was just simpler to have a copy of the visa saying I was permitted to work printed in my passport, rather than leaving it to prospective employers to check if it was legal to employ me.
Likewise I seem to recall having to request an exit stamp at the airport, which was a requirement to reclaim the money taken by the pension scheme (which I never did manage to reclaim, but that’s a different story).
All the visa and entry/exit records were there on their system though, just no passport stamping.
