I am probably going to be in the US end of this year/early 2013. Meeting up with a friend there and he wants to go to Hawaii, and another says US Virgin Islands is worth checking out. I will be in Washington D.C mostly and will travel from there.My friends told me that my visa (B1/B2 valid for donkeys years) will not be good enough for Hawaii, which the nice consular officer at the embassy (who looked exactly like Randy Jackson) told me was bullshit. However, I have been told that if you return to the mainland from Alaska or Hawaii you can be subject to immigration controls…?:dubious:
What about territories? I currently have no plans to visit Guam, but do you need a special permission to go there, above and beyond your visa? Do you get immigration controls on returning to the mainland?
I find it very doubtful, but as I have never actually left the mainland in my previous times over there, what is the straight dope?
Complete nonsense. I’m Alaskan from birth and traveled extensively to and from home. Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US, although Alaska is still treated as some sort of bastard stepchild. Travel from US territories is also unrestricted. They are US citizens. I spent several months in St. Thomas and traveled without any questions (and no passport) back and forth. Also from Guam. You might have to show your passport as ID to board the plane, but there are no visa requirements.
I have returned from both Alaska and Hawaii to the contiguous 48 states and never been confronted with any form of customs or immigration issues. Once you’re in the states you’re in the states and I don’t think (though I’m willing to be corrected) there’s a difference if you fly into Honolulu or Omaha. Either way you’re entering the country from a foreign location. But from Honolulu TO Omaha you’re inside the USA at both takeoff and landing.
You do have to go through customs in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico even if coming from or going to the U.S. mainland. I am sure it doesn’t require any special Visas or other documents however. U.S. Citizens don’t even need a passport.
I’m from Hawaii and travel between California and Hawaii at least once a year. I’ve also flown within the contiguous 48 each of the last two years. The only difference between arriving in or departing from Honolulu is that you are subject to agricultural surveys and baggage screenings to make sure you’re not smuggling in or out non-native plants, animals, or produce. There are no immigration controls.
Note that if you are driving to/from Alaska, you do have to pass through Canada, which requires going through immigration controls.
And according to this web page, if you are taking the Bellngham WA to Haines AK ferry, a passport is required to drive to most of the rest of Alaska because you must pass through Canada.
There would also be immigration controls if you were traveling by ship (specially if it stopped at non-US ports), but so long as you’re going by plane your friends are the ones who are mistaken. And in any case, those immigration controls would still involve the same Visa you already have - it’s another occasion to go through the “port of entry” protocols, but these are the same in all ports of entry.
I think you do go through immigration controls when you depart from Guam. There’s a Guam-only visa waiver program for citizens of some East Asian countries, but they’re not allowed to go anywhere else.
Driving from Alaska to the Lower 48, you go through Canada. Entering Canada you will be expected to comply with Canadian border controls, and entering the US you will be expected to comply with US border controls. Same as by ship, if you take a cruise from Washington to Alaska, you will be traveling through Canadian territorial waters.
But flying from Anchorage to Seattle is the same as flying from Seattle to San Francisco.
I just traveled by ferry to SE Alaska and can confirm there were no customs inspections until we crossed into Canada. The OP’s friends might be confused by agricultural inspections, which can happen when going from state to state and are particularly strict in California and Hawaii. My friend just moved from San Diego to Oahu and had to pay something like $1,500 to take her cat with her.
This is not meant to be snark against the OP, but I’ve noticed that questions about travel to Hawaii from the mainland US are up there with people thinking New Mexico is a separate country. (I’ve lived in both states and have had experiences with both.)
I lived in Hawaii for 2-1/2 years, as did the wife. It’s where we met, in graduate school. Hawaii is a full state, and any travel between it and Alaska or the Lower 48 is treated as a domestic flight. No immigration procudures whatsoever. My wife has indeed accompanied me on flights between Hawaii and the mainland. Once you’re in Hawaii or any other of the 50 states, you are in the country, and travel cannot be restricted. As has been pointed out though, there are some agricultural and animal restrictions. As for traveling to a US nonstate territory, that I don’t know about.
The OP’s question is not as odd as some people might think though, as I know in Malaysia, if you fly between the peninsular part of the country and the Borneo portion, you do have to go through immigration again. So these things do happen.
Siam Sam, I’ve had similar questions about the Canary Islands, Eivissa (not the rest of the Balearic Isles so far), Catalonia, the Basque Country and one about how long the flight from Madrid to Toledo took. That’s Toledo Spain, not Toledo OH; trains between the Imperial Capital and the current one are commuter trains. Geography just seems to be one of those things an amazing amount of people don’t “get”.
When I visited Guam in 2006 I had to take my US passport and go through both Customs and Immigration to get on the plane back to Hawaii.
As Guam is part of the United States I have never understood this.
I’ve heard similar things about having to go through immigration when entering leaving Hawaii, always seemed odd. By plane I mean from or to the continental USA.
The second time I flew into Hawaii (three days after my wedding in California), we were given forms to fill out to affirm that we weren’t bringing any live mammals into the state. Other than her guide dog, that is, who was being taken to a quarantine station for four months.
grude, the restrictions about bringing live mammals into the state* may be the basis of what you’ve heard about entering Hawaii. I’ve flown away from Hawaii (to California) several times, and never went through any border controls, AFAICR.
*and possibly some plants; my memory is just a tad hazy on the issue, but it’s basically about excluding invasive species and pathogens, not restricting freedom of movement within the nation.
It’s because there are people who are legally in Guam who cannot go anywhere else in* the United States.
*Strictly-speaking, Guam is not in the United States or part of the United States (“the United States” is the 50 states, DC, and Palmyra Atoll), although I’m not sure if that’s relevant here.
In general, I recommend WikiTravel for finding out about entry requirements - not to rely on it as a source, but to find links to official sites (that’s how I found the above).
You do have to go through an inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture when departing from Hawaii to the continental U.S. (not when arriving, though.) Maybe that’s where people got the idea. Unlike real Customs checkpoints, though, they can’t deny you entry—all they can do is confiscate those delicious pineapples you were trying to bring back home.
If you have a visa that allows you to travel freely within the USA that includes ALL 50 states, AK and HI included plus Puerto Rico with no immigration/customs checkpoint but only an agriculture checkpoint (no papers need be shown) when leaving HI and PR; to the USVI with a customs checkpoint before leaving the USVI (USVI is a Free Port outside the US customs zone); to Guam and the NMI with the aforementioned immigration-status check before leaving them. No idea what the procedure is in AS.
In every case holders of foreign passports would be well advised to have their papers in good order and readily at hand when arriving at the checkpoint.
In daily practice (as opposed to strict case law), it is or isn’t “in or part of the US” depending on the specific federal statute being applied. That condition is known as Unincorporated Territory. Per SCOTUS decision in Downes v. Bidwell, 1902, it meant “belonging to but not a part of”. But in daily running of things, in the intervening 110 years it has become applied to the effect that we’re all sort of “separate and not quite equal” parts that get treated differently or the same on the basis of explicitly inclusive or exclusive legislation.